# Why do shoes fly off in accidents? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 28, 2005, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-shoes-fly-off-in-accidents/292241 "2005-02-28T02:19:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Phylis\_Sophical](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e47c2d/32.png) [@Phylis\_Sophical](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phylis_Sophical)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2005, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-shoes-fly-off-in-accidents/292241/1 "2005-02-28T02:19:32Z")
Why do people loose thiner shoes in car accidents? In one instance I know of, a women had boots on and they went flying. In another, the guy was wearing Doc Martin boots and was hit by a car. The soul of the shoe was found, but not the boot. Perhaps it blew the soul off? Probably not exclusive to car accidents, but why does this happen? ---
**Author:** ![Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19adc/32.png) [@Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2005, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-shoes-fly-off-in-accidents/292241/2 "2005-02-28T03:07:23Z")
It’s pretty easy for most people to kick off their own shoes in normal circumstances. When you consider how a leg can be snapped like a whip in a car collision, it’s not surprising to see shoes go flying. ---
**Author:** ![Phylis\_Sophical](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e47c2d/32.png) [@Phylis\_Sophical](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phylis_Sophical)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2005, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-shoes-fly-off-in-accidents/292241/3 "2005-02-28T03:20:42Z")
But even women wearing boots that have to be tugged on and lace up boots. I do realize that shoes can fall off easily, but the ones that are tied on tightly? Still dont’ get it. ---
**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:** [February 28, 2005, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-shoes-fly-off-in-accidents/292241/4 "2005-02-28T04:31:13Z")
Because the forces involved in a car accident are much greater than you imagine. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2005, 8:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-shoes-fly-off-in-accidents/292241/5 "2005-02-28T08:21:54Z")
…and the body is more fluid under such forces than you might think. A related question that quite often comes up is why are shoes often found abandoned at the scene of serious accidents, to which I think the answer is that paramedics will often see fit to remove them and their priority is going to be the care of the patient, over and above keeping track of his/her footwear. ---
**Author:** ![Synthesis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea5d25/32.png) [@Synthesis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Synthesis)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2005, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-shoes-fly-off-in-accidents/292241/6 "2005-02-28T16:45:50Z")
As mentioned before, the forces involved in a high speed impact are far greater than you may think. It is easy to have difficulty imagining how powerful the forces are because we travel at the same speed as the vehicle when inside it. Imagine placing a person in a canon and then shooting them at 60-80 miles an hour into the dashboard and windshield of a vehicle from 2 feet away. People are inherently soft and squishy so they flatten, twist, and break very easy in this sort of environment. As a result, anything they are wearing that relies on a certain physical shape or feature to stay on can easy leave the body as that feature or shape becomes distorted. High speed rollovers have incredible centrifugal forces as well. Unbelted passengers almost always leave the car in these scenarios because the forces can easily rip open and off the door and latch/lock mechanism. ---
**Author:** ![aaron7322](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/898d66/32.png) [@aaron7322](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aaron7322)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2010, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-shoes-fly-off-in-accidents/292241/7 "2010-10-10T05:58:58Z")
It is perceived that the human embodiment is comprised of the life force known as chi, your aura, spirit, soul. Everything has it including the earth. We are all grounded to it by our feet and on occassion if need be we can suddenly disconnect our chi energies from the earth. When the spirit senses a life threatening situation, yes, your chi disconnects from the earth so fast because your spirit is trying to disconnect itself form the environment or accident that your knocked right out your shoes as they say. This applies to the same way a mother will draw the chi energy from the earth when her child is run over by a car for instance. ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2010, 11:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-shoes-fly-off-in-accidents/292241/8 "2010-10-10T11:13:54Z")
> [@aaron7322](#): > > It is perceived that the human embodiment is comprised of the life force known as chi, your aura, spirit, soul. Everything has it including the earth. We are all grounded to it by our feet and on occassion if need be we can suddenly disconnect our chi energies from the earth. When the spirit senses a life threatening situation, yes, your chi disconnects from the earth so fast because your spirit is trying to disconnect itself form the environment or accident that your knocked right out your shoes as they say. This applies to the same way a mother will draw the chi energy from the earth when her child is run over by a car for instance. Riiight. That could be funny if I wasn’t worried you were being serious. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2010, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-shoes-fly-off-in-accidents/292241/9 "2010-10-10T23:45:07Z")
And because shoes are at the end of legs, so the force applied there is greater. (Just like the end person on a chain of people playing snap-the-whip.) And it’s the sole of a shoe, not the soul! Unless you were wearing haunted shoes. ---
**Author:** ![Punoqllads](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/d2c977/32.png) [@Punoqllads](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Punoqllads)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2010, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-shoes-fly-off-in-accidents/292241/10 "2010-10-11T00:36:59Z")
Do zombies lose their shoes in car accidents? ---
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2010, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-shoes-fly-off-in-accidents/292241/11 "2010-10-11T16:18:17Z")
Mythbusters did some tests on this. I think the myth was whether a boxer could knock someone out of their shoes (no), but in their testing, they showed that a powerful impact can easily do it. In fact, I seem to recall that they knocked a sock off too. (This with a dummy, of course, but it’s still a surprising result). Serious crashes can involve tens or even hundreds of G forces. If 50 lbs of pressure is needed to pull off a tightly-laced boot, an accident can provide twice that on a 1-lb boot. ---
**Author:** ![Jenaroph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e8c25b/32.png) [@Jenaroph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jenaroph)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2010, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-shoes-fly-off-in-accidents/292241/12 "2010-10-11T16:24:45Z")
> [@dracoi](#): > > Mythbusters did some tests on this. I think the myth was whether a boxer could knock someone out of their shoes (no), but in their testing, they showed that a powerful impact can easily do it. In fact, I seem to recall that they knocked a sock off too. (This with a dummy, of course, but it’s still a surprising result). Nah, that was socks only. And it took a truck going about 60mph to do it. And it was debatable whether the socks had come off the legs before the legs came off the dummy. (I love Mythbusters. 😃 ) To the best of my knowledge, they’ve never done shoes. Seems to me that it would actually be easier to knock someone out of their shoes than their socks, because of the greater weight of the shoe. ---
**Author:** ![NetTrekker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nettrekker/32/2909_2.png) [@NetTrekker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NetTrekker)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2010, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-shoes-fly-off-in-accidents/292241/13 "2010-10-12T00:33:19Z")
> [@Punoqllads](#): > > Do zombies lose their shoes in car accidents? 5.5 years ago, yeah. Today, not so much.