4 ms·
thing is, you won't see much of a difference if you hit a wall with 80 or 50 (mph/kmph)
by samoa42 6y ago
thing is, you won't see much of a difference if you hit a wall with 80 or 50 (mph/kmph)
- virgilp 6y agoYou absolutely will. In a modern car, at 50kmph you'll be largely ok. At 80kmph (50mph), not so much, but maybe you'll survive. At 80mph, you won't survive.
- ldb 6y agoFigure 3.3 in [1] suggests that a belted driver has a 40% chance of survival in a full frontal crash at 50 mph. At 80 mph the survival changes are close to zero. [1] https://nacto.org/docs/usdg/relationship_between_speed_risk_fatal_injury_pedestrians_and_car_occupants_richards.pdf https://nacto.org/docs/usdg/relationship_between_speed_risk_...
- StandardFuture 6y agoThis entire sub-thread should be deleted. But to those replying "there is a difference between crashes at 50 and 80!", while that may be true, please just realize that the casual parent comment was simply not being very articulate in what they were trying to say. Using the actual numbers from the discussion we would create an analogy of crashing at 100 or crashing at 83, in which case there actually would be very little difference in the distribution of outcomes. I really wish HN would take a moment to try to be more intellectually honest in our commenting. sigh
- tomp 6y agoBad analogy. the difference between 800m and 1b is 20%. The difference in energy between 50 and 80 is 156% (kinetic energy is relative to velocity squared).