Car is destroyed in an accident : WTF

Might have been a few decades ago. Maybe more, can't remember exactly. It was pre-internet, at any rate. Was at one of those killer intersections on the Hauraki Plains. The family-laden car pulled out in front of a truck and trailer travelling at full highway speed, and was literally run competely over, the remains being spat out the back of the truck/trailer into the path of another truck and trailer coming at full speed from the other way - and the whole lot run over again and smashed to smithereens back towards the intersection that it had pulled out of.

I used to date a chick who's Dad was an ambo driver. She told me a few stories he'd told her; the only one I recall was - he arrived at a serious car crash. The sole female occupant in one of the smashed vehicles was seriously seriously hurt. She was alone in the car. But she had a severed thumb jammed up inside her nose and it wasn't hers.

[–]KiwiThunda 3 points4 points5 points 4 months ago

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[–]lurker_becomes_lurkd 0 points1 point2 points 4 months ago

They don't state the speed of impact on this one, but they said he was going 105+ MPH (in a related incident). Granted, the semi has a HELL of a lot more mass than a sedan, but I still don't think the vehicle would simply shatter like it did in the gif.

You can see the car in my link was certainly crushed, but not shattered. Cars aren't brittle by design. They're meant to resist an impact and transfer the force all over the chassis, not to shatter like glass.

I imagine the semi and the SUV were both going about 50 MPH, so a combined force of around 100MPH. In my link, he may have been going upwards of 100MPH himself, not counting what the speed of the other car was, and his car didn't shatter.

I'm just saying there is no evidence this is real, so it's just a matter of speculation. I'm speculating that it is fake. It is overly dramatic.

[–]mypantsareonmyhead 0 points1 point2 points 4 months ago

Ever seen this footage? I know it's an extreme example, but it gives a really good illustration of what can happen to "solid metal" when the energy levels are high enough. In this video, the 'solid metal' is literally atomised. Modern cars/trucks have almost as much plastic on the external bodywork as metal. Bumpers, trims, mirrors, etc etc. That contributes to the 'parts flying everywhere like lego' effect you're seeing.

The impact velocity in the SUV vs semi was probably about 100mph, but the force I think is something like an inverse square law. (We need an engineer to verify that for us). So the energy/destructive forces go off the scale with small increases in velocity.

I've seen very many vehicle crashes reported over the years where police have said they were unsure of the model of the vehicle. They knew the make because they found a badge still in the centre of one of the rims. Total destruction.