Your parents were wrong: all that steel didn't help

[Cratermaker]

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[Wittpilot]

That is actually very interesting.... a shocking difference....

[OBIO]

The difference is a little thing called Crumple Zones. Modern cars are built with Crumple Zones....spots in the chassis and body that are designed to buckle and bend and transfer energy away from the passenger compartment. That old Chevy....as beautiful as it was...had no such zones....energy from and impact was channeled straight back.

I once watched a crash test film of a Volvo wagon. The car was engineered in such a way that crash energy was directed under and around the passenger compartment and redistributed to the rear of the car. In a head on crash test, the front of the car was bent and buckled, the rear of the car was basically ripped off the car...but the passenger area looked like it had not even been in a crash...the windshield and all door glass was intact, the doors were free of even the slightest dents. It was the most amazing crash test that I have ever seen.

OBIO

[Cloud9Gal]

The difference is a little thing called Crumple Zones. Modern cars are built with Crumple Zones....spots in the chassis and body that are designed to buckle and bend and transfer energy away from the passenger compartment. That old Chevy....as beautiful as it was...had no such zones....energy from and impact was channeled straight back.

I once watched a crash test film of a Volvo wagon. The car was engineered in such a way that crash energy was directed under and around the passenger compartment and redistributed to the rear of the car. In a head on crash test, the front of the car was bent and buckled, the rear of the car was basically ripped off the car...but the passenger area looked like it had not even been in a crash...the windshield and all door glass was intact, the doors were free of even the slightest dents. It was the most amazing crash test that I have ever seen.

OBIO

See, this is the kind of stuff that will make me want to search the internet and learn more about it. Never heard of "Crumple Zones" until today. That stuff amazes me.
Thanks Obio! I'll read up on it!

[Piglet]

I drive a Volvo wagon... Cops don't bother me, which is good when I'm carrying guns to the range! I call it my Wine and Cheese Liberalmobile.:applause:
Got a good deal on it, and it was a wagon, which comes in handy for my job.
The real killer in those old cars was lack of seatbelts. People went thru the windshield even in slower crashes, like even at 25-30 MPH...

[Ferry_vO]

Note how the steering column of the Bel air shoots straight into the interior and hits the dummy right in the head; no chance for a real person to survive with at least severe head trauma!

[stansdds]

Senseless destruction of a classic car. What next, intentionally flying B-17's into a mountain?

Yeah, yeah, I know, it proves that the classic cars that weighed 4000 pounds and we thought were safe are actually more dangerous than the 2500 pound cars of today. Honestly, all you have to do is look inside an old car and you can see they are not as safe as modern cars. Old cars may or may not have lap belts, shoulder belts did not be come optional until around 1970, no air bags, steel dash and knee boards, crumple zone? That had not even been thought of.

[Snuffy]

It was a different world back then for sure ...

[exc141ac]

Ya sat on a bench seat.

There were no seat belts.

It was going to hrut.

[Wing_Z]

...Old cars may or may not have lap belts, shoulder belts did not be come optional until around 1970, no air bags, steel dash and knee boards, crumple zone? That had not even been thought of.
Mercedes-Benz patented crumple zones in 1959.
It's a sign of the inertia of the auto industry that this didn't get put into production until the late '60's.
I suppose for the same reason, smoking Lucky Strike was considered sexy, and driving oversize trucks as personal transport went on even after the writing was on the wall...

[Mickey D]

and driving oversize trucks as personal transport went on even after the writing was on the wall...


They still drive them here you should see them on the 'school run'. Mostly mothers with half a dozen kids in the back. The way they drive them and park them they must get a false feeling of security.
I keep off the road until 9:15 am and 4:45 pm.

[Bjoern]

The way they drive them and park them they must get a false feeling of security.

Let's change that and buy surplus, old tanks. Mwahahahahaha!

[Piglet]

The chattering classes still think cars are not safe enough! But then again they are trying to idiot-proof the world...

[cheezyflier]

The chattering classes still think cars are not safe enough! But then again they are trying to idiot-proof the world...

:applause:
anything to avoid personal responsibility. why discipline yourself to be a better driver, if you can spend the money to make your car safer?
someday in the future, (i hope) society will look back on these times and wonder what the hell we were all smokin' that made us think the way we do.

[Bjoern]

But then again they are trying to idiot-proof the world...

Sadly.

The world could use some more darwinesque sorting of the gene pool.

[Wing_Z]

Now there's a strange thing...when ABS was first introduced, the accident rate went down a little, then it went back up, a little more.
Turns out drivers started feeling a little bulletproof, knowing ABS would look after all their braking problems.
Darwin lives...