Matt Kenseth fiery wreck on race track

On lap 274 and in 5th place Matt Kenseth gets into a fiery wreck.

These are actually stunt cars below and the fiery wreckage was all staged.

Another stunt car going up in flames

Two cars collide in the air in a blaze of fire.

This next pic is supposed to be a car burning on the side of a highway, yikes!

2009 NASCAR - California. Michael McDowell’s engine catches fire and the entire car bursts into serious flames on the track

Michael McDowell - 2009 race track wreck video

Michael Waltrip car on fire on the track, oil fire from engine, this is kinda nuts and there is commentary from the media

The Tryane II is supposed to be a car whose body is made of wood, completely and very painstakingly by hand.  Even the wheel covers and mirrors are made of wood.  Yep, this is the handcrafted working wooden car. Now how sick is that?

The Tyrane II took 2000 hours to make and weighs about 900 lbs. They claim it can hit speeds of 100 MPH and gets better gas mileage than most Hondas. It is 13′ 7″ long and around 5′ 4″ wide and gets between 55-70 miles per gallon (better than my small dodge for sure). It is made of gaboon marine ply and mahogany veneers bonded with epoxy resin.

Wow, can you even imagine trying to get that car insured. Worse yet, can you imagine being the idiot who wrecks that thing… wow, I hope that never happens.

A towing company called D & E Towing keeps pictures of some of the crazy truck wrecks, truck spills and sick shit they have responded to. Check out some of the not too safe driving damage done below. The guys at D & E must have had a challenging task of pulling all these wrecks out of the twisted mess, starting with this one that seems to be floating in a lake.

So what was this twisted and burned up wreck originally? Almost reminds me of a motorhome.

This upside down truck spill seems to have spilled its load of sand

Alcohol abuse maybe? Are those kegs of beer I see spilling out of that truck wreck? If not, they sure look like kegs of some sort. A good amount of aluminum is heading towards the recycling yard after this.

Yikes, WTF? that is one sick car wreck. I wish I knew what the story behind that crazy shit was.

Looks like a twisted up “liquid carrying” truck, but I may be wrong.

The suns going down but it may be a late night for this tow truck driver trying to deal with this very heavy mess

squish

This truck spill is all about chickens, yep, tons of chickens spilled from an overturned truck… too bad it was raining and not hot out, could have been time for a road side barbecue, I hear the black asphalt gets hot enough to cook eggs on. ewww

MSNBC has this insane truck spill, the truck was  filled with what else, cocaine. talk about a crazy way to get yourself busted. I’m not sure, but this may have been in Columbia. Yes, it was columbia and a paragraph read as so…. A police officer inspects packs of confiscated cocaine in Medellin, Colombia, on Thursday after the vehicle carrying the drugs flipped over. BTW, the driver did get arrested.

This one is classic, this has been an image that has made its way around just about every news site around and most people have already seen it… but hey, 1 more time. the great beer-troversy . Yes, its a controversy because peaople argued what country this truck spill happened in. Whatever country it was (Canada or somewhere else) thats a lot of spilled beer, yo.

Here is another truck wreck, hope this wasn’t around xmas time since its all packages.

just east of the Arizona and New Mexico state line on I-40. The accident caused police to close the east-bound lanes of I-40 for several hours

This is a press release courtesy of the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office

On Thursday, April 03, 2008 at 7:13 a.m. Clackamas County Sheriff’s Patrol personnel responded to a report of a fully loaded log truck accident that occurred at 32000 S. Barlow Road, north of Hwy 211, in rural south Clackamas County.

Clackamas County Sheriff’s Patrol responded to the scene and discovered that a 1999, Kenworth, with an 80,000 capacity, fully loaded with logs had left the roadway – spilling this load of logs onto the roadway – with the major cab portion of this truck landing on its side and off from the paved portion of the roadway. This log truck is owned by Marson Trucking of Molalla.

The log truck operator is reported to have suffered minor injuries; however, was transported from the scene to Oregon Health Sciences University Hospital (OHSU) by Woodburn Ambulance. The log truck operator transported to OHSU is not identified at this time.

and lastly, a pretty gross spill of rotten hotdogs from central media

Since the smart car is an electric car, we may see its popularity rise. Check it out, they are small

 can be fun

economical and easy to park 

Ok, so now for the toughest test, car safety. In this video, the team sets up some crash challenges for the smart car to see how it stands up to auto accidents. The biggest test is at the end where they crash the smart car into a 20ton concrete rail at 70MPH.  There are no crash test dummies for these safety tests, however, I doubt they were really needed here.

I don’t think I’ll be exchanging my already small car for this one any time soon, not that I think that my small Dodge can survive the same test… but I guess I just feel a bit safer with a few extra feet of metal around me.

Howard Hughes plane crash

WOW, I would have expected to find more American Cars in the list. The IIHS actually has crash safety figures for the last 10 years on all domestic and imported vehicles. The auto safety report below is for 2008 and previous years are below that as a link.

Many of the safety tests are for both 40mph frontal crashes and low speed crashes, here are a few note worthy ones…
Minivan bumper test results: Nissan Quest is by far the worst performer (2007)

Bumpers on luxury cars aren’t luxurious: worst is Infiniti G35; 4 of 11 cars sustain more than $10,000 damage in 4 minor bumps (2007)

most car bumpers don’t work in low-speed crashes; 3 cars sustain $4,500 damage in 6 mph test while old Ford Escort sustains little damage (2007)

And the 2008 car safety all around winners are…..

Large cars

Audi A6

Cadillac CTS

Ford Taurus with optional electronic stability control

Mercury Sable with optional electronic stability control

Volvo S80

Midsize cars

Audi A3

Audi A4

Honda Accord 4-door models

Saab 9-3

Subaru Legacy with optional electronic stability control

Midsize convertibles

Saab 9-3

Volvo C70

Small car

Subaru Impreza with optional electronic stability control

Minivans

Honda Odyssey

Hyundai Entourage

Kia Sedona

Midsize SUVs

Acura MDX

Acura RDX

BMW X3

BMW X5

Ford Edge

Ford Taurus X

Honda Pilot

Hyundai Santa Fe

Hyundai Veracruz built after August 2007

Infiniti EX35

Lincoln MKX

Mercedes M class

Nissan Murano

Saturn VUE built after December 2007

Subaru Tribeca

Toyota Highlander

Volvo XC90

Small SUVs

Honda CR-V

Honda Element

Subaru Forester 2009 models

Large pickup

Toyota Tundra

Below are the automobile safety, collision ant theft reports for the last years I could find from the auto insurance industry.

Click Here (its a pdf) 2003 to 2005 insurance safety report for auto collision, car crash injury and auto theft