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Originally Posted by Steiner
... He had an '84 Ford full size pickup. It hit me on the passenger side door and spun me around twice. Except for the bruise on my left arm and shoulder from the side airbag I'm 100%. Apparently that's not unusual for moving side impact collisions because the momentum of the collision is typically transferred to the spin out. Fortunately for me my spinning car stayed on the pavement. The force of the collision totalled my car. It didn't even rupture his radiator. In fact he drove away shortly after we exchanged insurance info without even so much as asking if I was OK....
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I am not terribly surprised that his truck wasn't very damaged. When you think about it, the most durable part of his vehicle (front bumper) hit your car in the most vulnerable part (mid-way up the drivers door). Had you been hit by a lower vehicle some of the impact would have been transfered to the frame at the bottom of the car but as it happened, it was practically a study in crash incompatibility. High vehicle hits low vehicle, high vehicle always wins.
And what you said about the spin-out, that's true. I watched a show on TLC or the Discovery Channel about car accidents, and they mentioned how Nascar and Indy cars are designed specifically to spin in an accident, because that throws off the momentum much more safely than any other method.