Quote:
Originally Posted by whatthe
Mass is very important. A friend of mine was a forensic engineer in accident reconstruction and went through some of the physics of why a well designed crumpled up Smart car still can't cut it against a large mass vehicle. The light car experiences just most of the acceleration change which those crumple zones are designed to try and spread out over more time to help prevent the small car guys heart from detaching when his body stops from 60-0 instantly and his heart wants to keep going.
Without getting into the math, you can crumple an entire smart car at 60km/h (front to back as they are designed) and still not have had a big enough change in acceleration to set off the air bags off in the 7000lb. F150 that it hit. The better designed vehicle will not always win.
Think train vs. Mercedes... the change in acceleration of the train when it hits that Mercedes is next to nothing.
|
Whoa.... I said mass is important in a vehicle-vehicle crash. (I agree with your point here) I also said that mass doesn't mean a thing when colliding with an immovable object. Your freight train example is like running into an immovable object. I can re-phrase this... in a ridiculous scenario! Who hits a freight train head on? My hypothetical people!
Driver of a Mack Truck being hit by freight train at 40 mph head on
vs.
Driver of midsize car being hit by freight train at 40 mph head on
The midsize car will end up way better off (at least more likely to live), even though the mack truck outweighs them by a factor of 10. (I'm assuming the Mack truck has no crumple zones)
I never mentioned the SMART car - I would not criticize its mass, but I would criticize its size. The whole "absorb other vehicle's crumple zone" thing is B.S. It's just a small car with a rigid shell and no room to crumple. Probably hardly enough crumple zone to justify wearing a seat belt in one if you were in a collision with an immovable object. Your seat belt in the SMART car will help if you hit something with a crumple zone, and Yes, you will experience more acceleration than the more massive car's passengers.
