This Is Why You Shouldn't Speed!!

MA-Caver said:
A Ford Focus... hits a wall at 120 mph.
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Pretty cool, but that's about the only way a Ford Focus is ever going to get going that fast!! :lfao:

EDIT: Okay, I take it back. Several versions of the Focus can actually go a little faster than that.
 
elder999 said:
Pretty cool, but that's about the only way a Ford Focus is ever going to get going that fast!! :lfao:

EDIT: Okay, I take it back. Several versions of the Focus can actually go a little faster than that.
Click to expand...

Even if folks don't go that fast, what makes them think the impact is going to be any less at say 85 or 90 mph? Or even 70?
Even if this particular Focus was equip with airbags it wouldn't have saved them in the slightest.
It's (part of the reason) why State Troopers patrol the highways and pull over speeders, administer alcohol tests and write tickets.
I've given up driving fast long time ago because I realized that I'm not going to get there any quicker at 70 than I am at 55 or 60 mph. When I'm in the rain I tend to slow it down to 45 or 50... doing that saved my life and the life of a guy who had his truck spun out in the road and he was trying to push it to the shoulder. Had I not pumped the brakes and been going a little faster... squish and crunch.
 
MA-Caver said:
I've given up driving fast long time ago because I realized that I'm not going to get there any quicker at 70 than I am at 55 or 60 mph..
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Well, yes, yes you are. If you're traveling 60 miles, say from just north of Santa Fe to Albuquerque, and traveling at 60 mph, it's going to take you an hour to get there. If you're going 75 mph, it's going to take you 48 minutes.

The speed limit on I-25 through most of New Mexico is 75. Most people drive somewhat faster.The speed limit slows down going through Santa Fe, Bernalillo and Albuquerque.

It's very dangerous to drive at 55 or 60 on this stretch of the highway. South of Albuquerque, once you get past Belen, there isn't much traffic, and driving a full 15 miles an hour below the speed limit isn't such a hazard.
 
I think the Ford Focus is a different car over your side of the Atlantic, here it's a bit of a boy racer car. The boy racers soup them up anyway. This will be why the Focus was chosen for the demo, a lot of them end up wrapped around trees and walls. The car is small and fast, the drivers often can't match it in performance.
From Wiki
In 2005 came the Ford Focus ST with a top speed of 152mph and 225bhp it was the fastest hot hatch of the time until 2009 with the release of the second RS model with 162mph and 300bhp it was one never to beat, until the launch of the Ford Focus RS500 in 2011, which had a top speed of 163mph and 350bhp.

They are popular as police cars, as rally cars and racing cars because of their speed.
 
Tez3 said:
I think the Ford Focus is a different car over your side of the Atlantic, here it's a bit of a boy racer car. The boy racers soup them up anyway. This will be why the Focus was chosen for the demo, a lot of them end up wrapped around trees and walls. The car is small and fast, the drivers often can't match it in performance.
From Wiki
In 2005 came the Ford Focus ST with a top speed of 152mph and 225bhp it was the fastest hot hatch of the time until 2009 with the release of the second RS model with 162mph and 300bhp it was one never to beat, until the launch of the Ford Focus RS500 in 2011, which had a top speed of 163mph and 350bhp.

They are popular as police cars, as rally cars and racing cars because of their speed.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I don't think there's a sport-tuned focus offered over here at all, though I don't follow Ford products made after 1973 very much, anyway.....sort of like the Cortina and the Capri, though-those cars got a lot more oomph! in Europe than they did over here as well......
 
Having said though it's a boy racer car I watched a programme the other day on dangerous drivers, there was the archtypal 25 yr old Essex boy with his Focus who was one of the most dangerous drivers I've ever seen! The premise of the programme was that they got a driving instructor to go with this dangerous drivers to teach them how to be safe, the one with the Essex boy however got out of the car and terminated the session saying he was a nightmare. This was because the driver insisted 30mph was speeding! he drove everywhere at an average speed of 18mph, stalled the car constantly and said that stalling a car 7-8 times a day would be normal for any driver, he drove up the middle of the road then swung and hit the kerb, he cause huge frustration in the drivers behind him, wouldn't wear his seatbelt ( compulsory here) because it creased his clothes, he texted and rang his frinds on his mobile ( both illegal here) then opened his Coke bottle with both hands while swerving across the road. His parking was non existant, he didn't park he abandoned his car. What a waste of a good car. he was a nightmare though. You wouldn't believe driving so slowly could be so dangerous.
The other drivers weren't such a problem both were women, one nagged by her husband into indecision and the other terrified of motorway driving because she'd never driven on one. Here you aren't allowed on the motorway until after you passed your test, she hadn't thought to book anymore lessons to teach her to drive on them, still she found it easy once shown how. Neither were a problem after their lessons, the Essex boy however carried on thinking he was a brilliant driver. Slow kills just as much as speed.
 
