What about automobile collision

What Exactly Happens To A Body In A High-Speed Car Collision?

Car accidents are horrifyingly common and, unfortunately, highly deadly. Over a million people perish in car accidents every year, and reasons why are numerous. High-speed collisions are some of the worst, and the effects of a car impact of that type on the body are as terrifying as they are fascinating. Be warned that what you are about to read can be graphic at times, but let’s hope that you can just read it rather than experiencing it first hand.

So, for those curious, here are the facts, and if we’ve learned anything from them, it’s that driving safely while wearing a seatbelt is definitely the way to go.

One’s Bowels Might Leak Into Their Chest

So, someone’s just been in a high-speed auto collision. They might have broken ribs, a punctured chest cavity, bruised and swollen organs, and possibly even some tearing inside them. They could have a ruptured spleen, heart, or lungs, but that’s not the most frightening thing that can happen.

On occasion, the bowels can rupture during a high-speed collision, and this means that the contents will leak out. They’ll end up with bile and human waste sloshing around in their stomach and chest cavity. This is one of the fastest ways to get sepsis, which can quickly turn deadly. It’s also one of the hardest places to repair, considering there are so many areas of the bowel that could have been damaged.

They May Have Internal Bleeding And Not Feel It

When someone is in a car collision, their body doesn’t just release adrenaline; it also releases endorphins, a «feel good» hormone that makes someone less likely to feel pain or faint. But it also has a huge potential problem, because ribs may break, internal organs may impact the internal abdominal wall, and this can cause them to rupture and begin to bleed. With adrenaline and endorphins surging, one is actually unlikely to feel this. The person in the car may want to just go home and avoid a costly hospital visit, but if they do, it can result in internal bleeding that can cause one’s untimely end.

So, when a medical professional insists that you go to the hospital to get checked out, it’s wise to do as they ask. You may not know just how bad things have gotten.

Internal Organs Can Hit One’s Chest Wall And Skeleton

This organ movement is particularly problematic for the lungs. If the ribs puncture the cavity around the lungs, the chest will be able to expand as normal, but the lungs simply won’t. This is called «pneumothorax,» and it basically means one has air in the space between their lungs and ribcage, which can be damaging to their breathing and long-term survival.

The Ribs And Collarbone May Break

Because you’re moving with extreme force, and the seatbelt is such a narrow and strong piece of technology, it can cause seriously problems to your bones upon collision. The seatbelt tends to rest directly across your collarbone where there isn’t much padding, so that bone takes a lot of the impact. Given that it’s not exactly your strongest bone, a high-speed impact means it may snap. If you’re driving, the left side of your collarbone will break, and if you’re a passenger, it’ll be the right.

Let’s say it’s a really, really high-speed impact, and you’re wearing your seatbelt. In some cases, at incredibly high speeds in frontal collisions, you’ll also feel a snapping lower down in your ribs. The faster you’re going, the more ribs that will break, and once one goes, it decreases the integrity of your entire ribcage, making other breaks more likely.

The Physics of a Car Collision

Energy and force are involved in the crash

During a car crash, energy is transferred from the vehicle to whatever it hits, be it another vehicle or a stationary object. This transfer of energy, depending on variables that alter states of motion, can cause injuries and damage cars and property. The object that was struck will either absorb the energy thrust upon it or possibly transfer that energy back to the vehicle that struck it. Focusing on the distinction between force and energy can help explain the physics involved.

Force: Colliding With a Wall

Car crashes are clear examples of how Newton’s Laws of Motion work. His first law of motion, also referred to as the law of inertia, asserts that an object in motion will stay in motion unless an external force acts upon it. Conversely, if an object is at rest, it will remain at rest until an unbalanced force acts upon it.

The car exerts this force in the direction of the wall, but the wall, which is static and unbreakable, exerts an equal force back on the car, per Newton’s third law of motion. This equal force is what causes cars to accordion up during collisions.

