Posted on 10/28/2007 6:01:06 PM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
Screw the nanny staters. Kids need to see the world from the front seat.
unsecured anythings in the car can cause severe injuries.
“But researchers have found that in a collision, especially a frontal one, unrestrained cargo flies forward with a force exponentially greater than its weight. At 55 mph, a 20-pound parcel exceeds 1,000 pounds of force. A can of peas or the family pet can cause serious injury or even death.”
The science background of this reporter is obviously weak. Exponentially greater than its weight?
Of course flying objects are more dangerous than stationary ones, but it sounds like the reporter jotted down some big words the researchers said then jumbled them together in the story.
Granted, none of those things were legislated requirements to have in a car to transport children, which does bump this up a bit, but seriously - anything at all that’s not locked into place can injure you in a car crash.
“Kids need to see the world from the front seat.”
Just make sure to turn off the passenger side airbag...
What’s the deal with kids and airbags? What about smallish adults? Say a wife in size petite?
“A body at rest tends to remain at rest, or a body in motion tends to remain in motion at a constant speed in a straight line, unless acted on by an outside force.”
That’s the first of Newton’s three laws of motion. And I instinctively remember that particular law every time we start out in a car. Anything unsecured in the back seat could hurt one of us if we had to stop suddenly.
Most of the seats we used were hooked on from behind, so they stayed attached, although we did have to check from time to time that the straps hadn't loosened at all.
Now, those child killer airbags ... those I got a problem with!
Why not the front hood? Much better view.
Impact force equals mass times velocity.
I don’t think calculating it is as simple as multiplying pounds times mph, as the author appears to have done.
This formula is the reason relatively low-mass objects, such as bullets, can do massive damage when traveling at high enough speed.
It still is.
The children that grew up and ran insurance companies and carseat manufacturers, that is.
Indeed, and many are far worse than a large relatively light car seat. I'm always taking things out of the back of our vehicles when I load up the kids because of the missile hazard.
m * v is momentum
force is m * a
and the problem is energy dissipations which used to go as 1/2 m*v^2
Right. That reminds me of a CHP officer who told me in about 15 years of work, he never unbuckled a dead person. About a year later he told me that he had to unbuckle a dead person. That individual was killed by an unsecured passenger from the back seat.
Yes, airbags can kill or injure small adults (especially elderly). It’s mostly about height. If they are shorter than 4’10”, disconnect the airbag.
I knew someone who was killed by an unsecured TV in the back of the car flying forward during an accident.
I remember the days where my brother, sister and I fought for the front seat.
Me and my brothers usually sat in my mom’s lap and chewed on a toy painted with lead paint. She would hold us tight with her left hand while she smoked a Camel non-filter with the right hand.
That is, unless it was sunny outside. Then we would ride in the back of the pickup.
With so many things that researchers say can kill us nowadays its a miracle we are still alive.
A whole semester in “drivers education” in public high school.
Not a peep about securing items in the car so they wouldn’t be deadly
missles during a crash/deceleration.
The first time I really took the issue seriously was a couple of
years later when reading an article on the topic in one of the motoring
magazines (IIRC, “Motor Trend”).
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