Joe Curry wrote:
>
> Will,
> You won't get me to back down on this one. While I'll admit that in
> theory the crumple zones are brilliant. It's the application that
> troubles me. What they do is reduce a very expensive piece of equipment
> to a pile of scrap in a collision that would otherwise do little damage
> to the car's occupants if they are strapped in properly.
Simply, no. It's kind of an urban legend that if you don't
get crushed you will survive, but physics doesn't listen
to legends.
Even if you don't touch anything or get crushed by anything,
human bodies (especially brains) don't like to go from
60mph to 0mph in 7 inches.
Spend some time at an emergency ward. Listen for the phrase
"massive internal trauma". Think "internal organs stirred around
to the point where distinguishing one from another becomes
non-trivial even for surgeons".
--
Trevor Boicey, Ottawa, Canada.
tboicey@brit.ca, http://www.brit.ca/~tboicey/
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