Hi, all,
Just wanted to pass along a quick F-150 endorsement regarding safety.
Recently my parents were in a head-on smash at highway speed. A car came across the median from the opposite direction, into their lane of travel, and struck them almost perfectly straight-on.
With many years of EMS experience I have more than a nodding acquaintance with how these things usually turn out.
However, they were both restrained and the airbags deployed. They were hurt, but beyond even the completely mind-boggling fact that they weren't killed on impact, they only spent the night in the ER and were sent home the next morning .
I got a look at the truck a couple of days later at the salvage yard. Again, running a few MVA calls in a career you get some experience sizing-up wreckage of this sort. The vehicle, as you may have guessed, was totaled. But, I have to say, from the front wheels back, save for some minor wrinkling in the front doors, you'd never know the extent of the damage in the front of the truck. Both front doors, (with a bit of snap, crackle, and pop) still opened.
From the front wheels *forward*, however, was quite a different story. The nose was dramatically caved in, and the engine mounts had, as designed, given way. The engine compartment looked like it had been picked up and shaken around. Which, come to think of it, I guess it had.
The interior was even more amazing than the exterior. The airbags were deployed and the contents were tossed around, but, again, there was very little other evidence of such a high-index collision. The glass, dashboard, and steering column were all intact. There was no impingement into the passenger compartment that I could see.
So, my point is simply this: a big, huge pat on the back to Ford and their engineers. That truck was definitely one F-150 that lived up to the safety hype. I would, of course, never wish such a thing on any of you folks. I do hope, however, that if any of you of your loved ones are unfortunate enough to experience such a horrific event, they're driving a vehicle as sturdy as that F-150 was.