What if Volvo crashes with Volvo

Every Volvo fans said that Volvo is the safest
car on earth - but what if Volvo crashes with
Volvo - will both driver & passengers survive?

 

There's far too many variables to say whether or not they'll survive, I mean
is this a 5mph collision or a 100mph collision? Generally speaking though,
Volvos are safe cars any way you look at it, the crumple zones and
reinforcements will work well to protect the occupants, nothing will save
you from any possible accident but hitting another Volvo won't hurt any more
than hitting any other car of comparable weight and the crumple zones on the
one you hit will absorb a lot more of the impact than if you were to hit a
big truck or a brick wall.

 

Volvos are safe because the cars are designed to absorb the energy while
maintaining the passenger capsule in the least possible danger. That isn't
unique - all manufacturers design that way - but Volvo is very good at it
indeed. Because of the impact absorption, it is actually better to hit a
Volvo than to hit a lesser designed vehicle of comparable weight.

When I was young (no dinosaurs, but I recall woolly mammoth tasted like
beef) the old-timers were lamenting the passage of the old style steel
bumpers. You could run those cars into a brick wall, they'd say, and the car
wouldn't be hurt a bit. But where do you suppose the impact actually went -
mainly to that puny lump of flesh inside the car.

While we are on the subject, please - everybody remember your seat belts. I
know I'm preaching to the choir here, but two women I know through work were
in a high speed rollover accident last month. Both suffered concussions from
being battered against the doors and one is recovering from a broken neck
(fused vertebra now, but fully recovering). They were belted in, and their
chances would have been zero otherwise. The roof of the car scooped several
pounds of asphalt off the roadway and funnelled it in through where the
windshield had been... you get the picture. Safety really does matter.

Mike

 

the new ones may not be so safe....i contacted
the reporter...all they said is they thought it
was a newer, small sized volvo.....


--------snip----------------------------------
Broomfield native Jeffrey Clementi and his wife, Coleen, died Sunday
afternoon on icy roads near a new home they were building.

Friends and family of Jeffrey and Coleen Clementi this week ached for
them, describing them as a kind and giving couple.


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The Broomfield couple married three years ago and was building a new
home in Erie near the site of the accident, according to friends.

Jeff Clementi knew just about everyone in town, his cousin, Al Hood
said. Clementi graduated from Broomfield High School in 1980 and stuck
fairly close to home, recently selling a house in the Brandywine
neighborhood that he shared with his wife.

"They were two of the greatest people on Earth. They were just those
giving kind of people. They'd do anything for anybody," Hood said.

The two had celebrated their third wedding anniversary less than two
weeks before the car accident took their lives about 12:40 p.m.
Sunday. Jeffrey Clementi, 42, lost control of his late-model Volvo
sedan while heading east on Colo. 7, about a quarter-mile west of
County Line Road. According to witnesses, the vehicle began to spin
and was hit on the passenger side by a westbound red Toyota 4Runner.

Lafayette fire officers used jaws of life to free Clementi from the
car. He was taken to Avista Hospital, where he later died. Coleen
Clementi, 39, who was in the passenger seat, was pronounced dead at
the scene.

The driver of the Toyota, Thomas Lackman, 38, of Boulder, was taken to
Avista Hospital with a serious leg injury.

It was snowing at the time of the accident, and the highway was
snow-packed and icy, Lafayette police Cmdr. Rick Bashor said. Police
said it appeared Jeffrey Clementi was at fault in the accident. The
Clementis and Lackman all wore seat belts, police said.

The accident is being investigated by the Lafayette Police Department
Critical Accident Team.

 

And they got hit in the side. In a side crash, those in the
"target" vehicle are at a great risk, since the "crumple zone"
in the side is so much thinner than in the front and back.

 

Yeah just from the forces involved, I think the chances of survival would
have been slim in any car, even if the passenger compartment retains it's
shape, the occupants are still thrown sideways, seat support and seatbelts
are much less effective in that situation too.

 

The crash tests are done by sending a car into a concrete wall. The side
impact tests are done by sending a large concrete block into the side of a
stationary car. In a car-to-car collision, what happens depends also opn
the travel directions of the two cars and their speeds, as well as the
makes.

Anyway, your question can't really be answered. People can die in even the
safest car. The tests just show which cars offer the best chance to survive
an accident. One place to find out more about this is
http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pdf/nrd-01/Esv/esv16/98S1O08.PDF.

