A Big Mishap in A Small Space

Narrow roads where moving vehicles vie for space with parked cars can still be the site of major car accidents, something Huang Ding Yao now knows all too well.

It happened in January of 2020, in the middle of the afternoon. Huang Ding Yao, an executive in an electronics company, was looking forward to the evening’s weiya, a traditional year-end banquet that many companies in Taiwan hold ahead of the Lunar New Year to thank their employees for all of their hard work.

Ding Yao got into his 2010 Subaru Forester, planning to head home to drop the car off and take a taxi to the party. Little did he know that as he turned out of the company parking lot, his day would take a turn for the worse.

A narrow escape

Ding Yao was being extra careful as he cruised down the two-way side street, which was more of a narrow lane and meant he had to drive close to the cars parked on his side of the road. He was going about 20km/h when, with no warning, a car pulled out sharply from the right, catching him completely off-guard.

The two vehicles crashed, the cold metallic clatter of the collision resounding in the narrow road. The impact was powerful enough to thrust Ding Yao’s car to the left, a sensation that will be forever ingrained in his memory. “We’re used to the stability of having all four wheels on the ground,” he explains. “But when the force of the impact pushed my car to the side, it felt like only two of the wheels were in contact with the ground.”

But the terror of feeling like your one-and-a-half ton vehicle is about to tip over was only micro-seconds long, thanks to the Subaru Global Platform. One of Subaru’s four core technologies, its rigid framework does more than provide greater structural integrity. During an accident like Ding Yao’s, it also absorbs up to 40% of the collision’s energy, dissipating the brunt of the impact to the car. Meanwhile, the low center of gravity allowed Ding Yao’s Forester to quickly regain stability.

A shield that doesn’t yield

Ding Yao later learned that the other driver was a septuagenarian pulling out from his parking spot. “His car hit me from the front bumper all the way to the rear car door, getting almost the entire right side of the car,” he recounts.

The collision tore off the Forester’s right fender, but the dents caused by the other car were only evident under close scrutiny, a testament to the strength of the Forester’s impact-absorbing steel body. Ding Yao however, wasn’t surprised at how well his decade-old Forester had held up in the accident.

A self-professed car enthusiast, Ding Yao did his research when car-shopping. The father of two knew he wanted a car designed with a strong body that would protect those inside from any impact — and the high-strength steel body of the Subaru fit the bill. “I bought the Forester as I felt it would do a good job of protecting my family,” he explains.

After the collision, Ding Yao spoke with friends who had been in his shoes and even looked up pictures of similar car accidents. The fact that the damage to his Subaru paled in comparison to that of the other cars reinforced his belief that he had chosen the right car. “I’m glad I chose my Forester,” he declares.

It felt like only two of the wheels were in contact with the ground.

A clear view of the road

The car crash left Ding Yao shaken. Despite two decades of accident-free driving, shortly after the accident he was afraid to get behind the wheel. “On narrow roads especially, I would go extremely slowly and was always looking around to check and see if any vehicles were planning to pull out,” he says.

But when he got his Forester back from the repair shop a few months later, he started feeling less anxious. In fact, he found assurance in a car safety feature one might not expect: the Forester’s large windows and mirrors, which let more light in and provide greater road visibility. And he’s not alone. The non-profit consumer organization Consumer Reports ranked the Subaru Forester as the best compact SUV for visibility, citing it as “vastly superior to its rivals.”

“When I chose the Forester,” he observes, “its safety features were the most comprehensive as an imported car, since a lot of locally assembled cars have a lot of features removed.”

For Subaru, sacrificing safety should never be an option.