Oh, and we should consider that that 120 mph impact is representative of two cars traveling at a mere 60 mph.
 
People seem to be forgetting something. And it's something I hear in the ER all the time.

Having a lot of damage to a car after an impact is, despite what people think, a GOOD THING.

Modern cars are designed to crumple in exactly the manner pictured. That is because the more the car crumples, the more kinetic energy is absorbed BY THE CAR. That means less energy transfered to the occupants. I'd much rather see a crumpled new car than a barely dented 1960's tank. The occupants of the crumpled new car are likely to be less injured than those of the tank.
 
Dirty Dog said:
People seem to be forgetting something. And it's something I hear in the ER all the time.

Having a lot of damage to a car after an impact is, despite what people think, a GOOD THING.

Modern cars are designed to crumple in exactly the manner pictured. That is because the more the car crumples, the more kinetic energy is absorbed BY THE CAR. That means less energy transfered to the occupants. I'd much rather see a crumpled new car than a barely dented 1960's tank. The occupants of the crumpled new car are likely to be less injured than those of the tank.
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True that... but the occupants (albeit they were regular store manikins <sic> were fairly obliterated. Were they human they'd be "squished" like a bunch grapes in an angry fist. Plus experiencing (if I heard aright) 400 G's after traveling 120 mph to 0 in less than 4.6 milliseconds... even Superman probably would've stopped for a second, shook his head and said: woah!
 
Dirty Dog said:
People seem to be forgetting something. And it's something I hear in the ER all the time.

Having a lot of damage to a car after an impact is, despite what people think, a GOOD THING.

Modern cars are designed to crumple in exactly the manner pictured. That is because the more the car crumples, the more kinetic energy is absorbed BY THE CAR. That means less energy transfered to the occupants. I'd much rather see a crumpled new car than a barely dented 1960's tank. The occupants of the crumpled new car are likely to be less injured than those of the tank.
Click to expand...
Yep; we see lots more "minor" crashes with significant vehicle damage today. But we see lots fewer crashes with people with significant injuries in those same situations.

Cars today are designed to absorb the energy of a crash by crumpling, and to deflect what can't be absorbed around the passenger compartment. (That's one reason Smart Cars scare me... They have almost nowhere to absorb energy.) It sucks for fixing the car -- but I'd rather fix cars than people any day.
 
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Way back when Dodge came out with the viper, in the early90s, I was sitting having coffee with a couple of State Police patrol officertalking about the newer smaller faster cars and accidents as compared to the bigger,older cars and why a lighter smaller car is so much more expensive. One of theoffices said it was the options that the newer cars have that make them more expensive and that the Dodge Viper was a great example becauseof a little known and unpublicized option. After you hit a tree at 160 mph itis you coffin too&#8230; and just look at how expensive those things are.
 
MA-Caver said:
True that... but the occupants (albeit they were regular store manikins <sic> were fairly obliterated. Were they human they'd be "squished" like a bunch grapes in an angry fist. Plus experiencing (if I heard aright) 400 G's after traveling 120 mph to 0 in less than 4.6 milliseconds... even Superman probably would've stopped for a second, shook his head and said: woah!
Click to expand...

It doesn't really matter WHAT you're driving, if you hit a wall squarely at 120MPH. If nothing else, your heart will tear lose from your aorta. That's not survivable.

However, such a square impact is really quite rare. Even "head on" collisions are rarely really nose to nose. Offhand, I can't think of the last time I saw one that was truely nose to nose. Any offset at all will lessen the impact significantly, as the vehicles rotate around the impact point. The greater the offset, the less the actual impact.

While tests and demonstrations of this sort are a valuable lesson, they don't really reflect the sort of impacts in the vast majority of crashes.
 
Mmm, in defense of Essex boys, some of us did 120 on two wheels lol. Like the Cosworth brand, the RS pretty much lost its racing pedigree after the Sierra RS 500. The RS brand used to mean uber cool. Years ago I had the privilege of being in a Mk1 Mexico, the Escort what a classic. The modern day RS is probably a Ford, come VW and Audi lol.
 
Balrog said:
Another way to look at it: check that picture out again. That was 120 against a wall. It's also the equivalent of two 60s headon.
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For the record... no. It's not. A 60 vs 60 head on is the exact same impact as 60 vs a wall. The physics are indisputable.

The deceleration in either case is from 60MPH to zero. It makes not the slightest difference if you're decelerating from hitting a moving or stationary object.
 
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