“Room To Live” The Physics of a Crash!

 

The Message Continues Today

This movie continues to be shown to young drivers in pre-licensing and driver education classes all across our nation. The message remains in tact. You must wear your seat belt in order to survive a traffic collision. The premise of “Room to Live” is that there is enough space in your automobile to to help survive a violent crash.

The collision that you must survive is not the collision with another vehicle or object, but instead the collision that occurs between you and your own car! This is referred to as the second collision. Many doctors also proclaim there is a third collision in any accident. This is the collision between your internal organs with your external organs.

Surviving a collision with your own car requires that you:

1. Buckle your seat belt
2. Lock your doors– you are 25x more likely to be killed if thrown out of your car!
3. Adjust your headrest– many injuries in accidents are whiplash type injuries. Adjusting your headrest to the middle of your head will help reduce these.
4. Purchase a car with as many airbags as possible– Airbags are present in all new vehicles and are proven defenses against many different types of collisions especially the “head on” collision.

Physics of a Crash!

When your car speeds down the road at 60 miles per hour and you must slam on your brakes to avoid a potential collision your body continues to travel after the braking. Matter of fact your body continues to travel at the same speed the car was traveling at before you slammed on the brakes, 60 mph. This is the law of action-reaction. Any person or object that is unbelted in that vehicle becomes a projectile. And yes again if unbelted the only thing that can slow that person or object down is the windshield, dashboard or various other interior parts of the car itself. Needless to say this collision won’t be a pretty sight.

Sargent Ware in his movie “Room to Live” tries to explain this phenomenon in simple easy to understand scenarios. The first scenario he offers to the audience is to tell your wife to get up on the roof and jump into your arms as you wait on the ground. The second scenario he provides is to tell your son to get up on that same roof and throw down a bag of cement into your arms, again standing on the ground. The third one is the best, he tells the crowd he is addressing to  paint a large X on their house and then go back to the end of their property line. Once they get there, he tells them to run as fast as they can toward the X and put their arms up to stop themselves.

All three scenarios he has offered up are absolutely ridiculous, but they just go to show the way most people think about cars and car crashes. Putting your arms up right before a collision to prevent the crash? Really!! A human at top speed can only run between 10-15 mph and they are expected to put their arms up and stop themselves running at a wall, or catch their wife or a bag of cement tossed from the roof! The truth is your arms are no better than “wet noodles” in any  collision. It is also true that if you are unbelted in the front seat in a collision as low as 30 miles per hour your head will collide up and through the windshield, breaking your neck! Every other unbelted person in the car becomes a human projectile, colliding with other passengers as well as the rugged interior of the car itself. Objects that are  unrestrained also become weapons as they continue to travel at the speed that the car was traveling at.

The law of action reaction is just simple physics. Understanding this law is the problem that all drivers must come to grips with. Wearing seat belts can help avoid these dangerous second collisions.

Seat Belt Myths!

We have all heard the many stories why people have elected not to where seat belts. Most of them are just plain crazy or illogical. Here is a list of a few common ones that Sargent Ware mentions in his movie:

1. “I’m only going to the store a few miles from here.” The truth is that most accidents occur withi 40 miles from the home and at speeds less than 3o mph.
2. “What if my car catches on fire and I’m trapped inside.” Then unbuckle your seat belt, unlock the door and get out. Unless your knocked out unconscious its that simple! Besides fire is only present in one half of one percent of our entire accident scene.
3. “What if my car plunges into water and I’m trapped inside.” Then again unbuckle your seat belt unlock the door and get out of the car before it submerges. If you can’t do that roll down and depart through the window. If that fails go to the back windshield where the air pocket forms and continue to leave through the windows or kick out the glass. Again, only one half of one percent of our entire accident scene involves water.
4. “I would rather be thrown out of my car then remain in it during a crash.” Then I would tell you that the statistics are against you. You are 25X more likely to be killed if thrown out of the car!

Why Seat Belts Work

The reality of the situation is that seat belts help reduce the injuries that occur in vioent car crashes! Here’s why:

1. They keep you behind the wheel. This allows you to keep control of the car!
2. They keep you alert! They keep you in an upright posture and do not allow you to slouch.
3. The prevent you from colliding with your own car. The second collision!
4. They prevent you from being thrown out of the car. You are 25X more likely to be killed if this occurs.
5. The odds are with you. A half century of seat belt statistics relating to auto injuries and deaths can’t be wrong!

Wear Your Belts!

Lap belts were first made mandatory in all new cars in 1964. Unfortuantely the population did not catch on. Less than 15% of drivers buckled up and that number only continued to climb slowly through the 1980’s. In 1984 many states enacted seat belt laws and as a result, compliance  began to rise  at a more dramatic rate. With consistent enforcement and increased media attention, the compliance rate has risen to 91% in the year 2016. Not perfect but not bad.

We must continue to stress the importance of buckling up to our young driving population. And parents it is important that you set the good example and buckle up each and every time you head out on a drive. Seat belts in combination with air bags give us the best chance of survival in an auto crash.

At the conclusion of his film “Room to Live” Sargent Ware delivers perhaps his most powerful line, “After a 23 year career in law enforcement I have never unbuckled a dead person from a car.”

 

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