WEBVTT - What's the deal with crash testing? 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:04.280 Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of I 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:13.240 Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, 0:00:13.240 --> 0:00:15.640 and there's Chuck and there's Jerry over there, and this 0:00:15.760 --> 0:00:21.120 is stuff you should know the podcast. All right, we've 0:00:21.160 --> 0:00:25.840 done one on air bags, right, Which one did we 0:00:25.920 --> 0:00:28.760 do that was all about like the crumple zones and 0:00:28.880 --> 0:00:32.319 all that stuff. That's a great question, Chuck. I've been 0:00:32.440 --> 0:00:35.640 really trying to figure that out. I think it must 0:00:35.640 --> 0:00:41.080 have been Pinto's what was it. I know that we 0:00:41.159 --> 0:00:43.720 talked a lot about car safety and engineering and how 0:00:45.080 --> 0:00:47.920 I don't know, Man, I don't know. I'm suddenly creeped out. 0:00:48.360 --> 0:00:51.400 Are you confident we have not done this one? I 0:00:51.440 --> 0:00:57.000 would put my confidence at I searched so far and wide, 0:00:58.760 --> 0:01:01.240 all right, which is we've three that is well above 0:01:01.320 --> 0:01:06.640 the fifty threshold that we required to possibly rerecording. Like, 0:01:06.680 --> 0:01:10.240 none of this, none of this seemed particularly familiar. We've 0:01:10.319 --> 0:01:13.080 definitely talked about something like crumple zones, that kind of thing, 0:01:13.200 --> 0:01:16.720 because we've talked about how cars we like I used 0:01:16.720 --> 0:01:19.800 to think they were pieces of junk now, but they're 0:01:19.800 --> 0:01:23.080 actually designed to come apart like that because in doing so, 0:01:23.440 --> 0:01:28.360 they protect the people inside. We've definitely talked about that, 0:01:28.840 --> 0:01:32.039 but and that really applies to what we're about to 0:01:32.040 --> 0:01:34.399 talk about. But the actual details of what we're about 0:01:34.440 --> 0:01:37.760 to talk about, I don't recognize them as familiar. Alright, 0:01:38.280 --> 0:01:43.440 forward forward we go. So so cars have become exponentially 0:01:43.520 --> 0:01:46.800 safer than they used to be. UM. There's, first of all, 0:01:46.920 --> 0:01:49.360 hats off to not only the house stuff Works article 0:01:49.400 --> 0:01:53.040 were working from UM, but also a Consumer Reports article 0:01:53.240 --> 0:01:55.760 on crash testing that was really great, and then one 0:01:55.880 --> 0:01:59.320 from Jelopnick that was a really great one about crash 0:01:59.360 --> 0:02:02.640 testing your are And on that Gelopnic article, that's a 0:02:02.680 --> 0:02:06.960 great website. It is, it's wonderful. UM. On that Gelopnic article, 0:02:07.040 --> 0:02:10.280 they posted a YouTube video that made the rounds like 0:02:10.320 --> 0:02:13.240 a few years back, UM, and it's a it's a 0:02:13.240 --> 0:02:18.400 two thousand nine Malibu versus a nine bel Air and 0:02:18.480 --> 0:02:21.960 they go head on and the the dummy and the 0:02:22.000 --> 0:02:25.200 Malibu is like what, I didn't even notice anything, and 0:02:25.240 --> 0:02:29.160 the person in the bell Air just disintegrates. Basically, the 0:02:29.560 --> 0:02:31.920 crash test dummy and the bell are just disintegrates. Because 0:02:32.320 --> 0:02:36.360 cars used to be made too to be sturdy. But 0:02:36.440 --> 0:02:39.399 that's really bad for you in the car nowadays, they're 0:02:39.400 --> 0:02:42.639 made to not be sturdy, and that moves the force 0:02:42.680 --> 0:02:45.280 and the energy of the impact around the car and 0:02:45.360 --> 0:02:49.440 not into you. And the reason why cars are so 0:02:49.520 --> 0:02:53.000 much better these days now is because we started crash 0:02:53.080 --> 0:02:56.000 testing them, and the people who test them, who crash 0:02:56.080 --> 0:02:59.640 test them, started telling the public, Hey, this car doesn't 0:02:59.680 --> 0:03:02.560 due very well in a crash test. Uh, this car 0:03:02.680 --> 0:03:05.640 does really great in a crash test. And people started 0:03:05.680 --> 0:03:07.480 to kind of sit up and listen and go, oh, wait, 0:03:07.520 --> 0:03:09.480 we can survive a crash now if we buy a 0:03:09.480 --> 0:03:13.040 certain car. Let's go buy that car. And then automakers 0:03:13.360 --> 0:03:15.560 started to try to keep up and catch up, and 0:03:16.000 --> 0:03:18.880 safety became an important thing. And again it was almost 0:03:18.880 --> 0:03:22.840 exclusively thanks to crash testing. Yeah, car maker said, I 0:03:22.919 --> 0:03:25.560 guess we all got to start making things go again 0:03:25.960 --> 0:03:30.919 to nanny state. All right, So let's go back a 0:03:30.960 --> 0:03:33.280 little bit. We'll talk very briefly about the history of 0:03:33.280 --> 0:03:36.720 crash testing, because, like you said, in the early days, 0:03:36.760 --> 0:03:40.680 it was basically, if a car performed well out there 0:03:40.680 --> 0:03:44.120 on the road, um, then great, that's kind of we 0:03:44.240 --> 0:03:46.680 care about driving the car, not crashing the car. Why 0:03:46.680 --> 0:03:50.800 would anyone care about that? And then in nineteen thirty four, 0:03:51.680 --> 0:03:54.600 General Motors said, you know what, maybe we should crash 0:03:54.640 --> 0:03:57.680 a car because it turns out that you can die 0:03:58.280 --> 0:04:01.200 when you crash these things, so maybe we should look 0:04:01.200 --> 0:04:04.520 into this. So GM held the very first barrier test 0:04:04.600 --> 0:04:08.360 at Milford Proving Ground in Michigan in n with an 0:04:08.400 --> 0:04:12.120 unoccupied vehicle, and they would do this in different ways. 0:04:12.160 --> 0:04:16.160 Sometimes they would like cartoon style, actually in both cases 0:04:16.200 --> 0:04:19.360 cartoon style, just like release the emergency brake and give 0:04:19.400 --> 0:04:22.440 it a push down the hill. Or they would say, hey, driver, 0:04:22.560 --> 0:04:25.120 get in there, and as you approach that brick wall, 0:04:25.760 --> 0:04:31.360 um jump out. And they said, okay, I guess that's fine. Um, 0:04:31.440 --> 0:04:33.320 how much are you gonna pay me for that? I 0:04:33.320 --> 0:04:35.600 don't worry about that, don't you a prisoner from a 0:04:35.680 --> 0:04:40.279 chain gang? Nothing? Right? So uh, these early tests, again, 0:04:40.320 --> 0:04:43.560 they weren't too protect people. They were just to try 0:04:43.640 --> 0:04:45.920 and make sure the car could hold up a little better. 0:04:47.600 --> 0:04:50.560 And so other car companies, as they started building cars, 0:04:50.600 --> 0:04:54.120 started doing this. They didn't have proving grounds necessarily, so 0:04:54.240 --> 0:04:57.800 sometimes they would even do this on public roads, which 0:04:57.880 --> 0:05:01.039 was nuts. Uh. And then a ninth fifty two, a 0:05:01.080 --> 0:05:06.000 man named Sam Alderson really changed the game when he 0:05:06.040 --> 0:05:11.159 founded Alderson Research Laboratories, which would later on become something 0:05:11.200 --> 0:05:14.560 you may have heard of called human eddics. Uh. They 0:05:14.800 --> 0:05:17.920 were doing they won the very first contract to create 0:05:18.320 --> 0:05:24.000 anthropomorphic dummies for testing airplanes and spacecraft, like ejection seats, 0:05:24.000 --> 0:05:26.720 that kind of thing. And then eventually they said they 0:05:26.720 --> 0:05:29.480 were using like sandbags and stuff like that, and eventually 0:05:29.520 --> 0:05:31.640 they said, hey, wait a minute, you could do this 0:05:31.720 --> 0:05:35.720 in cars too. So he got together with Sierra Engineering, 0:05:36.160 --> 0:05:39.760 the Sierra Engineering Company, and created the very first crash 0:05:39.839 --> 0:05:43.720 test dummy, Sierra Sam. Oh, that's right. We talked about 0:05:43.720 --> 0:05:48.560 Sierra Sam in the Murphy's Law episode. Okay, maybe it's 0:05:48.600 --> 0:05:50.680 just a bunch of stuff cobbled together. It makes me 0:05:50.680 --> 0:05:54.000 think we did this one possible, But Sierra Sam came along. 