From safer cars.gov, the 2005 BMW 3 Series sedan:

Safety Concernue to the intrusion of the left front door during the side impact test, the interior door panel struck the pelvis of the driver dummy, causing a high pelvic acceleration. High pelvic accelerations, in excess of 130 g's, have a higher likelihood of Pelvic fracture.


http://safercars.gov/NCAP/Cars/3186.html

 

Hooray for fractured pelvises!!!

 

Then I guess a rock a crack is outta the question?

 

I think this is why they call it the ultimate driving machine.

 

My friend has a 98 328is piece of junk bimmer, anyways, he avoided an accident and his car spun out and the passenger side hit a planter in the center divider. The damage on the inside of the car was a piece of metal that came out about 12 inches and into the area where a passenger would be. He said if someone was there, they could have died.

At another time, some stupid kid in high school with a 98 or 99 M3 thought he was cool. He took a turn at like 70mph so I hear, he slammed the passenger side door of the car into a street light pole. The passenger broke his leg and arm and had a concussion. Pretty much the car saved his life. The driver had some blood shot eyes and a concussion. A few months later his daddy bought him the same car with less miles

So I am a bit torn between these cars being safe or whether its just the 4 doors that are not safe.

 

Seriously, I think the BMWs are very safe, but the 3 series did have this problem show up as a red flag in crash tests and not just one year. Otherwise they did very well. The safest (by test results) are probably the Volvo S80 and the Acura RL, which got top marks in all tests. The G35 has not been tested in as many different test protocols as some more widely sold cars.