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Hmmm, this doesn't seem to be sensible, i mean, more metal etc should be more important than avoidance technolgies.
Which is safer?
- Thread starter AnthonyH
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Which is safer?
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Ther police have a kind of camera that can look into a car and tell/take pictures of someone using a mobile phone. Its not that common i guess.
I saw someone today with an earbud in while driving, i'm hoping it wasn't both ears, but only saw one side of her head. Its conceivable she was merely taking a phone call, but as i know just how many young people walk around with atleast one earbud in, i think she was listening to music.
There's no hard an fast rules I'd say obviously the taller and heavier it is and the softer the springs are then the worse the centre of gravity is and it can move further.
If you're wondering as to what sort of effect COG can have...here's a Fiat Grande Punto based Jeep doing so interesting things.
Then there's some other issues if your car is designed with big exposed wheels for a good arrival and departure angle and long travel suspension then there's always a chance it'll attempt to climb over something you've hit leading to physics occurring.
Land Rover Discovery Sport Spectacularly Flips Over After Running Into Toyota GR Yaris In Roundabout | Carscoops
Surprisingly, the GR Yaris seems to have sustained little to no damages. The Land Rover, on the other hand...
www.carscoops.com
If this had been two normal cars it would have been bumper to bumper contract not bumper to wheel.
Also while it's all very well saying ESP has made rolling near impossible this statement relies on your vehicle still having 4 wheels...if in the accident you lose wheel you're now in a top heavy sledge which usually ends up upside down.
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this is why the parameters of the crash would come into play, people have walked away from 100mph accidents and been killed in 10mph accidents so a lot of what is going to decide your survival is going to be dependent on what you hit.
An accident doesn’t have to involve hitting anything, I watched an Old Ford cougar drive straight off the road and into the middle of a field without “crashing” into anything in the process. The road went round a bend, he didn’t. On a 60mph road the rough ground and a small shrub still wrecked his front bumper and sills but he literally got out of the car like he’d just parked up at his destination. And that was a 2000s era car
Like for like it's better to crash at a lower speed than a higher speed. Of course if I had to have a serious crash I'd prefer to have a high speed crash into a pillow factory via an open door
Isn't this a demonstration of the truism "it's not the fall that kills you but sudden stop".
See this in rallying a lot you can leave the road at very extreme speed and come back on having hit all sorts of undergrowth without issues.
Hitting a tree however is not the same, it's all in how much energy needs to be lost and how much is applied to the structure of the car, where and over what area (EG. Hitting a pole is worse than a another car at the same speed as the pole both concentrates force and unlike another car doesn't move).
Don't mess with Mr Tree. Even a small 'un won't shift for you.
Although safety was something that pushed me away from my modern Panda, sometimes I do think along the lines of basically what we’re saying above over the number of variables. I mean, top of the range long wheelbase Range Rover or my 05 Panda… if a 44t lorry comes your way and you don’t move, you’re just as screwed. One way of looking at it.
Some if the horror videos online of fatal accidents also, which I don’t recommend anybody watch, illustrate that often you don’t have to be doing anything other than be in the wrong place at the wrong time. In a vehicle or not.
Some if the horror videos online of fatal accidents also, which I don’t recommend anybody watch, illustrate that often you don’t have to be doing anything other than be in the wrong place at the wrong time. In a vehicle or not.
The standard of driving is generally pretty poor I think? There's a lot of selfish practice going on and many who take absolutely no pride in their driving or behaviour towards others. Most of all though I think is that many just don't take the conditions they find themselves in into consideration. So, people driving on the motorway with the same sort of separation to the car in front as when they're tootling around town. Failing to look anywhere except at the back of the car in front. How many ever look left and right as they take off from the traffic lights, almost none from what I see - lights go green, ok, foot to the floor! I could go on.
Use of mobile phones while driving should quite simply be banned all together, even if hands free. I've thought very hard about this and come to the conclusion that it's just too distracting. Holding the phone and doing stuff like texting, especially when actually moving, is insane - these people just need to be pilloried and shamed then have their phones confiscated. Even engaging in a hands free call is distractingly dangerous, especially if it's making you engage in important decision making (either to do with business or personal matters) It's dangerous because it diverts your main focus of attention therefore slowing reaction time. The only thing I might agree to is sat nav. My new car has this and I do find it useful, especially when it talks to me and tells me where to make a turn. Not so good when you need to look closely at it when a complicated junction is being negotiated because, again, you need to take your eyes off the road for too long to see the fine detail on the image. Infotainment touch screens should be banned as they need you to take your eyes off the road for too long and often repeatedly as you work your way through some of the menu items. Also, because there are no physical "buttons", you have to take your eyes off the road just to see which part of the screen you need to touch to activate some function. The range of functions is stupidly long too. I bet there are droves of, especially older people, who simply ignore these screens because they are too baffling. I'm not far off 18 months into ownership of my Scala now and there are things about the infotainment (silly word?) which I have no idea even exist but suspect are in there somewhere because of the "weird" unsolicited messages which appear from time to time.
