5th Generation Crash Survivability

Last Labor Day weekend, Saturday, at dusk I was driving home on a rural highway in SC on a narrow blacktop, 2 lanes, at highway speed, 50 mph. Coming towards me from the opposite direction was a pickup truck towing a utility trailer with a concrete mixer on it. The trailer disconnected from its hitch, swerved into my lane and dumped the mixer into our path moving towards us at 50 mph with a closing speed of about 100 mph. I couldn't avoid it as the truck was in its lane blocking an escape route. Drowning depth water was on both sides of the road. According to witnesses, the impact of the mixer lifted us airborne, rolling us several times all the while spinning us as well. The 2016 XP came to rest on the passenger side. All airbags deployed and our seatbelts held fast. Other motorists opened my door and helped us out. I had a small abrasion on my left triceps and that was the extent of my injury. My passenger had right arm lacerations and was transported to the ER 30 miles away and released early the next morning. I had a flatbed wrecker take it to my house as I had to remove my 85 lb. cradled 8500 Warn Winch and other valuables. Both of my Toyotas, a 2003 4x4 Sequoia and the 4Runner are wired to use the winch on front and back hitches. I had it lashed in the cargo area to the back seat with half inch rope to prevent it as acting as shrapnel in a wreck such as this. The inside of the truck looked like a tossed salad after the wreck.
Toyota strong, airbags, seat belts, and random good luck prevented serious injury or worse.
I bought a 2022 TRD Off Road on Wednesday. I can take a hint.

 

First post needs a hearty welcome. Greetings from Central Penciltucky

 

Glad you’re okay. Nice looking T4R. The new one, not the jacked up one.

 

welcome, glad everyone is ok

 

Holy shit. Glad you’re ok. Hope the other parties insurance is taking care of you.

 

wow! Glad you're here to talk about it! Love the new rig! That green is sharp.

 

Greetings from Anderson, SC.....Wow!
Was the trailer not chained?

 

The chain used was not much. Snapped like a rubber band.

 

Glad you are OK. Nice upgrade.

 

Damn! As others have said, I'm glad you're OK. You are added to the list of people who have been saved by the construction of their 4Runners. They really are well built, safe vehicles. Good luck with your new one, it's a beauty.

 

Welcome to the forum from Wisconsin!

I'm glad to see the 4Runner did it's job and protected you and your passenger!

 

Good to know you both survived the crash. Curious that you were able to buy a MY2022 4Runner without wait. I placed an order for MY2022 OffRoad in late June and dealer just told me it would arrive next week.

 

Dealers were closed Labor Day. I checked Autotrader for new T4Rs in a 200 mile radius and called local dealers. I didn't waste time looking for non-existent used ones. North Charleston had two Limited in 4x4 and my Off Road. The dealer is 120 miles from here. On Tuesday I placed a $500 binder on my credit card and had my brother drive me to the dealer the next day. The truck had within several days had been delivered to the dealer, Hendricks of N. Charleston. The negotiations consisted of me taking or leaving the quoted price. My test drive was my drive home. Gil

 

All airbags popped out. Passenger and I were protected by 4 bags. Steering wheel (me) or dash (Floyd), side curtains, under dash for legs, and surprisingly from along outside edge of seat's upright portion, hip to shoulder. I had flimsy seat covers that surrounded the upright portion of seat like a sock. Bag ripped through the cover as if it was made from Kleenex. With that in mind, I'll probably go with the same $27 front seat covers from Amazon. Gil

 

I have seat covers too and they are designed to split if the air bag deploys. Maybe yours did too? either way, glad they did their job.

 

glad all are ok, and nice color on the replacement.

 

Congrats on the ‘22 and so glad you are ok.
My ‘21 ORP with 600 miles likewise stood up to one hell of a lick. While my shoulder is still giving me fits, considering what happened, cannot even slightly complain and like you I replaced mine with another new one.

It actually ended up flipped on the driver’s side but my phone was trapped in the car as it looked way more dramatic that way. That said, holy crap is it a testament to Toyota’s engineering that you both did not have more serious injuries.

 

Cardork, hope your shoulder issues resolve soon. 600 miles on the ORP before the crash? New meaning to a new truck being "broken in". Gil

 

Great description!

 

@GLS Incredible story and situation. So glad to hear you are ok. I actually called Hendrick about that particular 2022 TRD OR but I'm happy it went to you.

 

I'm glad everyone was ok. When I was shopping for a new vehicle, I *really* wanted a Wrangler but the lack of rear curtain airbags was a no-go for me. I'm a first responder and lately I've seen far too many fatal accidents. Seeing your pictures makes me glad I chose to get another 4R!

That said, I wish I could buy the good door handles and rear spoiler from the MGM 4R shown above. I don't like the piano black door handles my '21 MGM Venture has. I want them body colored

 

Holly cow, that is a heck of an accident. Thank God you guys are fine!

 

For sure about the broken in part and thanks truly for the well wishes!

L1011,
Having had an MGM ORP and the Venture, I do dig the body colored handles, but actually dig the other parts that are black. Well, maybe not the mirrors as well….

Especially with mine having the black as opposed to gunmetal finish wheels I don’t mind it and will say the number of random compliments I have received for the Venture compared to my ORP is surprisingly high for some reason.
All the same, my major concern was finding a OR/ORP/Venture with KDSS.
I did add the one part to the sides of the sombro that blacked out the one part that is chrome on the grill.

 

Glad you are Ok. God Bless

 

Crazy accident. Glad you and your passenger are ok. Nice upgrade.

 

That's what a jacked up 4runner looks like?! Glad @GLS is alive

 

Another Wisconsin welcome! Damn! What are the odds that the trl. comes unhooked in front and coming at you? Glad to see you were not badly hurt.

 

Holy sh*t what a scary crash and what an amazing and fortunate result. So glad you two made it through ok (and you were able to get a sweet new replacement so quickly -- great color too).

Every story like this is of course anecdotal and one can too easily jump to conclusions about what a given crash event means about the safety of the vehicle overall. But there is in fact real world data to back up the conclusion that the 4Runner is among the better vehicles out there when it comes to surviving a serious crash. It reminded me I had looked up and posted about it almost exactly a year ago.

To wit:

The 4Runner has one of the lowest death rates of any vehicle. IIHS periodically calculates the number of driver deaths per million registered vehicles. There are adjustments in this calculation and I gather that various factors mean it can't be exact. But the results show an overall death rate of 13 for the 4Runner compared with 36 for all vehicles on average.

Within its category of midsize SUVs, only two vehicles had lower rates (11 and 12). Most were in the 20s and 30s, a couple were in the 40s and one hit 51. This was for the years 2015-2018.

Results for years 2012-2015 were similar.

I thought this was interesting because IIHS crash test data shows mixed results for the 4Runner (only a "Marginal" rating for the small overlap front crash test).

Of course, death rates will depend not just on the inherent crash worthiness of a vehicle but how it is driven. IIHS says they adjust the rates for age and gender, so presumably some of that variable is accounted for. But one would expect the average 4Runner owner to engage in less risky driving than, say, the average WRX driver of the same age and gender.

Still, these are positive findings that I think y'all might find interesting.

Here's the link:

https://www.iihs.org/ratings/driver-death-rates-by-make-and-model

 

Singleminded, thanks for the above info. I only today saw the crash tests with "marginal" on the small overlap front crash test. Not enough to bother me with buyer's remorse on the new one, however. Gil