The Physics Of Car Crashes

You have probably experienced a truck speeding past you on the highway going past the speed limit. At such a high speed, if the truck rounds a curve and crashes into another vehicle, the results would be devastating.

When the car is accelerating, there must be an equal force to cancel out the car's acceleration to make it come to a complete restrest. When the car hits a wall, the wall essentially is hitting the car as well. The acceleration of the vehicle and the force caused by the wall cancels each other out causing the car to come to a complete stop. However, the passenger without a seatbelt does not have anything opposing it. Therefore the passenger will continue to accelerate until it has a force to counter it and make it come to rest. To minimize injuries to passengers in vehicles, we must find ways to minimize the collision. What makes car crashes so deadly are that it happens so quickly, and that it occurs at high speeds. In order to minimize collisions, we must find ways to slow down our acceleration and give us more time to do

Throughout this investigation, data collection and statistical analysis will be performed to determine the validity of the following claim; “for driving a car, quick reactions are the most important factor. Males will be better drivers than females because they have faster reaction times” (Michael, 2014). In terms of driving, the time it takes for an individual to react to stimulus will have a major impact on the outcome of the situation. In an emergency, a driver may be required to rapidly slam on the breaks or turn the steering wheel, however it the individuals reaction time is slower than average, the likelihood of a collision is much greater. For instance, when an individual with a

The faster you drive, the larger the force of impact your car has. This being said, if you were going 60 mph and you crashed into a object, the force of impact would be sudden and jerking. You would definitely feel the impact and are more likely to be injured. However, if you were going 10 mph and you crashed into an object, the force of impact would still be evident, but you would be less likely to be jerked roughly and injured. If you were in a small compact car going 45 mph and are hit by a semi, your injuries are likely to be catastrophic and the driver of the semi’s injuries are likely going to be minor.

In a head-on collision, the car and its restrained driver (or passenger) come to a rapid stop while

Getting in a car accident is an unnerving thing. You never know what can happen and if your lucky you might see it coming. Well as often as these accidents occur, it happened to Spencer and I on one fateful summer evening.

cceleration)). This law is in relation to crumple zones as the crumple zone decelerates and the force in which the person in the car would feel. Crumple zones and Newton’s Laws do relate to each other. As the car contents an object, it will cause the car to come to a stop or slow down gradually (1st Law). The car has a certain amount of force, which can be calculated by Newton’s 2nd Law. The result of the car’s mass and its acceleration. Because the force can be lowered by making the impact over a longer time, by making the crumple zone collapse slowly instead of an instant collision that barely decelerates, which means that the people in the car aren’t as badly affected as they would’ve been if there was no crumple zone the force is lessened

For a crash to be catastrophic different factors need to be applied. The first is kinetic energy, if two cars crashed and they both were going at high speeds their kinetic energy would be very high causing the accident to be catastrophic. Also if the drivers were not wearing any seatbelts there would be no inertia stopping them. The last law is gravity, if a small car was driving at normal speed and crashed against another car the injury would be minor because the kinetic energy is not high and the masses either.

The loss of physical strength makes it difficult to maneuver a motor vehicle. A Driver is required to use necessary body parts such as their head and neck to check for blind spots before changing lanes and their hands and arms to grip the steering wheel. Elderly driver’s reflexes are much slower than when they were younger. Their response time to traffic signals, reacting to unexpected pedestrians and other motorists moving in front of them is slower.

If two vehicles were traveling at the same speed and same acceleration, both might crash with the front of the car and go back slightly until the car stops moving, so the wreckage might be at the West of Van Buren. One of the cars is a Cadillac Escalade and its mass is 2630 kilograms, and the smart car's mass was 816 kilograms. The Cadillac was coming in from the west on Van Buren and the smart car was coming in from the east on Van Buren. I believe the wreckage might be on the West because the Cadillac has more mass, it will do more damage to the smart car. Even though they both were going on the same speed and acceleration, the car with the biggest mass will definitely destroy the car with the less mass. For example, during

The average driver doesn’t think about what keeps their car moving or what keeps them on the road, but that’s because they don’t have to. The average driver doesn’t have to worry about having enough downforce to keep them on the road or if they will reach the adhesive limit of their car’s tires around a turn. These are the things are the car designers, professional drivers, racing pit crews, serious sports car owners, and physicist think about. Physics are an important part of every sports and racing car design. The stylish curves and ground effects on sports cars are usually there not just for form but function as well allowing you to go speeds over 140 mph in most serious sports cars and remain on the road and in

Basically the higher the speed of a vehicle, the more difficult collision avoidance becomes and the greater the damage if a collision does occur.

Along with accidents not only comes a little headache or a broken bone, but injuries that stay with you forever such as whiplash and brain damage. Most brain damage incidents occur when you are involved in a side impact collision and the side of your head hits the glass (brain injury). Side impact airbags are just one of the many ways in which this type of life threatening injury can be avoided (whiplash). There is also whiplash, which hurls your head violently, and usually results in long term disability. Since whiplash is so hard to avoid, it can only be avoided by reducing the number of accidents on the streets. Also one of the most painful and most traumatizing injuries that we encounter in accidents are bone fractures, which occur in 65% of all accidents (Bush 11). So in turn by making these cars safer we can all avoid these painful, traumatizing, life-threatening injuries.

Third reason of accidents on the road is teenage drivers. “2,739 teenagers died in car accidents in the United States during 2008 ", (drivesteady.com). Some teenagers cause fatal accidents, because of immaturity and lack of experience. Teenagers are very impulsive. Although not intending to hurt anyone, they sometimes drive very aggressively. It is not difficult to find teenagers driving with one hand on the steering wheel, seat pushed back, and with loud music playing. In traffic they go wild, trying to seek attention. They underestimate the risk of what they are doing. All these acts result in serious consequences on the road. Many accidents of young drivers result from their own mistakes.

The Physics of NASCAR by Diandra Leslie-Pelecky: How can a car going 190 mph operate with precision? How can race car drivers walk away from disastrous crashes? The author, a physicist, caught a NASCAR race on television and wondered those same things. In The Physics of NASCAR, Leslie-Pelecky