BMW plunges 7 floors from parking garage

[KevinM]

Originally Posted by ZX-10RR

I get that but responsibility falls on the driver.
"No pun intended"

No argument about that from me. Unfortunately in America personal responsibility often takes a back seat in this type of suit.

[tranquility]

Originally Posted by MalibuBimmer

The driver was certainly at fault, but the garage design was also inherently unsafe. A jury will probably allocate liability. I'd give her 80-85% and the garage operator the rest. Buildings and parking structures should be built with the idiot in mind. And people do make mistakes. That's why we have airbags and seat belts. (And many people -- proving the idiot theory -- try to avoid using them.)

As an example why the parking structure was unsafe, take the situation where a driver is backing out of a space and gets rear ended by some other driver, pushing the backing out car through the feeble "safety cables." Is that accident solely the fault of a driver who just rear ended another driver backing out (an accident that probably has happened a couple of times in the United States while you were reading this post), or do we hold the garage operator accountable too? The answer is pretty clear to me.

LOL, and good pts.

[Mr Carrots]

Wow, usually BMW drivers of her stereotype limit themselves to reversing into other people's cars in the Starbucks parking lot... this was a much grander statement

If she gets even a cent I'd hope it gets given to the poor driver she almost killed.

[Timo96]

Originally Posted by Who's on first

We talked about this at work yesterday... we guessed at 13 feet per story.

Our guess was 87KPH.
54MPH.

I used 9, working on the lower end, you on the high. Either way, actual is likely somewhere in there.
Definitely, a pretty heavy head on collision considering the cars are tested at 50kmph and 35mph.

[SakhirM4]

Originally Posted by Who's on first

We talked about this at work yesterday... we guessed at 13 feet per story.

Our guess was 87KPH.
54MPH.

Was that based on 6 floors X 13 feet, since she was on the 7th floor?

[Saphirschwarz]

Me too i love my BMW so much if one day i wanna commit suicide i think i'll jump with my car

[Crowden]

Originally Posted by rr006rbc

Oh man. She survived?! That was like terminal velocity head into the ground..

Luckily she didn't nosedive into the roof of that Burb..that would've been GG.

Far, far less than terminal velocity.

[Crowden]

Originally Posted by Timo96

I used 9, working on the lower end, you on the high. Either way, actual is likely somewhere in there.
Definitely, a pretty heavy head on collision considering the cars are tested at 50kmph and 35mph.

10 to 11 would be my estimate. It's also not clear that it impacted at "zero". Lots of facilities have entries that are on different levels. My work place front door is on the third floor, for instance. It was certainly a chunk collision - basically a swerve off the freeway and into a brick wallish event.

[Drpoomanchu]

It?s amazing that she lived through this. The sheer forces that were exerted to her neck and head mainly at impact had to have been substantial. Assuming others were close in approximation that speed at impact was between 45 and 55 mph meant a very heavy hit upon impact of a non moving object. I?m assuming the air bags deployed played a major role in her surviving. We should all sleep better at night knowing how safe some of our cars are. I know I do

[IB M]

At the least the lady or the garage owner need to buy that SUV driver some new underpants.

[wdb]

Headon car-to-car crashes double the speed of this impact.

[goj]

She survived? Holy cow. Defying darwins law

[MalibuBimmer]

Originally Posted by wdb

Headon car-to-car crashes double the speed of this impact.

Both cars have crush zones, but your point is pretty much spot on. I remember what I learned in driving school (in the pre safety belt era!): If you're headed for a head on collision, do everything you can to avoid it, except T-boning a school bus full of kindergartners.

[Needbmwpartzz]

Some lucky characters here.
Thank goodness for airbags I'm thinking.....if no bags I would bet she'd be a goner or at least facial reconstruction surgery

[sygazelle]

Originally Posted by wdb

Headon car-to-car crashes double the speed of this impact.

True, but when you hit another car it crumbles too, absorbing some of the energy. The ground doesn't absorb anything.

[Who's on first]

Originally Posted by SakhirM4

Was that based on 6 floors X 13 feet, since she was on the 7th floor?

Good point sir.

[ska///235i]

Great...another driver giving bmw drivers a bad name

Hope she gets well soon tho

[pcohen15]

I hope she doesn't wind up suing BMW for some sort of design flaw whereby the gas and brake pedals could be confused.

Many on this forum may remember the Audi incident back in the 80s where a person intended to back out of a garage and hit the accelerator instead, trapping a child between the car and the garage wall. They wound up suing Audi and it took them (Audi) decades to recover from all the troubles. More recently, Toyota suffered from the "Unintended Acceleration" incident.

One of the news reports said the BMW driver was on the phone, so maybe it was another case of too many distractions to realize which gear she was in, or which pedal is which.

I agree with other posters that the garage design is inherently bad. Unless you're Jason Bourne, you shouldn't be able to drive off a garage.

[murphius1118]

I'm glad she survived but obviously coached by her lawyer before interview.

[ORIGIN M.]

No Bueno.

No way in hell I'd go on camera after making such an oversight.

[murphius1118]

I was waiting for Moe, Larry and Curly to climb out of that car....

[ArcticRik]

She will probably sue stating she didn't know how to put the car in park -_-