The main purpose of guardrails is to protect automobiles from swerving off the road, or at least absorb part of the energy, but sometimes, instead of shielding drivers, they can cause immense damage when poorly designed and a vehicle hits the end (or the beginning) of a metal beam.
Such was the case of a Kia Rio sedan near the Russian town of Kamyshlov that shot through a guardrail that penetrated the vehicle from front to back.
Purely by sheer luck, the beam passed in between the driver and front passenger, narrowly missing both. According to Russian media reports citing eyewitnesses, no one was injured.
The aftermath can be seen in the video below – it’s not clear if the man stumbling across the snow is the driver of the car.
By John Halas
VIDEO