If you are driving 25 mph, and hit a car head on that is also going 25 mph, is it the same as hitting a tree going 50 mph?
by 
Area51
ANSWERS: 8
-
I dont think so.. the reason being that the damage doesnt "double" at a higher speed it gets exponetial higher... my guess is hitting a tree at 50mph is worse...
-
my guess would be that hitting a tree at fifty mph is a lot worse because the two cars at 25 each will both begin crushing and that will absorb some of the shock. with hitting the tree you have twice the speed but only one half of the ammount of metal that is being crushed.
-
You don't see many trees travelling at 50 mph, they are usually stationery.
-
No. If the cars have the same total weight, hitting one going the same speed as you are means that his speed cancels out your speed. In other words, the head-on that you have described is the same as hitting a tree while going 25. What changes the equation is that vehicles aren't always going the same speed--one may hit the brakes, for example--and that one may weigh twice as much as the other. In that case, the heavier car would feel like it had hit a tree at 12-1/2 MPH but the lighter car would feel like it had hit a tree at 37-1/2 MPH. Why don't highway departments put rumble strips on center lines? I mean the same kind of grooves in the road itself that warn you that you're running onto the freeway shoulder? It would stop a lot of head-ons, which tend to be the worst crashes.
-
It would be the same thing. The momentum of the two cars at 25 mph would have to double. So yes it is the same.
-
If I remember by physics correctly... Kinetic Energy is equal to 1/2 mass times velocity squared. If you assume that the mass of the tree is the same as the mass of the car and the tree is on wheels to eliminate the effect of the friction of the roots on the soil you can drop the mass out of the equation... 50 squared is greater than 25 squared plus 25 squared. I think this shows there is more energy involved in hitting a tree at 50 mph than a head on collision of 2 cars going 25 mph. 1/2 m(25^2)+ 1/2 m(25^2) < 1/2 m(50^2) + 1/2 m(0^2) 1250 < 2500
-
There IS a difference, Squid, but we are assuming that a tree is big enough that it won't break off. Let's take a stone wall instead of a tree--it just stays there and doesn't "give." A head-on with a car the same size going the same speed has the same impact as a stone wall--we studied this in physics. But a parked car will NOT stay in the same place--it will slide quite a few feet in front of you before the fact that its own "brakes" are locked by the transmission will bring you both to a stop. Plus the fact that the crumple zone of the parked car will also absorb a lot of energy. If you are going to crash, it's better to hit a car than a wall or a big tree. Incidentally, a police chaplain called the Dennis Prager Show not long ago and said he's found that a LOT of people have fatal accidents because they swerve to avoid hitting animals. Don't do it! Hit your brakes, but stay in your lane! Hit the animal and live instead of causing death or injury to people.
-
in terms of physics, it is different. your momentum (noted as F) is F=mv with m= mass and v= velocity. By Law, energy is neither lost nor gained, but rather transfered. when you hit a moving car, you absorb some of its energy, and you as the driver would fly less. But when you hit the tree, the tree absorbs more of your energy thus making you hit it harder and fly more. Also if you are both driving at 25 mph, the only variable unanswered is mass. Assuming the two cars' masses are relitively the same, the momentum would be equal, thus causing less of an impact. However, a tree's mass is different from a cars, so the impact would be greater.
El Soupy RELATED QUESTIONS
Copyright 2023, Wired Ivy, LLC