0:05:54.080 --> 0:05:57.440 They applied all these concepts to automotive testing. And Sam 0:05:57.440 --> 0:06:00.880 Alderson is sort of a legend now. He side at 0:06:00.880 --> 0:06:02.839 the age of ninety and two thousand five and was 0:06:02.920 --> 0:06:08.680 posthumously inducted into the National Inventor's Halma Fame. In with 0:06:08.720 --> 0:06:12.680 a lot of inventions, but largely this crash testumy patent 0:06:12.680 --> 0:06:15.919 did one was the big one. Yeah, so was that 0:06:16.040 --> 0:06:20.240 the one that was called the high hybrid three um 0:06:20.279 --> 0:06:23.720 the Hybrid three and this is still human edics by 0:06:23.760 --> 0:06:26.840 the way, that makes these Yeah, they're they're like the Yeah, 0:06:26.920 --> 0:06:29.719 they're like as good as it gets with crash test dummy, create, 0:06:29.839 --> 0:06:33.479 design and creation. Yeah, was when the hybrid three was 0:06:33.560 --> 0:06:36.680 first developed, and then I think they upgraded it in 0:06:36.800 --> 0:06:41.440 ninety one to take seatbelts into consideration, and then in 0:06:41.520 --> 0:06:45.760 ninety seven to take air bags into consideration. And now 0:06:45.839 --> 0:06:48.200 the standard and we'll get to why they did this, 0:06:48.960 --> 0:06:54.919 is the H three five F meaning fifth female. So 0:06:55.080 --> 0:06:59.760 the fifth, fifth percentile size wise female is the standard 0:07:00.040 --> 0:07:03.040 me that's used. Now, that's great, and that's a huge, 0:07:03.360 --> 0:07:09.520 huge progression because for decades and decades they used what 0:07:09.760 --> 0:07:15.920 was known as the fiftieth percentile male dummy, which which 0:07:16.040 --> 0:07:19.520 was yeah, five ft ten inches, hundred and seventy pounds. 0:07:20.000 --> 0:07:22.320 And he was introduced from what I saw in nineteen 0:07:22.400 --> 0:07:25.800 seventies six, at a time when the average male in 0:07:25.840 --> 0:07:30.840 the United States was five ten hundred and seventy pounds. Well, 0:07:30.840 --> 0:07:32.600 the average male in the United States has not been 0:07:32.640 --> 0:07:37.400 five seventy pounds for a really long time. They the 0:07:37.600 --> 0:07:40.920 average males gained about twenty five pounds and shrunken inch 0:07:41.040 --> 0:07:45.600 since then, that's the average male in the United States now. 0:07:45.880 --> 0:07:48.400 But the problem is is like these crash testers were 0:07:48.400 --> 0:07:52.360 still using that that um fiftie percentile male male dummy 0:07:52.600 --> 0:07:55.360 even though it didn't apply. And that's not to say 0:07:55.400 --> 0:08:01.480 anything about child dummies, female dummies. Um they were. It 0:08:01.520 --> 0:08:03.240 was basically like you know how when they test a 0:08:03.240 --> 0:08:07.240 new drug, they tested on the healthiest, least vulnerable population 0:08:07.280 --> 0:08:10.600 and then say it works. That's exactly what the history 0:08:10.600 --> 0:08:13.800 of crash testing has done. Uh. And but only in 0:08:13.800 --> 0:08:17.080 the last I don't know, probably ten ten years or 0:08:17.120 --> 0:08:19.960 so have they really been like, no, we really need 0:08:20.000 --> 0:08:23.760 to expand the types of dummies that we're using. So 0:08:23.800 --> 0:08:26.480 they're coming up with they're using female dummies more frequently, 0:08:26.640 --> 0:08:30.440 child dummies more frequently, obese dummies because apparently an obese 0:08:30.440 --> 0:08:34.280 person is about seventy percent likelier to die in a 0:08:34.280 --> 0:08:37.280 car accident than a non obese person. So they're now 0:08:37.320 --> 0:08:40.520 creating obese dummies to get a better idea of just 0:08:40.559 --> 0:08:43.480 how safe these actually are and as close to a 0:08:43.559 --> 0:08:47.240 real world application as possible. Yeah, And I mean the 0:08:47.280 --> 0:08:51.160 way I read this is at some point they said, well, 0:08:51.200 --> 0:08:53.360 we need to make these safe for all drivers, So 0:08:53.400 --> 0:08:57.280 what's the most vulnerable driver probably and they all said, well, 0:08:57.320 --> 0:09:01.280 I guess a sixteen year old girl m is, you know, 0:09:01.360 --> 0:09:06.800 statistically most likely to be probably the smallest version of 0:09:06.840 --> 0:09:09.080 these dummies. So that's what they went with. They went 0:09:09.120 --> 0:09:14.640 with the fifth percentile UH female hybrid three. And I 0:09:14.640 --> 0:09:17.599 guess the reckoning is if it can be safe for them, 0:09:17.679 --> 0:09:20.360 then it can be safe for that dumb, average male. 0:09:20.920 --> 0:09:24.800 It's pretty great. Yeah, there's but it's still not required. 