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So bigger is safer is it........ - Altea Ego
Ford F150

www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwveim8Mzws&search=crash

VW Touran

www.youtube.com/watch?v=B__zXoBgp_4&search=crash


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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
So bigger is safer is it........ - Phil I
Ford F150 being SUV avoids compliance with build regulations. This is the hidden price you pay for this.

As an aside and absolutely not motoring relate.Are all labradors mad??.

Phil I
So bigger is safer is it........ - Adam {P}
Yes - all stark raving.

As an aside and (for once!!!!!!) completely motoring related and even thread related! (I know Dave - sit down)

Why is there so much momentum pushing the F150 into the wall? I would have thought the back would have been really light.
So bigger is safer is it........ - Chad.R
Because it's heavier perhaps?
Most of that weight will be concentrated along the axis of the (rigid) chassis and engine.


......well , that's my theory at least ;-)
So bigger is safer is it........ - Screwloose

Purely based on the visual evidence; it would appear that the Touran appears to come off less damaged when hitting a 300-tonne concrete block that someone's thoughtlessly left lying in the middle of a motorway.

The F150 squashes the alloy-honeycomb crush structure on the block much faster - probably due to it's greater mass - and then has to use the vehicle's own crumple zones to absorb the rest of it's considerable momentum. The driver still seems to suffer a less rapid and more linear deceleration than the Touran.

Heavier vehicles will always appear more damaged when hitting an immovable object due to their having to absorb massively more momentum within their own structure. In a real vehicle-on-vehicle impact their stiffer framework won't even begin to deform until it has crushed the other vehicle's soft crumple-zone into a solid mass; thereby dissipating a considerable amount of the dynamic forces externally.

What would have been even more interesting, would be to have seen the results of an offset head-on between the two vehicles. As they headed towards each other; which one would you have chosen to be sitting in - and why?
So bigger is safer is it........ - Altea Ego
So what F150 crumple zones would they be then?

It appears to me that the F150 uses the passenger cell as its crumple zone.

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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
So bigger is safer is it........ - Number_Cruncher
>>Heavier vehicles will always appear more damaged when hitting an immovable object due to their having to absorb massively more momentum within their own structure.

If the heavier vehicle were just as structurally efficient as the lighter, the damage would be comparable. In fact, you could view intrusion after an impact as a rough measure of the ratio beween the vehicles mass, and its structural efficiency in that direction or type of impact.

If, however, the heavier vehicle didn't use the extra material to provide the required extra structural stiffness (or beyond yield, more structural strength), the heavier vehicle would be damaged more.

Number_Cruncher


So bigger is safer is it........ - Altea Ego
Labs? When they smell food yes....And they are brainless!
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
So bigger is safer is it........ - Phil I
Did you see the clip of Hummer v. Honda Civic. 4 x 4 v. car rather than concrete blocks.? Its in the same group of clips.
So bigger is safer is it........ - bell boy
most labradors are" barking".
--
\"a little man in a big world/\"
So bigger is safer is it........ - JohnM{P}
All things being equal, you're better off in a heavier vehicle. However, if the bigger vehicle is built with the rigidity of a 2CV, things are not equal!
As I have posted before, when the ADAC crash tested a Golf MK3 against an Kadett/Astra many years ago, they commented that these were the first family sized cars you would survive such a crash in (things have come a lot further since then...!). When they repeated the test with a Kadett and a large Japanese 4x4 (a Nissan Patrol, if I remember correctly), the 4x4 decapitated the Kadett, but its occupants would also have been seriously injured as the floor collapsed underneath it.
It's only in the last couple of years that 4x4s have started to get crash results comparable with normal cars. (See www.euroncap.com) The video clip shows how far behind the American truck based suvs are...