Well on an episode of Mythbusters Jamie said two cars hitting at 50 mph was like one car hitting a wall at 100 mph.
Lots of people complained so they did some myth busting, impacting two cars together at 50 mph, impacting one car against a wall at 100 mph, and one car against a wall at 50 mph.
In the two car impact the damage was a lot closer to the car to wall 50 mph impact than the 100 mph wall impact. The video was Jamie talking about what it’s like to have his own myth busted.
In short 40 mph double impact = 40 mph wall impact.
If car A is going at 40 mph towards car B(also traveling at 40 mph), and car A supposedly hits with an 80 mph force, then it stands to reason that car B also hits with an 80 mph force, right?
Where did all the extra energy come from?
I’ve been wrong about things before, and i’m sure i will be again. Having just done some research of my own, i see that i was, in fact, wrong on this occasion.
But the way to correct someone on something like this is not simply to provide an unexplained link to a video. That is lazy, jerkish behavior. I’m not going to watch a film, just because you can’t be bothered, or don’t understand enough, to give an explanation.
ExcitedIdiot, your math assumed that the stationary vehicle is, like a rock wall, so solid as to completely stop the moving vehicle in its tracks. But it’s not. If you drive into a stationary vehicle at 40 mph, the crash will transfer considerable energy from the moving vehicle to the stationary vehicle, causing the stationary vehicle to move. As a result, the total impact of the crash would be less than two cars coming together at 40 mph each.
After the 80mph car hits the stationary car, both cars would be moving (in the same direction), at roughly 40mph each. The roughly comes because some energy would be lost in the collision.
This may be the difference that Czarcasm is thinking of, but the forces acting on each car at the moment of collision will be the same in both situations.
If for whatever reason the stationary car cannot move freely, the situation will of course be different, but that should be obvious.
Any risky behavior should be fair game for rate increase regardless
of how “minor” and “observable” it is, not that poor driving habits are
in any sense “minor”.
No connection is being made with smoking, drinking, whoring, and sniffing glue.
The connection is between seatbelt use and liklihood of suffering injury requiring
medical treatment.
And BTW, you seem to be saying that smoking and other “private” forms of behavior
and not taken into account in the application process. They are. Some smokers may
get away with lying about it, but most are samrt enough to realize that medical providers
will usually be able to tell if a patient smokes, and that being caught in a lie is ground
for denying coverage.
It’s funny how one’s point of reference changes things. If we were to see a video of an Olympic runner running full-tilt into a wall, we’d expect him to be pretty seriously injured. It hurts just to think about it. But that same speed in a car seems so unbearably slow that it’s hard to take it seriously.
Who pissed in your Wheaties? I gave an explanation to Rhythmdvl when requested. It’s not my fault you traumatized by a pack of wild Mythbuster clips as a child.