0:09:24.840 --> 0:09:28.280 There's actually a representative, a congresswoman from d C named 0:09:28.280 --> 0:09:31.640 Eleanor Holmes Norton, who just this past June introduced a 0:09:31.679 --> 0:09:35.880 bill that would require UM crash testers to also use 0:09:36.520 --> 0:09:39.600 UM female dummies too. So right now it's not it's 0:09:39.600 --> 0:09:42.640 not range. Of course they should use. Range is just 0:09:42.720 --> 0:09:45.080 sensible and so that you know, the people who do 0:09:45.160 --> 0:09:47.240 crash testing are aware of this and they're starting to. 0:09:47.720 --> 0:09:51.840 But there's one other thing I saw about crash test dummies. UM. 0:09:51.960 --> 0:09:55.560 One of the things they can't replicate is tissue damage, 0:09:56.200 --> 0:09:59.520 but even real damage like when when you do crash tests. 0:09:59.520 --> 0:10:01.800 We'll talk to about a little more detail in a second, 0:10:01.800 --> 0:10:04.400 but UM, when you use a dummy for that kind 0:10:04.440 --> 0:10:07.480 of thing, they're outfitted with loads of different kinds of sensors, 0:10:07.559 --> 0:10:11.320 hundreds of sensors, recording all this amazing data, and then 0:10:11.360 --> 0:10:16.120 they take that data and they they basically turned it 0:10:16.160 --> 0:10:20.160 into a statistical likelihood that that amount of force, that 0:10:20.240 --> 0:10:25.320 amount of acceleration um, that amount of g's suddenly pressing 0:10:25.360 --> 0:10:28.640 on your chest would cause an injury or not. That's 0:10:28.720 --> 0:10:31.679 what crash test dummies do for us. But they don't 0:10:31.679 --> 0:10:35.040 actually replicate like tissue damage or your leg falling off 0:10:35.120 --> 0:10:38.240 or anything like that um because they're made to be 0:10:38.360 --> 0:10:41.040 used over and over and over again so that they 0:10:41.080 --> 0:10:43.559 could be subjected to the kinds of stuff that would 0:10:43.559 --> 0:10:48.280 just destroy human body. So some crash testing chuck chuck. 0:10:48.640 --> 0:10:53.840 Some crash testing uses post mortem human subjects. I wondered 0:10:53.840 --> 0:10:57.120 if that's where this is going. A lot of post 0:10:57.200 --> 0:11:00.760 mortem human subjects, some of them embalmed, which we failed 0:11:00.760 --> 0:11:04.200 to mention in our embalming episode, some fresh. They call 0:11:04.280 --> 0:11:07.400 them fresh because an embalmed one is just not going 0:11:07.480 --> 0:11:12.600 to replicate the kind of yuck sure that a fresh 0:11:12.640 --> 0:11:15.600 one well. And so that's a huge part of crash testing, 0:11:15.640 --> 0:11:18.360 from what I can tell, is using post mortem human 0:11:18.400 --> 0:11:23.120 subjects as well. Wow, that's amazing um. And we should 0:11:23.120 --> 0:11:25.040 also point out maybe we'll take a break, but before 0:11:25.040 --> 0:11:27.840 we take one, we should point out that this that 0:11:27.920 --> 0:11:32.560 car companies do all kinds of internal crash testing before 0:11:32.600 --> 0:11:36.400 they get to the regulatory crash testing because you don't 0:11:36.400 --> 0:11:39.040 want to you don't want to fail those, So they 0:11:39.120 --> 0:11:43.160 they'll crash eighty two d new vehicles in a line 0:11:43.800 --> 0:11:46.640 before they even get to their regulatory bodies to do 0:11:46.720 --> 0:11:50.360 their official crashes. And what we're mainly talking about is 0:11:50.400 --> 0:11:53.679 those official crashes, but I imagine they're all pretty similar. 