Elistan

For those that didn't watch the latest Mythbusters the other night...

This is Part 2. Go to 2:55 in for the good stuff. The red car is the 50mph impact - it's the yellow car that suffers the 100mph impact. Granted its a ten year old econobox, but still...
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-JGIYLZZUg [/media]

And here's Part 1 if you want the beginning of the story:
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GuqiAHGGT4 [/media]

I have a melange of thoughts after seeing that, ranging from crumple zones and airbags, to speeding, to trackdays and tire walls...

34witt

I was with Jamie on this one. As you watch you can see how wrong I was. Very interesting episode. Good post.

ToEnvy

great post

Dr. WOT

That'll buff right out.

airgate

tarheel91

If you double the momentum, and double the mass, of course you're going to get an equal force. Was anyone really surprised by that?

The 100mph into a wall really kind of shows you how important all those speed traps and tire walls (like the OP said) are. Otherwise, we'd have a lot of dead race car drivers.

Jumpman2k

Great episode. That 100mph car is SCARY!

JakeJewler

That 100mph crash is unbelievably scary. I would like to see a smaller car like a CRX or Miata and see what it looks like after.

cenix

i was surprised at the 100 mph crash, too. instant death. this was a nice, informative reminder.

X4DLuvOfSpeedX

Not sure I follow you. When was both the mass and mometum doubled?

Anyway, Great post! My money was on 50 mph results. I figured equal and opposite masses and speed would cancel each other out and the result would be 0 additional force either way, i.e.: a wall. But that was all speculation - I might as well have flipped a coin.

And BTW, this is why I dislike curent government crash tests head-on into a wall. If a Miata and an Expedition both have 5-star ratings for frontal collisions (for example - I don't know what their actual ratings are), that doesn't mean they're both equally safe since in theory the Miata was crashed against another Miata while the Expedition was crashed into another Expedition. But crash the Miata against the Expedition and we'll see if they're both equally safe. In real life you rarely crash straight into a wall, but often into oncoming cars.

I'm glad that the damage wasn't doubled in the test. I'd be shopping for a Hummer right now of it was.