It’s important to note that this is an idealized model. In the case of car A, if it slams into the wall and comes to an immediate stop, that would be a perfectly inelastic collision. Since the wall doesn’t break or move at all, the full force of the car into the wall has to go somewhere. Either the wall is so massive that it accelerates, or moves an imperceptible amount, or it doesn’t move at all, in which case the force of the collision acts on the car and the entire planet, the latter of which is, obviously, so massive that the effects are negligible.

Force: Colliding With a Car

In a situation where car B collides with car C, we have different force considerations. Assuming that car B and car C are complete mirrors of each other (again, this is a highly idealized situation), they would collide with each other going at precisely the same speed but in opposite directions. From conservation of momentum, we know that they must both come to rest. The mass is the same, therefore, the force experienced by car B and car C is identical, and also identical to that acting on the car in case A in the previous example.

This explains the force of the collision, but there is a second part of the question: the energy within the collision.

Energy

Since these are inelastic collisions, the kinetic energy is not conserved, but total energy is always conserved, so the kinetic energy «lost» in the collision has to convert into some other form, such as heat, sound, etc.

In the first example where only one car is moving, the energy released during the collision is K. In the second example, however, two are cars moving, so the total energy released during the collision is 2K. So the crash in case B is clearly more energetic than the case A crash.

From Cars to Particles

Consider the major differences between the two situations. At the quantum level of particles, energy and matter can basically swap between states. The physics of a car collision will never, no matter how energetic, emit a completely new car.

The car would experience exactly the same force in both cases. The only force that acts on the car is the sudden deceleration from v to 0 velocity in a brief period of time, due to the collision with another object.

However, when viewing the total system, the collision in the situation with two cars releases twice as much energy as the collision with a wall. It’s louder, hotter, and likely messier. In all likelihood, the cars have fused into each other, pieces flying off in random directions.

This is why physicists accelerate particles in a collider to study high-energy physics. The act of colliding two beams of particles is useful because in particle collisions you don’t really care about the force of the particles (which you never really measure); you care instead about the energy of the particles.

A particle accelerator speeds up particles but does so with a very real speed limitation dictated by the speed of light barrier from Einstein’s theory of relativity. To squeeze some extra energy out of the collisions, instead of colliding a beam of near-light-speed particles with a stationary object, it’s better to collide it with another beam of near-light-speed particles going the opposite direction.

From the particle’s standpoint, they don’t so much «shatter more,» but when the two particles collide, more energy is released. In collisions of particles, this energy can take the form of other particles, and the more energy you pull out of the collision, the more exotic the particles are.

Traffic collision

A traffic collision, also known as a traffic accident, motor vehicle collision, motor vehicle accident, car accident, automobile accident, Road Traffic Collision (RTC) or car crash, occurs when a vehicle collides with another vehicle, pedestrian, animal, road debris, or other stationary obstruction, such as a tree or utility pole. Traffic collisions may result in injury, death and property damage.

A number of factors contribute to the risk of collision including; vehicle design, speed of operation, road design, road environment, driver skill and/or impairment and driver behaviour. Worldwide motor vehicle collisions lead to death and disability as well as financial costs to both society and the individuals involved.

Contents

Terminology

Many different terms are commonly used to describe vehicle collisions. The World Health Organization use the term road traffic injury, [ 1 ] while the U.S. Census Bureau uses the term motor vehicle accidents (MVA) [ 2 ] and Transport Canada uses the term «motor vehicle traffic collision» (MVTC). [ 3 ] Other terms that are commonly used include auto accident, car accident, car crash, car smash, car wreck, motor vehicle collision (MVC), personal injury collision (PIC), road accident, road traffic accident (RTA), road traffic collision (RTC), road traffic incident (RTI), road traffic accident and later road traffic collision, as well as more unofficial terms including smash-up and fender bender.