0:11:54.000 --> 0:11:57.199 Now we should also say those official crashes there, they're 0:11:57.200 --> 0:12:01.120 not even necessarily official. Basically, the NASH No Highway trans 0:12:01.520 --> 0:12:05.280 Traffic Safety Administration has a bunch of guidelines, some of 0:12:05.320 --> 0:12:08.760 them involving crashes, and then they basically say, these are 0:12:08.760 --> 0:12:11.960 the guidelines. You met you you car makers better meet them, 0:12:12.000 --> 0:12:15.560 but they don't go and actually like test the cars 0:12:15.679 --> 0:12:18.760 for that. The crashing that they're doing is beyond the 0:12:18.840 --> 0:12:24.560 minimum the law requires, so nobody's actually testing the the 0:12:24.720 --> 0:12:28.600 auto makers cars to to see that they meet the 0:12:28.640 --> 0:12:32.800 minimum requirements. It's just the threat of basically being sued 0:12:32.840 --> 0:12:37.800 into oblivion for not meeting those minimum standards is um 0:12:37.960 --> 0:12:40.760 is what keeps the car makers honest. And then that 0:12:40.920 --> 0:12:42.920 and then one other thing I saw from that Jelopnick 0:12:43.160 --> 0:12:48.000 article is the minimum legal standards that a car can 0:12:48.000 --> 0:12:51.000 be put out on an American road are so low 0:12:52.320 --> 0:13:02.200 that they they so vastly, like like under under meat, undersatisfy. Yes, 0:13:02.280 --> 0:13:06.040 thank you, Charles, They so vastly undersatisfy what the average 0:13:06.040 --> 0:13:09.680 American would be willing to get in and drive. That 0:13:09.960 --> 0:13:12.520 just you know what Americans want to drive as far 0:13:12.520 --> 0:13:16.080 as safety is concerned. Is one of is that that's 0:13:16.120 --> 0:13:19.600 what carmakers are meeting, not just the minimum legal requirements. 0:13:19.600 --> 0:13:22.480 So interesting, you're probably your car is probably going to 0:13:22.520 --> 0:13:25.200 exceed those minimum legal requirements. You don't really have to 0:13:25.240 --> 0:13:27.920 worry about that in the United States, right, and then 0:13:28.160 --> 0:13:31.120 we'll talk about this at the end. Their tests completely 0:13:31.160 --> 0:13:33.839 separate that done by the Insurance Institute for How We 0:13:33.920 --> 0:13:39.679 Safety that are even more different, more robusts. Great set up, 0:13:39.960 --> 0:13:43.600 my friend, Chuck, Great set up to you, my friend. 0:13:44.040 --> 0:13:45.559 Can we just stop now or do we have to 0:13:45.600 --> 0:13:49.080 come back? We probably already did this episode anyway, so 0:13:49.160 --> 0:13:51.280 we can just stop, all right, Well we'll be back 0:13:51.360 --> 0:13:56.480 right after this anyway. Well, now we're on the road 0:13:57.120 --> 0:13:59.760 driving in your truck. Want to learn a thing or 0:13:59.800 --> 0:14:22.720 two from Josh Chuck, you should know all right, all right, 0:14:22.920 --> 0:14:25.800 so we laid the groundwork here. We know they're crashing 0:14:25.840 --> 0:14:29.120 some cars a lot, all in the name of making 0:14:29.120 --> 0:14:32.200 things safe for us. But we know that they're not saying, uh, 0:14:32.240 --> 0:14:34.680 they're not like it's not like GM says, all right, 0:14:34.720 --> 0:14:37.800 here's here's the car. Go tell us if it's okay. 0:14:38.360 --> 0:14:42.600 It's it's a voluntary thing sort of um like good 0:14:42.680 --> 0:14:45.239 luck selling cars if you don't. But sure it's voluntary. 0:14:46.200 --> 0:14:50.720 And they're loaded with seven with sensors. Like you said, 0:14:50.720 --> 0:14:54.840 they're accelerometers, h and accelerometers are going to measure acceleration 0:14:54.920 --> 0:14:59.680 in a particular direction. They used this obviously to determine 0:14:59.680 --> 0:15:03.320 if you might get injured. Um. Acceleration is the rate 0:15:03.360 --> 0:15:06.920 at which speed changes. So if you're driving a car 0:15:07.040 --> 0:15:09.880 and uh, you let's say there were no air bags 0:15:09.920 --> 0:15:12.000 back in the day and no seat belts and your 0:15:12.000 --> 0:15:16.640 head hits that windshield, the acceleration from your head flying 0:15:16.680 --> 0:15:19.960 forward to hitting uh not zero because it's going to 0:15:20.040 --> 0:15:23.080 go through the windshield. Um, but it's gonna decrease really 0:15:23.120 --> 0:15:27.240 really fast, and that that rate of acceleration change is 0:15:27.800 --> 0:15:33.440 the danger, and making