Wrecking a Smart Car at 70mph

[blusubaru]

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ju6t-yyoU8s

[SteveJobs]

OUCH

I would like a SMART.

Looks like GOODBYE LEGS. Big hoods are nice.

What about that proverbial crush zone/impact absorbing area?

So, how can that guy fall 17 floors from the hotel and survive?

[blusubaru]

Huh? What guy?

[SteveJobs]

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/97..._and_Lives

[ztirffritz]

[quote SteveJobs]OUCH

I would like a SMART.

Looks like GOODBYE LEGS. Big hoods are nice.

What about that proverbial crush zone/impact absorbing area?
Did you watch the video? The Smart Car did fantastic. At 70 MPH it is rare for anyone in any type of car to walk away without injuries, or to even survive for that matter. Physics does not discriminate. Regardless of crumple zones, airbags, seat-belts, etc. humans just can not be reliably decelerated from 115 kph to 0 in less than 1 second without bad results. Maybe if the car were 30 m long and had seats mounted to bungie cords...but then you have to deal with recoil and things just get ugly.

[blusubaru]

I thought it did fairly well, all things considered. But true, no one would survive.

[SteveJobs]

I watched it. If we are to believe that some energy needs to be absorbed otherwise it gets transferred to the human body, then sure the structure was okay, but the person would have a heck of a lot of hurting.

[voodoopenguin]

Just for reference, that piece was from another UK TV motoring programme called Fifth Gear. It started up on our Channel Five and had some of the production team and presenters (including ex racing driver Tiff seen in the clip) from the BBC motoring programme Top Gear before that had evolved into the 'show' format we have today. It is much more like the original more informative programme of the original TG.

The other presenter you saw is not just for show. Vicki Butler-Henderson has been racing since she was a kid, has won a Maserati Trofeo race and among her road vehicles she rides one of these:

http://www.totalmotorcycle.com/photos/20...er-S2R.jpg

[Carnos Jax]

Several years ago, I read where Smart Cars were designed very well in regard to crash worthiness. The basic thing about crash worthiness is that you've got to keep the passenger compartment intact and get the car's structure to abosrb the energy of impact (which means something is going to have to deform, go flying, or heat up). The Smart does this well. I've heard for example that the engine slides up under the passenger cage.

[shadow]

Smart Cars are designed to transfer front impact to a rear crumple zone (and vice versa) without deformation of the passenger area. This is obvious in the linked video.

To say that they are unsafe because they don't have crumple zones demonstrates ignorance of the crumple zone concept.