>From the standpoint of traffic accident reconstruction, the important
'vector'
is "Delta V", or change of velocity.
Okay, I'm going to jump into this with no scientific background, but a
"hunch" about why some accidents result in catastrophic injuries and other,
similar accidents allow the driver to walk away.
My belief is that some impacts convey more energy to the driver than others.
This is mainly because of the way the energy is accepted by the car
(chassis?) and transferred. Sometimes the chassis/body accepts the bulk of
the energy; sometimes it transfers it. It's like an impact sometimes finds
a "sweet spot" in the chassis design and transfers, rather than dissipates,
the energy. In those cases, the driver accepts a tremendous force.
If you watch Earnhart's wreck, you realize that the actual impact with the
wall was fairly incidental. But fatal. Could he have struck the wall at an
angle that his chassis design just happened to allow the maximum impact to
be transferred to the driver, as opposed to the body/chassis? Don't know,
and I have sent my theory to NASCAR with no reply.
But, having said all that, and after racing for 25 years or so without a
neck restraint device...and not racing the past two years...I probably won't
get into another race car without a neck restraint because it just simply
makes sense to attempt to keep your head from trying to separate from your
neck in a severe impact. It doesn't need to be head-on if my theory is
correct. It only has to be at the "perfect storm" angle that transfers an
tremendous amount of energy to the driver.
If you think I take a scientific approach to racing, let me also admit I
never enter the race car without my plastic/rubber dinosaur either on the
dash or in my pocket. I found it at a race track years ago and it has
served me well. Two inches or so long, and probably lost by a child years
ago, but he/she has been my guardian angel since I picked it up off the
ground. But I won't let her substitute for a neck restraint device.
Actually, she once spoke to me....Nevermind...
Rick
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