It’s safe to say that side-impacts are extremely dangerous, especially if the car that just hit you was traveling at a considerable speed.
As opposed to frontal collisions, when your car gets t-boned you don’t get the benefit of all those crumple zones that would otherwise help if the impact was head-on.
Side-impact collisions are also dangerous because, without the aid of side or curtain airbags, your head will almost surely hit either part of the inner B-pillar or the window itself, depending on your seating position.
For instance, here’s a perfect example of somebody who put their life at risk simply because they performed a ridiculously inadequate left turn.
The incident took place in St Petersburg, Russia, where the driver of that VW Tiguan started turning left while he was still in the first lane – and went on with the maneuver even though there was a fast-approaching Golf that should have been impossible to miss.
It was a horribly violent hit and unfortunately we can only see the driver of the Golf exiting his vehicle (as opposed to all of those involved) and immediately collapsing to the ground – it’s possible he wasn’t wearing a seatbelt judging by how far you can see his upper body extend during the impact.