About an year ago I saw similar picture from USA where a Honda Civic, red I think, had similar accident.

Only that picture was so ghastly you could see the occupant impaled with the guard rail and blood everywhere. Very Scary.

[rks]

Originally Posted by aniguchisan

Notice the bar sticking out from the rear left wheel arch. That is probably the front extension of the one sticking out of the boot. The car did not go straight through the guard rail.

No, the bar is not actually sticking out from the wheel arch. It is not even touching the wheel arch, it is actually behind the car -- see the first pic posted. You are a victim of parallax error.

My guess (as Godfather suggested) is that the car was hit from the front and the force of the impact pushed it back onto the railing that has gone a little bit into the boot. I don't think the car passed straight through the railing as suggested by Shan2nu, because from the first pic that would require a fair length of railing to have passed straight through the car. Does not look very likely that such a length of railing can slice through like that.

Edit: May have been a car parked just in front of the railing, and somebody hit it from the front. But for this theory to work the other vehicle had to be coming on the wrong side. If the car really passed straight through the railing, shouldn't the first picture have shown a little more damage/scrapings on the (long) portion of the railing behind the car?

[rks]

Apart from the fact that the railing behind the car looks intact and unscratched, note that there are no tyre skid marks behind the car either. Maybe experts can look at the damage to the left side of the car, and conclude whether it happened to a car moving forward or back. Also it looks like the left railing is made of sheet metal with a reinforcing bar at the middle -- look at the first picture. If the right railing is also of similar construction, at least shouldn't the sheet metal portion of the railing behind the car show a lot more damage if the car passed through it? Doesn't look like there is even a reinforcing bar in the right railing.

[pawan]

the car should be called a ford focus monorail .

[Shan2nu]

Watch this vid -

YouTube - Mustang brochette anyone?

Ironically, the car in this vid is a Ford as well.

Shan2nu

[rks]

Originally Posted by Shan2nu

Watch this vid - YouTube - Mustang brochette anyone?

Ironically, the car in this vid is a Ford as well.

Interesting. So such accidents are definitely possible. In the case of the present accident the question is whether the damage to the car, especially the boot and the front left door is consistent with a car moving forward? Here is the pic again:



Would the boot dent in that manner if the car were moving forward? On the other hand if the car were moving backward and hit the rail, shouldn't we expect to see some more paint damage at the rear?

You can see heavy scraping on the left side of the car and the front left door has opened. Is that consistent with a car moving forward? Hard to tell. I can picture a scenario in which a car moving backward will have its door ripped open like that due to the heavy scraping at the left side. A car moving forward would presumably need a heavy impact on the front portion of the door to have it ripped open as shown (did the rail enter through the front left door?). Would be interesting to know how experts would analyze this accident.

Somebody commented on the website cited in this thread that this is a picture meddled with using Photoshop. That is another possibility.

[ollie]

Originally Posted by planet_rocker

weird it is. i hope the driver is safe...

I really dont think so, coz looking for the driving side, its opposite to what we have in india. So i guess this car is a left hand drive.

[Shan2nu]

Rear collision is just not possible. See how far the railing is going ahead. I don't see any break in the railing from where the car could have entered.

If the car had hit in reverse, the boot lid would have been forced inwards and the rear bumpers would have been smashed.

Prob the railing hit the portion where the front door hinges are. The car must have been doing pretty good speeds for the door to open up like that.

If we could see a frontal view of the accident, it would clear out everything.

Shan2nu

[rks]

Originally Posted by Shan2nu

If the car had hit in reverse, the boot lid would have been forced inwards and the rear bumpers would have been smashed.

Yes, I think the lack of damage at the rear is the problem. Otherwise I would have said that the driver was reversing at a maniacal speed probably to get to a break in the railing and move over to the other side. I have seen this behaviour on one-way roads in Mumbai quite often.

[Shan2nu]

Well, reverse gears usually have a ratio that is more or less similar to that of the first gear. Which means that max speed in reverse gear would be around 50-60kmph (depending in the ratio).

I don't think 60kmph would be enuf for a car to crash like this in reverse.

This guy was easily doing way more than 100kmph.

Shan2nu