Something else I think most people don't take into account is closing speeds between vehicles traveling in opposite directions. What I mean is, we're all very familiar with the perceived speed of traveling at 30 mph as we observe the world going by outside and brake for traffic lights etc, What we seem much less familiar with is the vehicle coming towards us also doing 30 mph (or whatever) which gives a closing speed of 60 mph. Of course it's rare, thank goodness, for us to run headlong into them so I believe our brains just discount this and continues to asses speed relative to the lampost, hedge or whatever, which is not moving. I mention this because it always catches me out somewhat when we visit Mrs J's sister down in Devon. She lives out in the wilds down a multiplicity of very narrow single track country lanes, many of which have passing places. If you're going down one of these and meet another car coming the other way, both of you doing around 30mph perhaps, it can be quite frightening how quickly the intervening distance closes and how hard you have to brake to get stopped in time. Two vehicles running headlong into each other at 30 mph is like you running into a large block of concrete (or tree - trees are "nasty") at 60mph and I don't think many people consider this.
I don't know about all that but I think the point is it's not like running into something at your perceived speed of 30mph? and the time available for reacting to the approaching car bears no resemblance to the reaction time in relation to the stationary things around you.
I would personally go as far to say that we should have some sort of automatic system in place where when the car has its engine running (or 'ready to drive') phones simply cut off... similar to how drones at the minute, automatically cannot fly over certain restricted zones. Simply because the problem is so widespread and potentially deadly. I'd say a lot of accidents happening these days are a direct result even if there's no evidence or mention of it in either statement.
That, and some sort of extreme 'you're repeatedly not paying attention to driving, I'm going to safely automatically pull you over to the side and bring you to a complete stop as if you're asleep at the wheel' - every, single, time... until the easiest thing to do is just old fashioned focus on the road, keep your hands where they're meant to be...
Sounds extreme but common sense being optional has been ignored long before the phone distraction :-/ Too many people "adjusting their maps" in traffic with phone in cradle too, bit of a loophole that one isn't it?
My (abridged) understanding of it is both vehicles receive half the force..so closing speed is 60 but half of that remains 30mph.
This, in essence. Both vehicles come to a stop from 30 mph. Ish.
This isn’t the case.
Thought experiment, two exactly the same cars hit a brick wall from both sides at 30mph at exactly the same time. What happens to the wall? Basically nothing as the two cars inflict opposing forces on each side of the wall the wall doesn’t go anywhere. But if it was hit by just one car arguably the wall would fall in the direction of travel that the car hit it.
Two cars hitting head on at speed spread the energy of the accident over the two cars. So two cars hitting head on, inflicts the same equivalent in terms of energy as one car hitting something immovable at the same speed.
Like a newtons cradle if two cars collide but one is bigger than the other, the extra inertia of the bigger car gets transferred into the smaller one so therefore the force is not equal.
Cars absorb the energy of the accident so double the cars, double the energy that can be absorbed.
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The land rover flipping over is interesting to see. Its got such large wheels it rode up the back of the other vehicle. A lot like a toy car can climb stairs if correctly engineered.There's no hard an fast rules I'd say obviously the taller and heavier it is and the softer the springs are then the worse the centre of gravity is and it can move further.
If you're wondering as to what sort of effect COG can have...here's a Fiat Grande Punto based Jeep doing so interesting things.
Then there's some other issues if your car is designed with big exposed wheels for a good arrival and departure angle and long travel suspension then there's always a chance it'll attempt to climb over something you've hit leading to physics occurring.
Land Rover Discovery Sport Spectacularly Flips Over After Running Into Toyota GR Yaris In Roundabout | Carscoops
Surprisingly, the GR Yaris seems to have sustained little to no damages. The Land Rover, on the other hand...
If this had been two normal cars it would have been bumper to bumper contract not bumper to wheel.
Also while it's all very well saying ESP has made rolling near impossible this statement relies on your vehicle still having 4 wheels...if in the accident you lose wheel you're now in a top heavy sledge which usually ends up upside down.
One of the advantages of a higher vehilce like a van or lorry is being able to see further along the road. I'm not sure how much of a safety advantage this is though?
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This is making me think of the roundabout i saw recently - there were tyres marks going straight over the middle of it. I'm going to guess the driver carried on driving without stopping, their suspension wouldn't have like that though
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This can be taken a step further - "its not the sudden stop that kills you, but when you stop breathing"
I remember when I had my Range Rover classic there was a story going around about a Citroen CX having gone into the side of a classic Range Rover at speed, and as it managed to miss the wheels it lifted the Range Rover and went right underneath it and out the other side.
This was on the A11 near Snetterton
This happened local to me.This is making me think of the roundabout i saw recently - there were tyres marks going straight over the middle of it. I'm going to guess the driver carried on driving without stopping, their suspension wouldn't have like that though
This was on the A11 near Snetterton
