Trevor,
Once again, At 60 MPH, perhaps the crumple zones are necessary. I can
understand applying that marvelous technology at that speed, but what
I'll never understand is why the cars are reduced to rubble at 30MPH.
Surely our state of the automotive has come much further than that over
the course of the last 30 years. But it seems that as the years go by,
the cars become more expensive and less able to withstand a collision at
any speed.
I just have to believe that our highly paid engineers can come up with a
better solution. What happened to those energy absorbing bumpers that
were popular in the early '70's on large American cars?
No matter how safe your car is, you can always be the victim of some
idiot who persists in driving drunk or in an unsafe manner.
Regards,
Joe
Trevor Boicey wrote:
>
> 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/
--
"If you can't excel with talent, triumph with effort."
-- Dave Weinbaum in National Enquirer
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