Boot reinforcing?

Few weeks back I went to look at a cabby for spare parts which had been written off, it had been rear ended and have since been thinking about it a lot. When I say rear ended I mean the boot area was gone, the car was literally 2 foot shorter. I dont know what hit it but it must have been a hard bang. Reason ive been thinking about it is because when i'm out in mine I usually have one if not both my kids in the rear most of the time and the thought of an impact from the rear with my entire life sat behind me scares the hell out of me. In fact after seeing this write off ive been going through all the motions of shall I keep the cabby or just sell it on and be done with it.

Its currently Sorn for the winter whilst I sort the gearbox out and a few other bits n bobs so was thinking whilst i'm at it I could weld in some sort of cage/frame to strenthen up the boot a little has anyone done this or know of anything for the boot?

I know it might seem a little over the top but I just cant get it out of my head atm. It didnt help the other night I watched a repeat of 5th Gear, the episode where they show the damage a wagon can do to a people carrier with kids sitting in the very back seats.

That's the crumple zone, and is a safety feature because it absorbs the energy from the impact. Reinforcing it is a bad thing to do.

I'll second Paul on this if that part doesn't crumple then it'll stay in one piece and come straight through at you and your passengers instead which would be a lot worse

:redfaced: Of course

I didnt think of crumple zones and completely understand why it would be a bad thing.

ta for clearing that up in two short post's, i'm not about to start welding pieces of scafolding in there now