Accident: BMW’s 7 Series Safety Systems to the Rescue

Our friend Jonathan Spira over at the Executive Road Warrior went through an unfortunate accident while driving his new BMW 7 Series. We learned in the past about BMW’s safety measurements implemented in their cars and even more evident in the latest generation 7 Series, but truth is that, fortunately, we didn’t go through a similar experience.

Let’s take a look at the incident and how the 7 Series “reacted”:

“In addition, while not perfect, features such as real-time traffic reporting via the navigation system, which provides information about any accidents ahead and other traffic patterns, and head-up display, projecting navigation, road geometry, and speed information in the driver’s field of vision, add to overall safety.

But there is one thing that none of these systems can do and that’s protect against other drivers who have made a huge miscalculation and, in an instant, are hurtling towards your car without apparently seeing it.

In my case, this happened two weeks ago as I was proceeding on a major street with a green light. An Acura SUV made a left turn from opposing traffic and entered my path a second or so before impact. This gave me barely enough time to react, let alone successfully complete an evasive maneuver. I instinctively stomped on the brakes and tried to steer my way out of its way. The braking slowed the car down sufficiently so that I avoided a side impact to my car (which could have caused significant injury) but nonetheless, we still made contact as the SUV passed in front of me.

I heard the accident take place but I didn’t feel it at all. The car’s front crumple zone absorbed the impact so well that it was a minor thud to me at most.

The most important thing is that the car I was driving, a new BMW 7er series, not only allowed me to walk away from the accident but absorbed so much of the impact that I was left completely unscathed. No safety system that currently exists can stop another driver from executing a maneuver that may result in an accident. What matters most is that the car you are in can keep the consequences of the impact to a minimum.”

Read through to find out more about the safety systems in BMW 7 Series.

6 Responses to “Accident: BMW’s 7 Series Safety Systems to the Rescue”

Jordan says:

November 1, 2009 at 5:30 am

Glad to hear he’s fine and it wasn’t any worse. the new 7 definitely does have some excellent safety features and they seem to have worked perfectly.

however, in all fairness to the competitors, and BMW, I don’t think this goes to show actually how good BMW’s new 7 really is with regard to safety. it looks like a slow speed impact.

Lance says:

November 1, 2009 at 5:02 pm

Yes, the new 7 should be a very safe vehicle. Did the airbags come out? It didn’t seem like a huge impact though, but must cost a fortune to repair. Has anyone ever wondered how safe these cars are when you enter a head on collision at 120km/h? They always test at 64km/h, which is definitely not what most of us travel at. It’d be great to see them test cars at that speed. are modern cars good enough to protect us at that speed?

mark says:

November 1, 2009 at 6:21 pm

If you were to crash at 120kph into an immovable object then you’d be very, very lucky to survive, if that’s what you mean by being protected. Assuming the car doesn’t crumple such that your legs are dismembered and that air bags fully deploy, coming to a sudden stop is still likely to do massive damage to your vital organs. Which is why they don’t test at such speeds. Most crashes won’t occur at such speed as the driver will be breaking, unless they fall asleep I guess which is why we’re getting these new gadgets which monitor ‘drowsy’ driving.

Giom says:

November 1, 2009 at 7:20 pm

What a sad thing to go through – espesially being a new Seven. But in a weird sort of way, this is one of the main reasons for buying BMW… safety! And what good news it is to find out that it performed as designed!

Glad you’re ok!

Peter Louies says:

November 2, 2009 at 1:16 pm

This article doesn’t contribute anything. Sorry to say it, sorry for the 7-series driver in the article. The tile says “Safety Systems to the Rescue”. I don’t think that there was any rescue needed when I look at the images. It is a relative low speed impact.

We all have to accept that cars in general aren’t build to collide, even with all the safety precautions. If you have enough speed, collide in a certain way with another object then you could be loosing your life even with all the airbags, crumple zones and so on. The use of airbags and other safety tools could rise the chance of getting alive out of the car or reduce injuries.

The only cars I see “safe”, in a certain way, are F1 cars. You can crash at high speed and simply step out of the car. But again, it is also at a high risk and a fatal outcome is always possible.

Adam says:

November 2, 2009 at 2:22 pm

Unfortunately, all BMWs are not as safe as they should be. If you research the government safety ratings or the IIHS ratings you’ll see that the safest ones are the X5 and X3. The current generation 5-series is the worst in terms of safety especially for side impacts. The crash tests showed that the driver’s door arm rest in the 3 and 5 series was causing internal organ injuries in the torso and pelvic area of side impacts. In the offset frontal crash, the 5-series only received 3 out of 5 stars. Having said that, I am planning on taking delivery of a 2010 5-series sedan despite my concerns.