<VV> Was "Corvair mentioned in another GM timeline" now "Crash Worthiness"

[RoboMan91324 at aol.com]

Harry,

You are probably referring to the tests the government conducted in 2008 
where the Smart passed quite well.  Like any car built or allowed to be sold 
in the USA, the Smart must meet or exceed crash test parameters set by the 
government.  However, the tests conducted by the Insurance Institute for 
Highway Safety (IIHS) are often more difficult and some consider them to be more 
reflective of reality.  Earlier this year, the IIHS conducted tests that do 
not leave the Smart in such good light.

Among other tests, a test they conducted was between a Smart and a Mercedes 
C Class in a head-on collision at 40 MPH.  The C Class is not one of 
Mercedes' larger vehicles.  The Smart literally went airborne.  Here is a link.

http://www.gearlog.com/2009/04/smart_fortwo_goes_airborne_in.php

Lets say the government tests assume that the vehicle hits an immovable 
object like a bridge abutment.  Of course, this is severe because the abutment 
has no crush zones and will not absorb a lot of energy.  The Smart must 
dissipate almost all of its own kinetic energy when it hits the abutment.  If 
the Smart has a head-on collision with another Smart traveling at the same 
speed, the net effect is much the same as one car hitting an abutment.  Each 
Smart dissipates the equivalent of its own energy.  I agree that the Smart is 
very well designed for safety in a world where all cars are of similar size. 
 The problem comes when the Smart has a head-on collision with a larger car 
and obviously, the vast majority of cars out there are larger than the 
Smart.  This is oversimplified but since the larger car has more kinetic energy 
than the Smart at a given speed, the Smart will experience a much more 
severe deceleration and in fact is likely to be accelerated in the opposite 
direction while the larger car decelerates less and will likely maintain some 
lower level of speed in the original direction.  The G-forces experienced by 
the passengers in the Smart will be much worse than those suffered by the 
passengers in the larger car.  

The Smart is fairly good when it comes to tests against cars of similar 
size and stationary objects but does not do so well against larger cars moving 
towards it.  This is basic Physics.

Doc
1960 Vette; 1961 Rampside; 1962 Rampside; 1964 Spyder coupe; 1965 
Greenbrier; 1966 Corsa Turbo Coupe; 1967 Nova SS; 1968 Camaro ragtop
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In a message dated 6/2/2009 7:31:03 PM Pacific Daylight Time, 
virtualvairs-request at corvair.org writes:

> Message: 4
> Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2009 19:47:02 -0400
> From: "Harry  Yarnell" <hyarnell1 at earthlink.net>
> Subject: Re: <VV> Corvair mentioned in another GM timeline
> To: "shortle" <shortle556 at earthlink.net>, <ScottyGrover at aol.com>,
>     <virtualvairs at corvair.org>
> Message-ID: <5F7AE717F22A472E94C6CDBAE123CBD3 at HEY>
> Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";
>     reply-type=original
> 
> Do some research on the crashworthyness of the Smart. I think you'll be 
> surprised.
> 
> Harry Yarnell
> Perryman garage and orphanage
> Perryman, MD
> hyarnell1 at earthlink.net


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