Given the importance of planned weaknesses in cars, like crumple zones, how do armored/state cars that don’t have these features remain safe in the event of a crash?

Question

I’m thinking specifically about how breakable safety glass is important so that you can escape through a broken window if your car falls into a body of water, or how crumple zones are designed so that it’s the car that gets smooshed, rather than your brain and organs. But official state cars, like Cadillac One/”The Beast,” have bodies that are way stronger/heavier than a normal car and bulletproof glass windows, so how do they protect the occupants if there’s some kind of freak accident?

(I realize that the best plan is to avoid such a situation in the first place, but given that Cadillac One is hermetically sealed to protect against gas attacks and has electrified handles to keep people from getting in, I can’t imagine that no one has ever considered “what happens if the car accidentally ends up in a lake?”)

In: Engineering

Answer 1

So the most accurate answer would be “we don’t know”. The actual technical specs of these cars is a state secret, specifically so people don’t take them as a personal challenge.

In the end, I imagine it’s a conglomerate of tailored risk assessments, because the potential risks facing the president when in transit are fundamentally not the same as those facing the average driver/passenger. The presidential motorcade and it’s staffers serve to dramatically reduce the chances of an accident. Those cars are getting better service than yours, have better trained drivers, and they drive significantly slower. The beast is not a getaway car; it’s a siege car, and it’s safety measures are designed around that assumption.