Mercedes-Benz Accidents and Crashes

Escape: Because Accidents Happen WGHB showed an unbelievable crash. A Mercedes-Benz cabriolet at 150 mph lost traction, hit the railing, flipped and skidded upside down. It was filmed by police from a bridge close-by. The driver walked away from the accident. Béla Barényi (1907-1997) pioneered passive safety and worked for Daimler-Benz most of his life.

best pick (M-class) vs worst

SL Rollover Pictures
"With the new automatic roll-over bar and extremely rigid A-pillars, the SL offers a higher level of protection even in a roll-over."

Extreme test of the E-Class (W124) A-Pillar and Wagon rear crash tests
The A-Pillar supports the total weight of 190 Mercedes-Benz!

'96-02 E-Class (W210) crash tests, W124 and W123 to compare

New '03-09 E-Class (W211) crash tests
The crash performance of the new E-Class is very impressive, indeed. See for yourself and compare. It received five stars in the EURO NCAP crash test lateron, a rare result.

Some W108 (1965-1972) crash tests

Smart crash test, incl against a E-Class

New C-Class crash tests
Mercedes uses advanced super computer simulations to develop and optimise the overall crash performance, one reason why these results are so impressive. The Mercedes C-class receives 5 stars in EURO NCAP, only the second car to ever achieve 5 stars in this demanding test.

Freightliner/Mercedes/Dodge Sprinter cargo and passenger van crash and ESP tests

C-Class Sportscoupe crash tests

S-Class W220, W140 and W126 crash tests, ESF 2009

M-Class crashes

GL-Class crashes

G-Class crashes

SL-Class R129 crashes

Commercial truck crash tests

Two-car crash tests

Mercedes-Benz crashed car hall
Crashed tested cars are stored in this hall.

Mike Ryan Crashes Tanker for Caltrans, YouTube video (1999)

Mercedes M-Class crash test movie

Mercedes M-Class Crash Test Video Youtube
Auto, Motor & Sport M-Class Offset Crash Video 6.9 MB, avi

MB archive

Béla Barényi patented the occupant safety cell in 1951 and it was granted on August 28, 1952. He previously invented the basic design of the Volkswagen. The crumple zone premiered in 1953 with the Mercedes-Benz 180, the Pontons. The world's first production vehicle with rigid passenger cage and integrated crumple zone are the 1959 W111 fin-tails: Mercedes 220, 220S and 220SE. The principle may be simple, but it's difficult to construct. It even took Mercedes 10 years, and by 1970 less than 10% of the world's new cars had rigid safety cages integrated with crumple zones.

Mercedes-Benz wedge-pin door lock

MB archive

Already in 1921 Mercedes were known for their solid construction. The original text under this picture said: "An accident with a happy end. This car ran into a wall with full speed and rolled over. Thanks to the solid Mercedes-Benz chassis the occupants remained completely uninjured and could leave the car through the doors." Owners sometimes wrote letters to Daimler-Benz, thanking them for the outstanding performance of their Mercedes in an accident.

New US study: Mercedes-Benz E-Class is the safest car in the USA
The E-Class offers the best occupant safety of all passengers cars registered in the USA. That was the conclusion reached by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) after extensive accident analysis which was published in their status report dated March 19, 2005. Between 2000 and 2003, they looked at how many drivers were killed in road accidents. The Mercedes-Benz E-Class obtained the best results of all the models examined: it accounts for ten fatal accidents a year for every million vehicles registered. The comparable average figure for all passenger cars is almost nine times higher than the E-Class. The results from the Mercedes-Benz S-Class are equally impressive. With a score of 25, the S-Class is the safest car in the "Luxury Class, very large" category. The practical Mercedes-Benz safety concept is based on analysing real-world accidents and defines vehicle safety as a whole, ranging from accident prevention by means of electronic assistance systems through occupant protection that adapts to the severity of the impact, to allowing passengers to be rescued as quickly as possible after an accident. text: Mercedes-Benz

Mercedes-Benz Crash Tests

Curtrich's special safety issue, December 2003: "THE TRUTH ABOUT CRASH TESTS"

Offset crashes primarily test a vehicle's structure.

M-CLASS RATES BEST IN INSURANCE INSTITUTE SAFETY CRASH TEST
The 1999 ML320 rates 'Best Pick' in safety crash tests performed at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) and published in July 1999. Previously AMS had crash tested the M-Class with good results. The 1998 M-Class is also the first Mercedes-Benz to ever achieve 5 stars in a NHTSA crash test.

