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The brake will increase survivability for you; neutral will increase survivability for the other driver. What hurts you is the sudden acceleration from the imp

by dzdt 7y ago

The brake will increase survivability for you; neutral will increase survivability for the other driver. What hurts you is the sudden acceleration from the impact, and the brake will decrease that. What hurts the other driver is the sudden deceleration of impact; your brake will make that a harder stop for him while being in neutral would make it a bit less of a hard stop.

gamblor956 7y ago
This is backwards. Your car will accelerate suddenly from the impact either way, so you want to increase the time-frame over which the impact forces of the crash are dissipated. If your car is in neutral, then the crash is less severe because only part of the other car hits you before your car starts gets pushed forward, so more of the energy of the impact gets transmuted to accelerating your car and less energy needs to be absorbed by your car's crumple zones. If you slam on the brakes, you effectively turn your car into a stationary object, and that means you and the other car must absorb the full energy of the collision. At collision speeds where survivability is a concern, this usually means the crumple zones are inadequate to absorb the energy of the collision and so more of it gets passed on to your body. Ideally, you would want to accelerate your car as much as possible before the impact to minimize the speed differential. Even a 10mph decrease in the differential has a huge impact on survivability. [Note: bigger cars can survive crashes better because they have more mass they can act as crumple zones to absorb the force of the crash. Older, more rigid cars would frequently survive with limited damage crashes that killed their occupants, at lower average speeds than today, because the cars transmitted more of the impact forces to the occupants. Modern cars are designed to crumple to dissipate impact forces.]

by dzdt 7y ago

gamblor956 7y ago

This is backwards. Your car will accelerate suddenly from the impact either way, so you want to increase the time-frame over which the impact forces of the crash are dissipated. If your car is in neutral, then the crash is less severe because only part of the other car hits you before your car starts gets pushed forward, so more of the energy of the impact gets transmuted to accelerating your car and less energy needs to be absorbed by your car's crumple zones. If you slam on the brakes, you effectively turn your car into a stationary object, and that means you and the other car must absorb the full energy of the collision. At collision speeds where survivability is a concern, this usually means the crumple zones are inadequate to absorb the energy of the collision and so more of it gets passed on to your body. Ideally, you would want to accelerate your car as much as possible before the impact to minimize the speed differential. Even a 10mph decrease in the differential has a huge impact on survivability. [Note: bigger cars can survive crashes better because they have more mass they can act as crumple zones to absorb the force of the crash. Older, more rigid cars would frequently survive with limited damage crashes that killed their occupants, at lower average speeds than today, because the cars transmitted more of the impact forces to the occupants. Modern cars are designed to crumple to dissipate impact forces.]