car safe is all about softening 0:15:33.480 --> 0:15:37.080 that and lessening that kinetic energy of your body and 0:15:37.120 --> 0:15:40.720 that car's energy going from whatever speed it's going through 0:15:40.800 --> 0:15:44.040 to zero. Yeah, because yeah, you and the car are 0:15:44.040 --> 0:15:46.920 both traveling the same speed and you you both have 0:15:47.080 --> 0:15:50.680 to stop pretty quickly. Um, you want to cut down 0:15:50.680 --> 0:15:54.800 in the car transferring it's kinetic energy to you, and 0:15:54.840 --> 0:15:57.880 then you want to cut down on your kinetic energy. Like, 0:15:58.160 --> 0:16:00.640 if you're gonna have to transfer your kinetic energy is something, 0:16:00.720 --> 0:16:03.360 let it be like an air bag or something like that, 0:16:03.480 --> 0:16:06.480 rather than the dashboard. Right. So that's why they have 0:16:06.560 --> 0:16:09.640 these accelerometers all over the place. They're in your head, 0:16:09.640 --> 0:16:11.960 they're in the chest, they're in the pelvis, they're in 0:16:12.520 --> 0:16:15.520 kind of everybody part you can think of their accelerometers. 0:16:15.680 --> 0:16:17.320 And it's it's neat. Like I was saying, like the 0:16:17.600 --> 0:16:22.080 the crush test dummies, the anthropomorphic test devices is what 0:16:22.120 --> 0:16:25.560 they're called in the industry. Um, they are getting more 0:16:25.600 --> 0:16:30.480 and more um bio fedelic like they're they're faithful to 0:16:31.000 --> 0:16:35.360 biology is basically what that word means. Um. And so 0:16:35.920 --> 0:16:39.000 you're you're finding crashed stummies. They are starting to have 0:16:39.080 --> 0:16:43.520 like simulated internal organs and all that stuff, because I mean, 0:16:43.560 --> 0:16:45.960 I can guess if you're in the industry, you probably 0:16:45.960 --> 0:16:48.400 don't really want to deal with post mortem human subjects. 0:16:48.440 --> 0:16:51.000 You would much rather have crush s st dummies that 0:16:51.120 --> 0:16:54.480 basically replicate the same things. But we're still a long 0:16:54.520 --> 0:16:56.720 way off from that. It's just on the horizon. They're 0:16:56.760 --> 0:16:59.080 starting to work on it now. But one other thing 0:16:59.120 --> 0:17:03.400 I saw, Chuck is they may not ever become widely 0:17:03.600 --> 0:17:10.480 used because three D modeling is so it's so rapidly 0:17:10.560 --> 0:17:15.520 advancing that all of this will probably in the next 0:17:15.640 --> 0:17:19.119 fifteen years. They will do crash test still, but it 0:17:19.160 --> 0:17:22.680 will be once, and it will be after running tons 0:17:22.680 --> 0:17:25.560 of computer simulations, and then they will just do it 0:17:25.640 --> 0:17:27.840 once in like the real world to make sure that 0:17:27.880 --> 0:17:31.320 the computer is right. But it'll probably all become virtual 0:17:31.440 --> 0:17:34.360 pretty soon because we're getting we're getting really good at 0:17:34.640 --> 0:17:40.200 at modeling humans getting good at modeling traffic accidents. So 0:17:40.320 --> 0:17:42.680 you put them together and you can kind of test 0:17:42.720 --> 0:17:45.520 cars based on the parameters that you just feed and 0:17:45.560 --> 0:17:47.800 you just make measurements on the cars and feed it 0:17:47.800 --> 0:17:50.800 into the computer and press enter and sit back, and 0:17:51.640 --> 0:17:57.239 you know, maybe have a Clark Bar. I was just 0:17:57.359 --> 0:18:00.880 in uh, northern California, in San Francisco, go in Wine Country, 0:18:00.920 --> 0:18:03.639 and just in San Francisco for the night. But in 0:18:03.680 --> 0:18:09.360 that one evening walking around, I saw probably four different um, 0:18:09.400 --> 0:18:11.520 I can't remember what it's called, but the Google self 0:18:11.600 --> 0:18:18.120 driving car concepts, the death car driving around town. Yeah, 0:18:18.560 --> 0:18:21.359 what's it called US? I can't remember, but I just 0:18:21.359 --> 0:18:23.600 saw this car with like a big thing on the 0:18:23.640 --> 0:18:26.320 roof with like a spinner in it. And at first 0:18:26.359 --> 0:18:29.560 I thought it was a like maybe