"Jack Stein" wrote

Ed Pawlowski wrote:

I got T-boned on the driver's door in my Corvair by a Mack truck
pulling a flatbed. I needed a Band-Aid. Sturdy thing; with I still
had it.
Sturdy my ass. The Corvair was a death trap, just like the Pinto and
about every other small car of it's day.

The Corvair was one of the very first unibodies, designed to fold up
in the proper manner, absorbing the impact so it protects the
passengers.

Well that didn't work very well. Nothing much there to "fold up" I guess
it would do OK if a Smart Car ran into it at low speed. Out of curiosity,
it would be interesting to see the death per accident ratio of the Corvair
vs Pinto vs Isetta vs Falcon and so on and so forth.

It would be. As for metal to fold up, it did just that and protected me
against a truck and trailer that was in the 40,000 pound range. The roof
was folded up to a point in the center and door that was hit by the truck's
bumper was pushed in and it moved me over and I avoided serious injury.


You've seen the Smart crash tests on You Tube right?
No, have they done something to defy the laws of physics?

No, they prove how dangerous the little roller scates are.

Well, I still didn't see them. I thought he was insinuating they were
somehow safe? It does look like they are attempting to make them safer
than they look, but still, laws of physics are hard to overcome:-)

The car itself gets a lot of damage, but the passengers (test dummies) fare
rather well, actually. While you cannot change the laws of physics, good
engineering does help you work with it to diffuse and move energy.