# Would you WANT an inertial dampener in your car?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-want-an-inertial-dampener-in-your-car/661071>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [June 15, 2013, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-want-an-inertial-dampener-in-your-car/661071 "2013-06-15T15:36:22Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Krouget](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b38774/32.png) [@Krouget](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Krouget)\
**Post date:** [June 17, 2013, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-want-an-inertial-dampener-in-your-car/661071/21 "2013-06-17T13:50:56Z")

</div>

> [@Shakes](#):
>
> [Inertial dampener](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/InertialDampening) as in the sci-fi variety.  
> I’m think no. It would be too much of a mind fuck for me. I use those inertial forces to make judgement calls on a wide variety of things.

For daily driving, outside of some safety advantages, I don’t think it would do much. If anything, it may worsen things, as it can create an artificial sense of confidence. On the other hand, if you could “tune” the amount of damping it does, you could perhaps adapt it to better represent how much grip the tires actually have. Just because a car leans, for example, doesn’t mean it’s losing grip-- though many people will brake, regardless, because it feels unsettling.

Other than the above, I don’t think the forces on the driver prove to be of much hindrance (at least until you get to dedicated race cars).

The only other area I think this may help, is in the high-end luxury market. For example, tech exists which removes the jerking after coming to a stop. In the interest of smoothness, getting rid of some of the physics involved with dynamic movement, falls right in line with this concept. If you’re driving within reasonable speeds, you and your passengers aren’t really concerned with any forces at play, and want to remain detached.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Balance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)\
**Post date:** [June 17, 2013, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-want-an-inertial-dampener-in-your-car/661071/22 "2013-06-17T14:03:54Z")

</div>

> [@AaronX](#):
>
> I didn’t know it was such a common idea in Sci-Fi.

[Inertial Dampening](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/InertialDampening) is sort of a [Required Secondary Power](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RequiredSecondaryPowers) for lots of SF space travel. If a ship is capable of accelerating really fast or turns very sharply at high speeds, it has to have some form of inertial dampening, or it will reduce its occupants to [Chunky Salsa](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ChunkySalsaRule).

…I have a feeling I may have just killed the thread, because by the time everyone escapes from all those TVTropes links, they will have forgotten about it.

[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-want-an-inertial-dampener-in-your-car/661071.md?page=1)