Some organizations have begun to avoid the term «accident». Although auto collisions are rare in terms of the number of vehicles on the road and the distance they travel, addressing the contributing factors can reduce their likelihood. For example, proper signage can decrease driver error and thereby reduce crash frequency by a third or more. [ 4 ] That is why these organizations prefer the term «collision» rather than «accident».

However, treating collisions as anything other than «accidents» has been criticized for holding back safety improvements, because a culture of blame may discourage the involved parties from fully disclosing the facts, and thus frustrate attempts to address the real root causes. [ 5 ]

Classification

Motor vehicle collisions can be classified by mechanism. Common mechanisms include head-on collisions, run-off-road collisions, rear-end collisions, side collision, and rollovers.

Other common types of Virginia DMV reportable crashes include those crashes which begin on a public highway with a vehicle loss of control and end upon private property.

Causes

Breakdown of British and
American crash causes

A 1985 study by K. Rumar, using British and American crash reports as data, found that 57% of crashes were due solely to driver factors, 27% to combined roadway and driver factors, 6% to combined vehicle and driver factors, 3% solely to roadway factors, 3% to combined roadway, driver, and vehicle factors, 2% solely to vehicle factors and 1% to combined roadway and vehicle factors. [ 6 ]

Human factors

Human factors in vehicle collisions include all factors related to drivers and other road users that may contribute to a collision. Examples include driver behavior, visual and auditory acuity, decision-making ability, and reaction speed.

A 1985 report based on British and American crash data found driver error, intoxication and other human factors contribute wholly or partly to about 93% of crashes. [ 6 ]

An RAC survey of British drivers found that most thought they were better than average drivers; a contradictory result showing overconfidence in their abilities. Nearly all drivers who had been in a crash did not believe themselves to be at fault. [ 7 ] One survey of drivers reported that they thought the key elements of good driving were: [ 8 ]

Although proficiency in these skills is taught and tested as part of the driving exam, a ‘good’ driver can still be at a high risk of crashing because:

. the feeling of being confident in more and more challenging situations is experienced as evidence of driving ability, and that ‘proven’ ability reinforces the feelings of confidence. Confidence feeds itself and grows unchecked until something happens – a near-miss or an accident. [ 8 ]

An AXA survey concluded Irish drivers are very safety-conscious relative to other European drivers. However, this does not translate to significantly lower crash rates in Ireland. [ 9 ]

Accompanying changes to road designs have been wide-scale adoptions of rules of the road alongside law enforcement policies that included drink-driving laws, setting of speed limits, and speed enforcement systems such as speed cameras. Some countries’ driving tests have been expanded to test a new driver’s behavior during emergencies, and their hazard perception.

Many places that look dangerous have few or no accidents. Conversely, a location that does not look dangerous may have a high crash frequency. This is, in part, because if drivers perceive a location as hazardous, they take more care. Accidents may be more likely to happen when hazardous road or traffic conditions are not obvious at a glance, or where the conditions are too complicated for the limited human machine to perceive and react in the time and distance available. (This fact can be used to improve safety, by putting up signs in accident-prone locations, like ones stated above.)

This phenomenon has been observed in risk compensation research, where the predicted reductions in accident rates have not occurred after legislative or technical changes. One study observed that the introduction of improved brakes resulted in more aggressive driving, [ 13 ] and another argued that compulsory seat belt laws have not been accompanied by a clearly attributed fall in overall fatalities. [ 14 ]

In the 1990s Hans Monderman’s studies of driver behavior led him to the realization that signs and regulations had an adverse effect on a driver’s ability to interact safely with other road users. Monderman developed shared space principles, rooted in the principles of the woonerven of the 1970s. He found that the removal of highway clutter, while allowing drivers and other road users to mingle with equal priority, could help drivers recognize environmental clues. They relied on their cognitive skills alone, reducing traffic speeds radically and resulting in lower levels of road casualties and lower levels of congestion. [ 15 ]

Motor vehicle speed

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration review research on traffic speed in 1998. [ 18 ] The summary states:

