Watch Volvo drop cars from 30 metre crane to help rescue services save lives
It’s the most extreme crash test Volvo has ever conducted and it’s all in the name of honing life-saving skills.Swedish car brand Volvo is synonymous with hardcore safety tests and technologies and is famous for driving cars off buildings to see the intense crash results. This time, the team at Volvo have conducted their most extreme test yet, dropping several new Volvos multiple times from a crane, from a height of 30 metres.
This latest test was to help give Swedish rescue services personnel valuable training experience to help develop their life-saving skills.
Conducted at the Volvo Cars Safety Centre in Gothenburg, the crashed Volvos allow rescue services to prepare for any possible crash scenario and to simulate the forces that occur in the most extreme crashes, beyond what can be simulated with traditional crash testing.
The intensity of the 30 metre drop simulates single-car accidents at very high speed, accidents where a car hits a truck at high speed and accidents where a car takes a severe hit from the side.
In these accidents, people inside the car are likely to be in a critical condition. Getting them out of the car and off to hospital as quickly as possible using hydraulic rescue tools known as the Jaws of Life is common practice.
Usually, rescue workers practice using the Jaws of Life on cars from scrapyards but the downside to this is that these vehicles are often up to 20 years old.
Compared to the way new cars are built and the materials used in manufacturing which has been dictated by new regulations and building methods, the difference between modern cars and those built 10, 15 and even 20 years ago is huge.
New Volvos are said to be made of some of the hardest steel found in modern cars today. This is why it is crucial for rescue workers to constantly update their familiarity with newer car models and review their processes in order to develop new extrication techniques.
Findings from the crashes and the resulting extrication work will be collected in an extensive research report which will be made available free to rescue workers to help further develop their life-saving capabilities.
A total of 10 Volvos from across the range were dropped from the crane several times. Before each drop, engineers made calculations on how much pressure and force each car needed to be exposed to in order to reach the desired level of damage.
Watch Volvo 760s being crash tested off a building below.
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