# Car Crash Physics

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/car-crash-physics/525850>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [January 21, 2010, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/car-crash-physics/525850 "2010-01-21T16:03:10Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\
**Post date:** [January 22, 2010, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/car-crash-physics/525850/21 "2010-01-22T02:39:03Z")

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> [@Heart\_of\_Dorkness](#):
>
> ::Makes note to self never to ride with these guys::

I’ve never hit a wall, if that helps. 😃

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**Author:** ![ZenBeam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/3ab097/32.png) [@ZenBeam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZenBeam)\
**Post date:** [January 22, 2010, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/car-crash-physics/525850/22 "2010-01-22T02:58:03Z")

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> [@Heart\_of\_Dorkness](#):
>
> My hypothesis was that there was a third car following a short distance behind driver A. As I now know would indeed happen, the cars spun on impact so that the drivers wound up sitting perpendicular to their respective lanes, and driver A ended up getting T-boned by the third car. It seemed like getting rear-ended by the third car wouldn’t have caused that much more injury, so it was significant to me that the cars spun.

When I was reading it, my thought was one person was gripping the steering wheel with one hand on the top of the steering wheel, and the airbag going off blasted it into his face. The other person had his hands out of the way.

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**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\
**Post date:** [January 22, 2010, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/car-crash-physics/525850/23 "2010-01-22T04:02:56Z")

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Don’t driving schools teach that it’s safest to have your hands on the top of the steering wheel? At least, that’s what they told me. Then again, that was before airbags became universal, so maybe that’s changed.

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**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\
**Post date:** [January 22, 2010, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/car-crash-physics/525850/24 "2010-01-22T13:12:41Z")

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> [@Chronos](#):
>
> Don’t driving schools teach that it’s safest to have your hands on the top of the steering wheel? At least, that’s what they told me. Then again, that was before airbags became universal, so maybe that’s changed.

The classical method was to put the hands at 10:00 and 2:00. Some folks, particularly high performance drivers, would recommend 9:00 and 3:00. Now it’s common [advice for 9 and 3 to stay out of the way of the airbags](http://www.smartmotorist.com/driving-guideline/hands-on-the-steering-wheel.html). I think it’s a more effective position anyway, although if it weren’t I would question the wisdom of the advice. Some emergency vehicle drivers are taught to grip even lower, but IMHO this is a poor tradeoff between steering wheel control and airbag safety. If you are in a collsion severe enough to deploy an airbag, a hand or arm injury might be the least of your worries.

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