The Road and Traffic Authority (RTA) of the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW) asserts speeding (travelling too fast for the prevailing conditions or above the posted speed limit [ 19 ] ) is a factor in about 40 percent of road deaths. [ 20 ] The RTA also say speeding increases the risk of a crash and its severity. [ 20 ] On another webpage, the RTA qualify their claims by referring to one specific piece of research from 1997, and stating «research has shown that the risk of a crash causing death or injury increases rapidly, even with small increases above an appropriately set speed limit.» [ 21 ]

The contributory factor report in the official British road casualty statistics show for 2006, that «exceeding speed limit» was a contributory factor in 5% of all casualty crashes (14% of all fatal crashes), and that «travelling too fast for conditions» was a contributory factor in 11% of all casualty crashes (18% of all fatal crashes). [ 22 ]

Driver impairment

Driver impairment describes factors that prevent the driver from driving at their normal level of skill. Common impairments include:

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Auto Collision Tips

Staying Calm and on Task After an Auto Collision Can Save Lives and Get You Back on the Road Quickly

An auto collision can be an emotional and exhausting experience. Many motorists drive defensively, take driver education courses and prepare for stressful driving situations, but unfortunately vehicle collisions still occur.

A driver is responsible for knowing what to do if they are involved in a collision. Even the most prepared and competent drivers sometimes find themselves involved in a crash. It does not matter who is at fault, the most important thing to do first is make sure everyone is OK, then seek medical and law enforcement help and know what to do to protect yourself from legal or financial problems down the road.

The best defense to avoid any problems after a crash is to be prepared. Keeping a pen and paper, disposable camera or cell phone camera, and copy of your insurance card easily accessible at all times will help keep you organized and decrease stress moments after a collision. Use of a mobile app such as AAA Insurance can help you properly document the event.

After stopping your vehicle, AAA recommends all motorists involved in an auto crash follow these steps:

1. Assist the Injured. Quickly check with those involved in the collision to determine if there are any injuries. If medical attention is needed, call 9-1-1. If medical attention is not needed, make sure you are not in imminent danger at the roadside.

2. Control the Scene. Before taking time to exchange information, get to a safe place. If there are no injuries and the vehicle is drivable, safely move to the right or left emergency lane. Some state laws require drivable vehicles to be removed from the roadway to avoid traffic congestion. Turn on your hazard lights and set out warning flares or reflective triangles. Do not leave the scene of the crash, but find a safe place to remain until emergency services arrive.

3. Notify the Police and Submit a Report. The law requires you notify the police. No matter what either party says, call the police and file a report. If the police do not come to the scene to open an investigation, you can file a report by visiting a local police department or automobile insurance agency in the days after a crash. Having a report on file may help later if a liability claim is filed.

4. Document the Scene and Exchange Information. It is important to exchange and gather information with all parties involved in the crash, including witnesses. Having this on file will help complete any future paperwork or address potential problems. AAA suggests that you document:

5. Notify Your Insurance Carrier. Your insurance carrier will need to be notified following a crash to start the proper claim filing. Many insurance companies have staff available 24/7 and can assist immediately. Having proof of insurance in your vehicle is required by law and makes filing a claim easier if not at home.

6. Get Your Vehicle Repaired. You have the right to get your vehicle repaired at body shop of your own choosing. In addition to facilities suggested by your insurance company, consider a quality AAA Approved Auto Body shop which can be found by visiting www.AAA.com/Repair.

7. Unattended Vehicle or Property. If you are involved in a crash that involves an unattended vehicle or property, take action to inform the owner. If you cannot locate the owner, attach a written notice of the collision to the vehicle or property, being sure to include your contact information and information listed above.

Drivers and owners of motor vehicles must be prepared to assume legal and financial responsibility if involved in a crash, do not to let your emotions and feelings get in the way of deciding who is at fault. Never allow yourself to be pressured into admitting fault or giving an opinion about the cause of a crash. If you wish, you can consult with an attorney before giving a statement.