Ryan,
glad to hear you are OK.
My daughter (21 y.o. and about 50Kg) was rear ended whilst she was
staionary at a stop light about 4 months ago.
A fully laden Ford utility with a fully laden tandem trailer at
~50KpH.
A 1992 Nissan Pulsar GTiR with a very crumpled rear floor pan, a
daughter in hospital for observation.
The impact forced her back into the high backed bucket seat
disengaging the tunnel side recliner mechanism.
She is still receiving Physiotherapy for neck problems.
Moral? Wearing Seat Belts is mandatory in Australia: High backed seats
or low backs with headrests are essential.
Puts a funny feeling in your gut when you look at the quaint low back
buckets in the early roadsters!
Me thinks I'll re-build the original seats for originality and shows,
but fit a roll bar with pendant headrests for any serious touring.
Hope you recover O.K.
Regards,
Graeme Suckling
1965 SP310 - under construction DSOA Member # 112
1971 P510 4 door - daily driver, original owner, highly modified.
1972 P510 2 door - in storage.
1973 HS30/240Z - re-building to 2003 specs.
Adelaide, South Australia.
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-datsun-roadsters@autox.team.net
[mailto:owner-datsun-roadsters@autox.team.net]On Behalf Of Ryan Bird
Sent: Friday, 17 January 2003 3:52 AM
To: datsun-roadsters@autox.team.net
Subject: Ouch!
A week ago I was driving home from school in the evening, heading
south on I-17 just a mile before the first I-10 exit. Traffic
generally slows down at that point, and I came to a halt. Within
moments of stopping, I felt / heard a large CRACK/BANG, I was knocked
a bit silly, and before I could figure anything out, I had rear-ended
the car in front of me and was idling slowly... After a few moments,
I regained my wits and pulled off to the side of the road.
This just happened to be the first time in five months that I had
taken my '99 Mitsubishi Galant to school instead of my 67 1600....
Wow!
I had a pretty nasty case of the jitters, a few days of an extremely
sore neck, and now my ribs are tender, but one the whole, everything
turned out alright. A full size, extended van had rear-ended me. The
police report claimed 15mph, but I swear it was more than that. The
van had the radiator shoved up into the engine, while my Galant only
had a few minor dents and the driver seat railing is a bit off. The
car (truck) in front was not damaged at all. To add insult to injury,
the van was uninsured. My insurance company extorts $500 from me
before they will do anything about it, so as the damage was minimal, I
just dropped to liability insurance on the Mitsu and will be receiving
a check from them anyway! (Renewed for 6 mo just 2 weeks ago.)
What I got from my first accident? My head-rests were not extended to
match my 6' body, thus I got more whip-lash than I would have should
they have been properly adjusted. I was wearing my seat belt, or
things could have been much worse... Time to install the lap-belt in
my roadster I guess. I also quickly understood how important the
seats are in an accident, while it has been stressed in the past,
those four bolts holding your seats in your cars had better be secured
nicely, I'm thinking about doing "one-up" on that large washer, as
adding the 200lbs of a securely strapped human with all sorts of G
forces going at them is something that I am not that comfortable with
right now. Head rests??? Don't want to think about that one right
now. :(
Anyway, it has been an interesting week. The good news is damage to
myself was all minor, damage to the Mitsu was minimal, and I consider
myself incredibly blessed to have been in the other car that day.
Ryan Bird
Tempe, AZ 67 1600
www.azroc.org/ryan
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