Google Earth or 0:18:29.600 --> 0:18:33.520 something or street view, and uh, I looked up what 0:18:33.560 --> 0:18:35.480 it was, and it is. It is a self driving 0:18:35.520 --> 0:18:38.560 concept car and they had people in them driving. Obviously 0:18:38.800 --> 0:18:41.399 at this stage I was like, wait a minute, no 0:18:41.440 --> 0:18:44.320 one's in that car. But it was definitely you know, 0:18:44.320 --> 0:18:46.440 when you walk around San Francisco, that's the testing ground 0:18:46.440 --> 0:18:49.919 for all that kind of stuff, so it's very interesting. Um. 0:18:49.960 --> 0:18:53.320 All right, so you got those accelerometers, you have load sensors, uh, 0:18:53.359 --> 0:18:56.720 they're gonna measure the amount of force during a crash. 0:18:56.760 --> 0:19:00.960 You have movement sensors um that you know, they're gonna 0:19:01.240 --> 0:19:03.920 sense the movement of the body and everything it's doing. 0:19:05.119 --> 0:19:08.399 And the really important thing within all this, and I 0:19:08.400 --> 0:19:10.600 think we talked about this in one of the other episodes, 0:19:10.680 --> 0:19:14.119 is these dummies are painted up and they're painted in 0:19:14.200 --> 0:19:17.520 the different body parts are painted with different colors, and 0:19:17.920 --> 0:19:21.080 it's it's pretty ingenious. Actually, something is an idea as 0:19:21.080 --> 0:19:23.760 simple as that can tell you so much because when 0:19:23.800 --> 0:19:26.680 they go to look in that car afterward and they see, 0:19:27.160 --> 0:19:29.640 you know, there's red paint here and there's blue paint there, 0:19:30.040 --> 0:19:32.760 they're gonna be like, well, how did that knee hit 0:19:32.840 --> 0:19:34.960 that part of the car, because that's the only place 0:19:34.960 --> 0:19:37.920 where there's blue paint is on the kneecap. I guess 0:19:37.920 --> 0:19:39.640 we got to figure this out. And so they look 0:19:39.680 --> 0:19:42.080 at the scuff marks and they can tell exactly what 0:19:42.119 --> 0:19:44.960 body part hit exactly what car part. I love that too, 0:19:44.960 --> 0:19:47.920 that we're just getting so much more advanced, but good 0:19:47.920 --> 0:19:52.040 old fashioned, like you know, putting pain or chalk on 0:19:52.040 --> 0:19:54.280 on the face to see what it hits is still 0:19:54.560 --> 0:19:57.720 just as useful as ever. All Right, So how did 0:19:57.720 --> 0:20:01.159 these crashes go? Oh? Well, there's a few things that 0:20:01.200 --> 0:20:05.880 you gotta do first. Um so, the the when when 0:20:05.880 --> 0:20:10.919 they're carrying out these crashes, the um ii h s uh. 0:20:10.960 --> 0:20:15.320 The insurance Institute for Highway Safety and the National Highway 0:20:15.400 --> 0:20:18.720 Traffic Safety Administration in the United States, those are the 0:20:18.760 --> 0:20:21.760 two groups that carry out the most crash testing. And 0:20:21.760 --> 0:20:25.000 they're both independent and they go buy their own cars 0:20:25.080 --> 0:20:27.320 and they just test them and then they tell everybody 0:20:27.359 --> 0:20:29.320 what the results are, and they have their own rating systems. 0:20:29.320 --> 0:20:31.159 And we'll talk about all that in a minute. But 0:20:31.280 --> 0:20:33.400 the i h S. One of the first things they 0:20:33.480 --> 0:20:38.920 do is UM. They basically gout the car like they'll 0:20:38.960 --> 0:20:43.320 put they'll take the UM well, all the vital fluids out, 0:20:43.359 --> 0:20:45.600 I should say, they take out the anti freeze, they 0:20:45.640 --> 0:20:48.080 take out the oil, they take out the fuel, and 0:20:48.119 --> 0:20:50.240 then they replace it with like mineral spirits so that 0:20:50.280 --> 0:20:53.720 it still has the same weight and everything UM because 0:20:53.880 --> 0:20:56.160 it can be a pretty big mess when when you're 0:20:56.880 --> 0:20:59.359 carrying out one of these tests and there's no reason 0:20:59.400 --> 0:21:00.879 to get any is all over the place. You can 0:21:00.920 --> 0:21:04.239 go look and make a pretty good estimation of what 0:21:04.280 --> 0:21:06.280 it would have looked like just because the hose