A new video from the Swedish Transport Administration proves that RVs are all basically death traps.
According to a 2018 report from the Washington Post, roughly 1 million Americans live in an RV. Depending on where you live, it can be cheaper than buying a house and you get the added benefit of being able to move whenever and wherever you want. More people use RVs for the first part of the acronym every summer, but however you slice it, RVs are a big deal in America.
And apparently in Sweden, where RVing has jumped in popularity by 50% since 2014, according to the Swedish Transport Administration, or Trafikverket. They also noticed that a lot of people were getting into RV accidents, with 100 people injured and 6 fatalities since 2014. This led to the Trafikverket taking a closer look at RVs to see why they were so dangerous.
The most common collision with an RV in Sweden is head-on, so the Trafikverket set up a crash test using the same method as the European New Car Assessment Program (Euro NCAP). Basically, the motorhome would drive into a barrier that’s weighted the same as the unloaded RV at 64 kph (or roughly 40 mph). Then a bunch of high-speed cameras would see what happens to the dummies inside.
The results were pretty brutal.
Interior footage of the collision shows the entire engine compartment comes at the driver and passenger like a tidal wave of metal and plastic. The airbag does go off but does basically nothing to protect the occupants.
Worse, the entire shell of the RV detaches and rushes forward, so the passengers are getting it from both sides at once.
The final result of the test revealed that there was a “very high risk of death” if you’re in a frontal collision with an RV. Although only 2 RV models were tested, they’re both built on the same chassis that underpins 84% of all RVs found on Swedish roads.
We’re not sure how bad that statistic is here in America, but those Swedish RVs sure look similar to anything you can find here. If you’re an RV driver, take this as a warning.
(via Autoblog)