Say I was trying to escape my city that was overun by zombies, would a normal car be able to just plow through hoards of zombies or would the mass of their bodies stop it at some point?
Strangely (or morbidly) enough I’ve often thought the same question, yet for me it stems from playing too many GTA-esque video games. Unfortunately, I have nothing to add in terms of answers…
I think it’ll depend on the car. If it’s a Ford Escort, no, if it’s a Lincoln Navigator, probably. Them big problem I’d see is that they would pile up in front of the car and probably wind up lifiting the driving wheels off the groud. But we’ll let Rick or Gary give you a better answer.
Well, Russel Weller took the time to conduct an experiment of sorts on this subject in Santa Monica, CA in 2003. He was not stopped by 73 people in ten seconds at speeds between 40 and 60 mph.
A car could eventually be stopped if it ran on top of enough bodies to separate the wheels from tractionable ground, but how large a crowd this would take I do not know (and would depend on the vehicle, I imagine). A good off-road vehicle like a Jeep Wrangler or Hummer H1 would probably do just fine. YMMV.
Don’t try this in any real crowds of non-zombies.
I am skeptical about the 40 - 60 mph claim. People hit single deer all the time below 60 mph and it is bad news for the vehicle. Deer weigh much less than a typical man as well. I assume this means the zombies aren’t even trying to get out of the way. Regular people would jump out of the way or try to. The only chance would be to have a large SUV and go very slow.
But do deer weigh less than a typical zombie?
What about a zombie deer?
There are some pretty bid deer out there, dude
That is a good point that I never even considered. Do zombies have all the regular organs? Are they dehydrated? If they are really dehydrated, it would be like driving down the pinata isle at the party supply store.
I think the clearance on an SUV might get you into trouble. It might be better to have a lower vehicle so that the zombies don’t go underneath it in the first place. Maybe a riced-out Subaru or Mistubishi with lots of power and all-wheel drive, with air dams and very little ground clearance.
A minivan’s sloped hood might help, or one of those new minivan-shaped compacts like the Toyota Yaris.
Would it help to have a cowcatcher in front?
That is a line that should be worked into a horror movie. Guy drives through a bunch of zombies, someone asks him if it was hard “Naw, dem insides are DEE-hydrated. It was like driving down the pinata isle at the party supply store.”
If you have all-wheel drive (AWD) and the zombies pile up underneath your SUV, who says you need to have any wheels on the ‘ground’ (pavement, dirt road, whatever).
I’m guessing zombies offer more traction than gravel, snow or ice, and AWD does just fine on those. It’d feel like you were offroading, but at low/modest speeds, I suspect it’d be fine.
I also anticipate that you would have to keep the pace slow enough to avoid deer-type damage, but then that’d mean at least a few zombies were on the roof, hood, etc and I’m sure they’d eventually break the glass, and zombify you.
It might be easier to obtain a snow plow attachment.
A Ford F350 with a snow plow on the front should be able to do it. You can’t just lift the vehicle by lifting the plow either. However, I am not sure if that counts as a normal car. The zombies could jump into the bed of the truck and raise hell back there at their own discretion. All vehicles are engineered to have one critical zombie weakness and that makes this question tricky.
From the wikipedia article that Gary linked to:
"The car was eventually brought to a halt by the body of a victim trapped underneath. "
That’s what you need a truck cap for. It’ll also let you legally park that truck in some subdivisions according to another thread. HOA presidents can act like zombies sometimes.
The NTSB did a thorough investigation of the incident, so you’re welcome to view/download their report and challenge their findings.
Why is it OK to just indiscriminately run over Zombies? Zombies are people too. Start a thread about running over blacks or Jews or Republicans or even dogs, people will be all over your case. But Zombies? “Oh well, that’s OK.” Zombies have parents, and many have children. Won’t someone think of the Zombie children?