The amount of safety features incorporated into modern cars is unreal. I've seen crashes where the car flipped over and the occupant only had minor injuries. My dad was t-boned by someone speeding off the highway and walked away with a broken arm. The car was completely smashed except for the passenger compartment, which was curtained on all sides with airbags. That one manufacturer has decided they are exempt from implementing all these advancements disgusting and terrifying
When I was going through driver's ed I was taught that the steering column would stab through your chest if you crashed head on and that was just the way it was. We do not want to go back, not even a little
The point of car safety features is that the car is supposed to die in an accident so you don't have to. Your car should be a pile of smoking rubble after an accident, and you should be fine.
I totaled my first car. Like, the car itself just stopped where the windshield met the dashboard. Ahead of that point, there was no more car. It was gone.
Me? I had some really spectacular bruises and a lil friction burn on my nose from where Mr. Airbag and Ms. Glasses had a disagreement. That's it. That's it.
I was driving a little tiny coupe and went more or less head-on with a pickup truck. The entire engine and hood of my car was twisted rubble that was not connected to the rest of the car afterward. I sat down on the verge, about twenty or thirty feet from the accident, while I waited for the cops and EMTs to work their way through the traffic backup to get to us, and found that I was sitting beside one of the headlights of my car. The whole entire headlight, bulb and reflector and cover and frame and all.
All I had were bruises and that little friction burn. That's it.
Crumple zones save lives. So do seatbelts and airbags; half the bruising was the exact shape of my seatbelt in livid crimson and black on my torso. It was and remains the most insanely intense bruising I have ever experienced in my life. BUT IT WAS JUST BRUISING!! Unpleasant, sure, but eminently survivable and didn't even require much treatment beyond not wearing a bra for a few days. But all the force that created that spectacular bruising was force that wasn't flinging me through the windshield or impaling me on the steering column. My car crumpled and crushed and dissolved but it held me safe and secure and protected.
Crumple zones save lives. You do not want your car to look undamaged after the accident, because that means it made like a Newton's Cradle and passed every bit of the impact straight through to your soft and highly crushable body.
This is not my usual content, but as a result of my job, I see the aftermath of many extremely fatal car crashes. And I will add, just to emphasize: your car is the product of thousands of engineers and decades of research aimed towards the goal of protecting your body in its seat inside the car. However: this relies, significantly, on your body staying in its seat. Your seatbelt is crucially important in keeping you alive. With your seatbelt, you are locked into the safest place in your vehicle. Without your seatbelt, you are a soft projectile in a rapidly collapsing metal structure. Wear your seatbelt.
And the primary lesson? REGULATIONS ARE WRITTEN IN BLOOD.
Your blood. Your ancestors' blood. Your friends' blood. Your families blood.
Those who want to abolish regulations? Fuck them.