 

<snip>

V=M2 : Velocity=mass2 if I remember well.
So if you're "doing" 0 km/hr. and youre bodyweight is 50 kgs, then that
bodyweight or rather mass, becomes 2500 kg when doing 100 km/hr.\
(50x50) You become rather heavy...Even that 12 kg. child; it will fly
forward weighing 144 kg, and will fly straight trough the windscreen, if
it's not buckled up. (Which I can't remember NOT doing!)
So speed is the key here, rather than mass. When hitting a big solid 244
Volvo at 100 km/hr energy is released and this energy must be formed
into something else. It can not just simply dissapear! (E=1/2 mv2)
So, when hitting that sturdy 244 everything inside the car still wants
to move forward. While the front of the car absorbes energy (it crumbles
up) your seatbelt is restraining you. But your internal organs still
move forward. They might rupture (That energy has to be put into
something else, see!), your legs are being pushed to the dash and break.
During that process, energy is absorbed, untill al is gone.
So a safe car is a car which absorbes a lot of energy, while restraining
the occupants. A Volvo is, but it is a part of the law of physics, just
as you are!
Drive safe! (slow!)

Gert

 

Driving safe is good advice, driving slow is not nessesarily. Following
speed limits more or less is wise, but driving 40 mph on the freeway would
not be as safe as going 60, people would run you down.

 

what if Captain Kirk lead the Klingons, would they beat the Romulins?

 

Fifth Gear, a British car show, did an offset head-on crash with a BMW
and a Volvo at 60mph. A combined total of 120mph crash.

Both the driver of the BMW and the driver of the Volvo would have been
killed. The respective cars were so absolutely torn apart it was amazing.

This is the same kind of crash you would have on a normal highway if
somebody strayed across the lane.

It was quite sobering.

 

Don't be ridiculous! The new ones are built to be more safe than the older
ones! Probably making a bigger difference than the year is the weight of the
car. The dead couple was t-boned by a truck that had the less expensive and
less safety-orientated frame on body construction and the Volvo was probably
a S40, the most common and smallest Volvo sedan made. Their closing speed
was probably 90-120 mph considering they were on a two lane highway. If they
hit head on and were not frontally offset they MAY have survived. If they
were in a Volvo with a stronger body (like a S80 of V70) one of them MAY
have survived. If they had side impact air bags (like the S80) they both MAY
have survived.

But the newer Volvos are even safer than the older ones as long as you are
comparing like-sized vehicles.

Spanky

 

That's not the point, really.
The point is that the law of conservation of energy states that energy
can't simply go away.
You drive -> you brake -> brakes become hot (motion becomes heat) -> car
slows down.
Simply put: The slower you drive, the safer it is according to V=m2.
It has got nothing to do with observing traffic rules!

Gert

 

Depends on whether you're trying to survive the accident you get in, or
avoid getting in one alltogether I suppose.

 

no car (including volvo or any other car) is
safe, after a certain number of g forces w/in
a certain time frame....

 

This same type of crash happened not too many years ago... a Buick (Century
or Regal) and a Honda CRV crashed into each other... both vehicles doing
~120kph (on a 90kph UNDIVIDED highway... but trust me, if any of you are
familiar with how Ontario roadways work, you will know that this is
basically 'accepted' - 20-30 over the limit on a highway is normal here....
but if you go slightly over the tolerated upper limit (or get nailed by a
nasty cop) you get fined the whole amount you were over).

Anyhow... both vehicles basically disintegrated... .all dead as far as I
remember - newspaper said even if these vehicles were big SUV's or super
safe Volvo's it would have not made any difference.

Physics always wins.... keep it safe... I just got back from North Bay,
driving the winter-terrible 960, and I did not have a problem with the snow
covered highways (along the same section as the above crash!).... but I saw
many more snow-ready cars in the ditch... low powered front wheel drives,
and mid sized sedans seemed to be the target... not the usual SUVs... in
fact not one SUV driver passed me, only pickup trucks.... I was half
excpecting to have a big SUV pass me with over 30kph on me, then see him in
the ditch 10 mins up the road.

 

Scary thought, uh. I once encountered a wrong way driver on a freeway
(highway). I was on the fast lane doing 80mph, the other driver was
going the opposite way on the shoulder. Night time. Can't tell how
fast the other car was going, but it was pretty fast. Everything was a
blur.

Was driving an S80T6.

 

Energy is proportional to mass times velocity squared.
Is that the formula you're trying to cite?

 

It is E=MV2.

You are safest if you have no collisions. Going too slow causes
collisions with people who have a very high MV2. Most accidents are
rear enders, not headon.

 

Here is a head on of Volvo vs BMW

http://nico.biche.free.fr/Bmw5VsVolvo960.wmv




Regards,

Boris Mohar

Got Knock? - see:
Viatrack Printed Circuit Designs http://www3.sympatico.ca/borism/