BUT: Just one good test can be misleading. This truck did well in the headon crash tests and received 5 stars, the top rating. But it performed poorly - at the bottom of the lot - in the offset crash test shown at left. Tools to make better vehicles: In the Virtual Reality Center designers can watch lifesize crashes and improve the structure. Powered by SGI and NEC SX-5 clusters. sgi: Dream Factory: At the Virtual Reality Design Center, Seeing is Believing

Mercedes New C-Class full width frontal crash test quicktime
Mercedes New C-Class 40 MPH offset crash test quicktime
Mercedes New C-Class under water test quicktime
uploaded by Drew to Ken's site.

S-Class (W220) vs Smart offset crash video
Here's a translation of the German in the movie: "We have a mass ratio of about 1 to over 2 and for the Smart this is already a very heavy collision. It corresponds to a velocity of far over 70 km/h. This is already very fast and very hard. - The Smart only fell over after, after the potentially dangerous events. That it came to a rest on its side may of course make it more difficult to rescue potentially injured passengers."
The crash test was performed by Auto, Motor und Sport.
A few more Smart crash tests

Safety in the Air: The 20th Anniversary of the Airbag The 1981 Mercedes S-Class (W126) world premiered the airbag. It was codeveloped and supplied by Petri and the controller by Bosch. The W126 was also the first vehicle constructed to specifially withstand offset crashes - employing a forked front end structure, which redirects and distributes the energy over the front of the passenger safety cage. A customer's 1980 500SEL, one of the first 10 cars with airbag, on the driver's side, was crash tested with about 400,000 km on the clock, in 1992, when the millionth airbag came off the line. The bag performed to specs, ..and yes, the owner did receive a replacement.

Crash test dummy
Edward R. Dye at Cornell Aeronautical Labs pioneered the crash test dummy more than 50 years ago. Samuel W. Alderson developed the first dummy in 1948 to test airplanes ejection seats. First dummies for automotive testing followed in 1950.
history of crash test dummies

Mercedes-Benz Automatic Child Seat Recognition (ACSR)
All MB starting with model year 1999 have automatic child seat recognition which switches the front passenger air bag off when a correctly installed BabySmart seat is installed. The seat transmitts RF, the child seat responds, and the seat then receives the phase shifted signal. The air bag off light on the dash illuminates. Three sizes are available: BabySmart compatible infant, toddler or booster seat. According to research by Stephen J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt child seats provide no safety benefit for children over 2 years old, compared to seat belts.
www.seatcheck.org

Mercedes M-Class and E-Class among 15 safest cars in the USA, 7 SUVs listed
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety completed their latest study on driver death rates on April 19, 2007 for more than 200 different model year 2001 to 2004 vehicles, experienced in 2002 to 2005. Two Mercedes-Benz models are listed among the exclusive top 15 safest vehicles, the M-Class and the E-Class, both with only 14 fatalities per million registered vehicles. The average of all vehicles studied was 79 fatalities per million vehicles. The M-Class was included for the first time and it's noteworthy that its rollover fatality rate is given as 0, confirming the effectiveness of Mercedes safety technology and in particular of ESP. Overall the IIHS significantly increased the number of SUVs on their safest vehicles list. The S-Class improved to 21 and the C-Class to a solid 24.

Wheel comes off in front of M-Class
Rich Albert

Bovine encounter causes roll which ESP might have prevented
by Bill Rule

Nissan Frontier stuck on the beach
scan thanks to Victor Urbach

Floating motorhome rescued in San Diego
Russ and Tina DeMaris

Automakers Warn Against Using Hybrids as Taxicabs
Safety Questions Left Unanswered, Responsibility Shifted Around

Mercedes hits stray cow

M-Class vs Toyota Corolla

State of Emergency After 29-Vehicle Pileup

Alabama police nab Mercedes-climbing goat
CAPSHAW, Ala. (AP) The goat was arrested, the Mercedes-Benz was assaulted and the dog came along for the ride. It happened Sunday when a woman driving the Mercedes saw a goat and dog playing on U.S. 72 in northern Alabama, Sheriff Mike Blakely said. She stopped, afraid they would get hit, Blakely said. But the goat jumped on the car and wouldn't come down. Fearing scratches and dents in her import's paint job, she called the Limestone County Sheriff's Department. A deputy got the goat down and put it in his patrol car, but then the dog jumped into his back seat too. "If anybody is missing a goat and dog, they need to let us know," Blakely said.