was 0:21:06.359 --> 0:21:08.240 ripped off. You don't need to see the anti freeze 0:21:08.280 --> 0:21:11.520 all over the floor, right, So they'll actually prep the 0:21:11.520 --> 0:21:13.560 car to get it ready. They measure it, they weigh 0:21:13.560 --> 0:21:16.520 it UM and they wanted to be as close to 0:21:17.200 --> 0:21:21.040 like a real life situation as possible, so they'll put 0:21:21.280 --> 0:21:25.159 different dummies UM in the car. Sometimes they fill it 0:21:25.200 --> 0:21:29.240 out with, you know, an adult male, fifty percentile male, 0:21:30.000 --> 0:21:34.119 fifth percentile female in the passenger UM, another fifth percent 0:21:34.280 --> 0:21:37.240 female in the in the back UM, and then the 0:21:37.280 --> 0:21:39.199 car is ready to go, they put it. They put 0:21:39.240 --> 0:21:41.840 all sorts of cameras all over the car as well 0:21:41.880 --> 0:21:45.200 as sensors to UM and they have all sorts of 0:21:45.280 --> 0:21:49.280 high speed UH cameras filming the whole thing as well, 0:21:49.320 --> 0:21:53.600 because you know, just like painting the face of the 0:21:53.880 --> 0:21:57.040 crash test dummy is really important, you know, using your eyes, 0:21:57.080 --> 0:22:00.520 like visually inspecting what happens. You as the human engineer, 0:22:00.600 --> 0:22:03.080 seeing this with your own eyes. There's stuff that you're 0:22:03.080 --> 0:22:05.840 gonna see that just wouldn't wouldn't be translated from the 0:22:05.920 --> 0:22:09.840 data that the sensors are picking up on the dummies. Yeah, 0:22:09.880 --> 0:22:12.119 and you if you're at home or driving your car 0:22:12.200 --> 0:22:15.040 right now, and you're thinking, well, wait a minute, guys, 0:22:15.200 --> 0:22:17.080 if they're taking all the gasoline and the oil out 0:22:17.080 --> 0:22:19.600 of the car, how does it go forward? When they 0:22:19.760 --> 0:22:22.240 dropped the cinder block on the accelerator and shut the 0:22:22.240 --> 0:22:26.160 door really fast and jump out of the way. Um, 0:22:26.200 --> 0:22:28.600 they're not doing that. The car doesn't have to be started, 0:22:29.040 --> 0:22:31.760 it doesn't have to be running because the car is 0:22:31.800 --> 0:22:35.160 on a track and it is being pulled down a runway. 0:22:35.240 --> 0:22:38.160 And that all makes complete sense that this is operated 0:22:38.200 --> 0:22:41.920 by Pulley and not by an actual car being started 0:22:41.960 --> 0:22:44.919 and driven. All they need to know is that this 0:22:44.960 --> 0:22:49.159 thing is going to go thirty five into that wall 0:22:49.760 --> 0:22:52.440 or I guess in the case of the insurance group, 0:22:52.640 --> 0:22:55.520 I think they go forty right, so they get a 0:22:55.520 --> 0:22:59.280 little bit faster and they do different kinds of impacts 0:22:59.280 --> 0:23:02.840 they go. You know, I think the the for many 0:23:02.920 --> 0:23:05.720 many years, the gold standard was the head on collision, 0:23:06.840 --> 0:23:09.560 and so they have built cars over the years to 0:23:09.640 --> 0:23:13.200 withstand as best as possible that head on collision with 0:23:13.240 --> 0:23:16.439 another car or hitting that brick wall straight on. Like 0:23:16.480 --> 0:23:19.280 we've all seen the videos and and you think, yeah, 0:23:19.320 --> 0:23:21.359 that's the worst of the worst. Of course, that's what 0:23:21.359 --> 0:23:25.440 you should prepare for, but it's pretty cool. The Um, 0:23:25.480 --> 0:23:27.160 what's the name of the insurance group in the eye, 0:23:27.560 --> 0:23:32.400 the i h S the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. Yeah, 0:23:32.440 --> 0:23:35.240 they started saying, and a lot of stuff was overhauled 0:23:35.280 --> 0:23:38.840 in ten. They started saying things like, well, maybe the 0:23:38.880 --> 0:23:42.720 worst crash is when two people are trying to turn 0:23:42.760 --> 0:23:46.119 through an intersection, or your left headlight meets up with 0:23:46.160 --> 0:23:49.320 their left head light and there's like just a bit 0:23:49.359 --> 0:23:51.520 of overlap and it's not a head on collision. Like, 0:23:51.560 --> 0:23:54.040