Head on Collision?

dar1437

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Just wondering the chances of surviving a head on collision if both cars were doing 30mph?
 
I guess it would depend on the momentum of the vehicles.

I wouldn't hold much hope of surviving in an smart car hitting a lorry for example.
Using your face as a crumple zone wouldn't be much fun.
 
miffew just posted a thread the other day, himself and his family were in a head on collision and were very lucky to escape with the injuries they recieved.

I guess a lot of it depends on the car you are in, some models are a lot safer than others. And of course, wearing your seatbelts.
 
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From what i was always told by my uncle ex copper the person in the faster car tends to survive death/life threatening condition, some thing to do with the other car taking the impact and being pushed back at the same time....
 
From what i was always told by my uncle ex copper the person in the faster car tends to survive death/life threatening condition, some thing to do with the other car taking the impact and being pushed back at the same time....



Sort of absorbing the blow sort of thing? (typical, the one observing the speed limit comes off worse)
 
like evastar said i had one on thursday aftrernoon and we and the other people were very lucky to walk away . And when you think of it if both cars are traveling at 30mph then you are hit with a force of 60 mph
 
its called exchange of momentum

2 identical cars travelling towards each other at 30 miles an hour have an impact speed of 60mph, and both do a dead stop from 30mph at the impact site

2 identical cars travelling towards each other, one at 25mph and the other at 35 mph have an impact speed of 60mph, still the same speed

but the speed of the faster car is transfered to the slower car, the faster car loses 25mph on impact, the other 10mph is absorbed by the other car, but in the opposite direction of the way its travelling, its gone from 25mph forwards, to 10mph backwards upon impact, the soft bodies inside the car do the same

the whole impact site comes to rest behind the slower moving car, in front of the faster moving car, but not at the actual site of the impact

thats why people traveling in the faster car during a crash have more chance of surviving

when i was about 17 i was in a head on crash in a country lane while a passenger in a friends car, a big old rover princess came screaming round the corner, BANG!!!!! the princess was destroyed, we drove off after pulling the wheel arch off the tyre

we was in an old box shaped lada, like a fkin tank :)

the car doing
 
just to add to that,
i remember reading
if you crash at say 30 mph, you have an impact force of , say 1 unit,
if you crash at 60mph then you would expect an impact force of 2 units.
i remember reading this isn't case, but the impact force is squared when speed is doubled , ie 30 mph = 1 unit, 60 mph = 4 units
this is what makes head on collisions so devasting.
 
energy is a square of velocity (remember e=mc2, e is energy, c is a velocity, speed of light in this case). so crashing at 40 instead of 20 has 4 time the amound of energy.
 
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