The Lizzie Grubman assault-by-SUV SAGA

HUMMV Accident
Thanks to Phil Congdon who mailed this crash picture and made some comments that no matter which vehicle, it still requires driver skill. He feels the ML is one of the best.

SUV Was Going 91 Miles Per Hour Before Crash

It's a long way down: 4x4 rolls off Moab's Lion's back
link thanks to Kuan. That's a 91 Toyota 4-runner plunging 60 ft off the rock, injuring three occupants. The article and pictures appeared in the Moabtimes in 2002 but has since been taken offline, or access been restricted.

Deaths on US Roads Reported at a Record Low
Traffic fatalities hit a new low in 1999 with 1.5 fatalities for every 100 million miles of travel. It's the lowest rate since NHTSA began keeping records 30 years ago. About 60% of occupants killed in crashes did not wear seat belts. The California rate is even lower with 1.2 per 100 million vehicle miles travelled. This new record low was achieved although speed limits were raised on many Californian highways five years ago. In 2003 the fatality rate per 100 million vehicle miles traveled dropped to a new historic low in the USA, of 1.48 per 100 million vehicle miles travelled.

Seat belts	percentage of killed occupants not using seatbelts	fatality rate per 100 million vehicle miles travelled
California	40.7	1.2
Maryland	45.8	1.2
Illinois	50.7	1.4
Texas	54.7	1.7
OVERALL	59.0	1.5
Massachusetts	60.8	0.8
Wisconsin	61.5	1.3
Florida	62.4	2.1
Alabama	65.3	2.0
Mississippi	74.3	2.7
Montana	74.9	2.2

S-Class active belt tensioner M-Class active belt retractor

Seat belts Following a reader suggestion in an automotive magazine in the 1930s, Daimler-Benz installed seat belts, originally used in airplanes, starting in 1957. In 1973 the three point automatic belt went into series production. The belts were from Takata Petri. The belt tensioner was introduced in 1981 and the belt force limiter in 1995. The '03 E-class debuts adaptive force limiters on the front seats. TRW supplies the Mercedes-Benz M-Class Award for Mercedes safety expert Dr. Rodolfo Schöneburg The NHTSA, the US transport safety authority, has awarded the U.S. Government Award for Safety Engineering Excellence to Dr. Rodolfo Schöneburg, Head of Passenger Car Safety Development at Mercedes-Benz. This award marks the US government's recognition of the outstanding contribution which this Mercedes engineer has made to the field of automotive safety. He has been Head of the Mercedes-Benz Safety/Vehicle Functions section since April 1999. It was under his direction that the series-production debut of the PRE-SAFE® anticipatory occupant protection system in 2002 marked the start of a new era of vehicle safety at Mercedes-Benz. The system can identify hazardous situations at an early stage and take precautionary measures to prepare the vehicle occupants for a potential accident. June 19, 2007 Mercedes with Pre-Safe 2003+ S-Class, standard 2006+ ML, R, Europe, optional 2007+ CL, E-Class, standard 2007+ GL-Class, Europe, optional 2009+ ML, R, GL, USA, standard

NECK-PRO crash responsive head restraint was introduced with the new M-Class. In the case of a rear end collision, the headrest moves forward and upward to restrict the rearward motion of the head thus reducing neck bending and whiplash. Triggered electrically it takes only 20 milliseconds to deploy fully. The IIHS tested the M-Class and confirmed the effectiveness of the system, honoring the 2007 Mercedes-Benz M-Class with their Top Safety Pick. The photo was provided by the supplier. IIHS M-Class results

Record low traffic deaths Fatalities dropped even further and it was credited to seat belts, air bags, ESP and roadside accident assistance. The linked table lists some statistics from the NHTSA, Statistisches Bundesamt and National Police Agency in Japan. Mercedes-Benz Seat Belts and Airbags - September 2004 Mercedes describes the safety protection provided by selt belts, air bags, Emergency Tensioning Devices (ETDs), and the Occupant Classification System (OCS). Guidelines for Rescue Services - October 2005 Mercedes-Benz provides guidelines for first responder and for rescue services pertaining to Mercedes-Benz automobiles. Mercedes-Benz M-Class First Aid Kit M-Class Owner Feedback Contact the factory in case you find a problem with your Mercedes-Benz 4X4.

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