Five dead as minibus and 4x4 crash on A96 in Moray
- Thread starter neocon
- Start date
I've always thought that van-derived minibuses seem rather primitive, and I've always wondered how much thought has gone into their crashworthiness compared to the extremely sophisticated crumple zone designs and safety systems in a modern vehicle, such as the X-Trail. Is it anything more complex than a basic van with windows and seats bolted in? I suppose there aren't many more practical ways of transporting that number of people.
I certainly don't understand why anyone would travel in a vehicle of any sort without wearing their seatbelt.
Not sure why a Transit vehicle weight is relevant in this case
The Unladen weight for the FIAT TALENTO is closer 1900kg vs 1640kg for the X-Trail, weight of the vehicle has little impact on who comes off worse it is down to the vehicle structure. (here is a transit that hit a 10T Volvo bus https://www.somersetlive.co.uk/news/wells-bus-crash-police-reveal-814442 The bus in this case used all of it's crumple zone to absorb the hit without major ingress into the passenger area. The van driver was totally at fault on this one.)The weight will only change how far one of the vehicles is moved backwards, the crumple zones will decide how much is crushed. The final weight will depend on the number of passengers, however a Talento mini bus had 5 people onboard inc driver and 2 children so at an approximation 1.5x the weight of the Nissan. The Talento clearly has stiffer crumple zones, as would be expected on a van.
Fiat Talento is a Renault Traffic to all intents and purposes so they perform pretty well in Crash Tests
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VFeui3vJMk
The X-trail also performs well but you can see from this video there is the beginnings of passenger compartment deformation unlike the Talento which remained much more rigid.
What a tragedy. It is so sad for the family and the loved ones.
More than 90% of all road traffic accidents happen because of human driver error. Often it is due to texting while driving, sleepiness impairing driver's ability to react in time, road rage, speeding, impaired vision due to drugs, etc. Clearly we have to wait to learn what happened in this crash.
This is why many believe that cars that can drive themselves (autonomous vehicles) without any human intervention (so called Level 4 or Level 4 autonomous capabilities) is the way to substantially reduce road traffic deaths and accidents to passengers and pedestrians.
A number of companies are actively researching and trialing self driving vehicles, esp in places like the US and China. These vehicles never get drunk, never get tired, never get road rage, never text while driving, etc.
For example, in Phoenix, Arizona, Waymo (owned by Google) is currently trialing its Early Rider programme Level 4 minivans that ferry the 400 participants to any destination within 100 square miles, all "driven" by Waymo's technology with no driver in the vehicle. Waymo expects to launch a commercial ride hailing service to replace its Early Rider programme before the end of 2018. Here is an example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HrN12WG-2Q
I hope the technology can be brought to British roads to reduce traffic fatalities.
More than 90% of all road traffic accidents happen because of human driver error. Often it is due to texting while driving, sleepiness impairing driver's ability to react in time, road rage, speeding, impaired vision due to drugs, etc. Clearly we have to wait to learn what happened in this crash.
This is why many believe that cars that can drive themselves (autonomous vehicles) without any human intervention (so called Level 4 or Level 4 autonomous capabilities) is the way to substantially reduce road traffic deaths and accidents to passengers and pedestrians.
A number of companies are actively researching and trialing self driving vehicles, esp in places like the US and China. These vehicles never get drunk, never get tired, never get road rage, never text while driving, etc.
For example, in Phoenix, Arizona, Waymo (owned by Google) is currently trialing its Early Rider programme Level 4 minivans that ferry the 400 participants to any destination within 100 square miles, all "driven" by Waymo's technology with no driver in the vehicle. Waymo expects to launch a commercial ride hailing service to replace its Early Rider programme before the end of 2018. Here is an example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HrN12WG-2Q
I hope the technology can be brought to British roads to reduce traffic fatalities.
Soldato
- Joined
- 27 Oct 2005
- Posts
- 2,603
The van is LHD and full of Italian tourists, maybe wrong side of road job. 
The van is LHD and full of Italian tourists, maybe wrong side of road job.
It was on the wrong side of the road in the images I saw.
I can’t see how a crash between a bus and a van has any relevance tbh, the bus you refer to arguably would by definition been traveling relatively slowly as well.
Busses have no crumple zones whatsoever, the body of the bus didn’t really absorb the impact, more the van ploughed into it - they are not designed nor built to crumple like a modern car in any way.
A bus is literally an HGV chassis with effectively a “caravan style” construction in the form of a driver & passenger carrying area mounted on top of it, they are structurally extremely weak in a crash.
They are not strong by any means - the driver of that bus you linked to survived only because the van hit the side of the bus he wasn’t sat in.
Talento pictures is RHD so I'm assuming airport transfer/taxi although possibly a rental van. (quite popular with green motion who have a fleet of them) so wouldn't rule out tourists on the wrong side of the road. van structure looks to have held up surprisingly well in the limited pics and video available. (we've been looking at this with interest today as we have 3 identical vicars on fleet. I would perhaps hazard a guess at seatbelts not being worn by the fatalities in the van.
again though shouldn't be speculating until we see some more facts, sad loss of life that I'm sure could have been avoided.
again though shouldn't be speculating until we see some more facts, sad loss of life that I'm sure could have been avoided.
I do 50mph along that stretch in a bus, so yeah relatively slow
The structure at the front is designed to absorb some frontal impact in the floor and framing at the front with the chassis rails acting as "immovable object" Sure it isn't as effective as a unibody design, and yes, the bus is weaker, hence why it sustained far more damage than the much lighter transit, which was my point, weight is not the factor in which receives more damage!
Last edited: