...however, are you sure about the respective speeds of the cars?
Internal organs being slammed against the breastplate and all...
Just wondering.
Modern cars are designed to give a little. Some seats will slide slightly to help you decelerate safely.
Yes. The speed limit on that road is 55.
This kind of follows from the old saying they have in parachuting; "It's not the fall that kills you, it's that sudden stop at the end." Between seat belts and air bags, you don't get quite the sudden stop against a solid object you would if you were unrestrained.
Interesting question. I used to Crew Chief a professional road racing team back in 1980.
In the course of that work I did some caravan driving from track to track with a Canadian team. A couple of the fellows on that team used to work for Transport Canada (if I remember the name correctly). They said it was like our National Highway Safety Admin.
These fellows had done direct work in all kinds of crash testing.
They told me that no matter what you did, if you came to an abrupt stop at anything over 55 miles per hour it was a matter of "is God with you or not". They said most of the time you would die from internal trauma and the ones that did not die they just could not explain from any consistent point of view.
If the cars hit head on, both would probably be dead. Not sure anything is going to help you when you go from 55 mph to zero in milliseconds. I would guess it was more of a glancing blow, in which case about anything could happen - from death to slight injury.