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
The truth is quite simple, they don’t. Maybe they have additional airbag systems or something but beyond seatbelts there’s not much for occupant safety from a crash
People drown. When designing security features you make trade offs – strength for weight, elastic deformation for impact resistance etc. if a heavy car meant not to be accessed from outside ends up in a lake with means for an occupant to free itself…they drown (or suffocate).
ALL cars have strongly fortified roll cages surrounding the passenger compartment, while the front and back are designed to absorb impacts. An armored vehicle would also have fortified body panels and windows to protect occupants further obviously, but could still have crumple zones front and rear. For super fortified vehicles like the presidents’ limo, they are always escorted by an entire motorcade of vehicles to protect it from impacts and have immediate first responders/emergency personnel should something catastrophic happen.
Armored cars used by heads of state will also most likely have additional cars in a convoy, with traffic redirected away from their path. They are more concerned with a planned attack than getting into a car accident.
They protect the occupants specifically by being built like a tank.
The Presidential Limo simply will not end up in a lake. Every inch of every route it takes is scoured by Secret Service and police. 100 percent of the time that the President is in it, it is part of a gigantic motorcade with full police escort. There simply isn’t a scenario whereby that is within the realm of possibility.
Heavily armored cars are pretty much the same. They’re built like a tank. Any accident and it’ll be mostly unscathed while the other car will just be squished. Heavily armored = lots of mass which = lots of force as compared to a regular car.
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.
>have bodies that are way stronger/heavier than a normal car
This is one way.
Why are busses mostly safe enough to not need seat belts? Because pretty much anything they’d hit in an accident is going to lose in a collision. The same for Semi’s.
One of those heavily armored cars is going to smash most vehicles it hits.
It’s the weight of being armored. Train conductors and drivers of semis sometimes don’t realize they hit something because it’s so heavy and rigidly built. For example the presidents limo weighs like 18,000lbs. It’s basically a train.
Well, it’s hermetically sealed to prevent gas getting in. This also means water won’t get in. I don’t know how much of an air supply there is inside, but I imagine there is a well thought-out escape plan for the car becoming submerged.
A few weeks ago, I was driving home from work on the free way (I live in Los Angeles). The opposite side was completely shut down for at least 10 miles because they were providing access and escort for the presidents caravan. Aside from the president’s limo being built like a tank, security is so tight, they do not let anyone travel and clear all obstacles in the same direction of the motorcade to prevent ANY type of accident.
It was a cool thing to see and I can now say I was within a several hundred feet from the president 😂
Latest Answers