WEBVTT - How Crumple Zones Work 0:00:01.160 --> 0:00:04.320 Welcome to you stuff you should know front House stuff 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:12.760 Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm 0:00:12.880 --> 0:00:16.799 Josh Clark. There's Chuck a k A. Charles W. Chuck 0:00:16.840 --> 0:00:24.360 Bryant a k a. Charles Wayne Bryant named after Wayne Coyne. No, 0:00:26.480 --> 0:00:28.840 thank you, Wait, I wasn't done. And then there's Jake. 0:00:29.280 --> 0:00:33.800 Thank you people who voted for us for the Webby Award. Yes, yes, 0:00:33.920 --> 0:00:36.880 we won. We won the People's Voice Award. Yeah, that's 0:00:36.920 --> 0:00:40.400 three of those for us, and a huge congratulations to 0:00:40.800 --> 0:00:47.320 UH another podcast that we admire for winning the Webby. Yeah, Invisible. Yeah, 0:00:47.360 --> 0:00:49.680 if you heard our Ted Talks episode, or we interviewed 0:00:49.760 --> 0:00:55.040 Roman Mars and he won the I Guess panel vote, Yeah, 0:00:55.200 --> 0:00:58.160 and then we won the People's Voice vote. He's the 0:00:58.240 --> 0:01:02.400 he's the industry darling. We're the populist darlings. Yeah, as 0:01:02.400 --> 0:01:04.960 I like when I put it on my personal Facebook page, 0:01:05.000 --> 0:01:08.160 attacked Roman and I said, we won the one for 0:01:08.240 --> 0:01:11.720 people's vote and Roman won the one based on quality 0:01:12.600 --> 0:01:15.399 and he said, no, they're both quality. He was very 0:01:15.400 --> 0:01:18.520 sweet about it. Yeah. Um, I also want to say 0:01:18.680 --> 0:01:21.120 give us special props to reply all who gave us 0:01:21.160 --> 0:01:23.640 a run for our money for quite a while there 0:01:23.880 --> 0:01:27.720 the People's Voice Awards, so actually check out all of them, 0:01:28.080 --> 0:01:33.840 the nominees, nominees, because to to get considered for a webbing, 0:01:33.840 --> 0:01:35.400 I mean, there's a ton of podcasts out there, and 0:01:35.440 --> 0:01:37.640 to make it basically what amounts to the top five, 0:01:37.800 --> 0:01:40.400 you gotta be pretty good. Hats off to everybody, and 0:01:40.440 --> 0:01:42.720 thank you again for everyone who voted for us, and 0:01:42.760 --> 0:01:47.200 congratulations again Into Roman and Visible crew agreed we were 0:01:47.200 --> 0:01:52.800 in good company, So thanks everyone. So Crumple Zones, I 0:01:52.880 --> 0:01:55.320 predict this is going to be a correct of an 0:01:55.360 --> 0:02:00.120 episode terrible. Um. You know what I found out that 0:02:00.680 --> 0:02:03.559 this fascinates me way more than I thought it would. Dude, 0:02:04.400 --> 0:02:06.640 totally with you because I'm not a car guy, as 0:02:06.680 --> 0:02:09.359 you know. No, but it's not just that it's this 0:02:09.400 --> 0:02:13.240 is more the history of auto safety, but it also 0:02:13.320 --> 0:02:15.480 has more to it. There's some physics that we can 0:02:15.520 --> 0:02:19.560 grasp involved very simple that makes it very attractive. Um, 0:02:19.680 --> 0:02:22.799 let's kind of like big thing hit, big thing makes boom, right, 0:02:23.200 --> 0:02:25.480 that's exactly right. But all you have to do is 0:02:25.480 --> 0:02:29.839 switch out like force and acceleration. You sound smart. Um, yeah, 0:02:29.919 --> 0:02:32.800 there's a lot to it that that there's even some nefariousness, 0:02:32.840 --> 0:02:36.120 corporate nefariousness. So I'm like, yeah, this story is ever sure, 0:02:36.400 --> 0:02:38.320 you know, agreed? And you know what, this made me 0:02:38.360 --> 0:02:43.120 want to do episodes on crash test dummies for one, 0:02:43.800 --> 0:02:45.560 and then maybe even a couple of others. As far 0:02:45.600 --> 0:02:49.040 as Nator, we should do one on him. Yeah, maybe airbags. 0:02:49.080 --> 0:02:51.720 Just the whole car safety thing is way fascinating. It 0:02:51.800 --> 0:02:55.000 really is. And to top it all off, this article 0:02:55.160 --> 0:02:57.600 was a grabstor article, so well that's why I picked it. 0:02:58.919 --> 0:03:01.359 At this point, I'm just searching for his articles. Yeah, 0:03:01.800 --> 0:03:05.080 we should just be like, recommend some articles that you 0:03:05.120 --> 0:03:07.079 wrote that we should do. We've done most of them. 0:03:07.240 --> 0:03:09.280 I know that's the problem. He needs to come back 0:03:09.280 --> 0:03:13.160 into the fray so sad. And we should also shout 0:03:13.200 --> 0:03:15.520 out our colleagues here at how stuff works with car 0:03:15.639 --> 0:03:19.000 stuff Scott and Ben. I'm sure I have covered this 0:03:19.520 --> 0:03:22.519 at some point. And if you're into this kind of thing, 0:03:22.800 --> 0:03:26.760 they have a just a treasure Drove of car very specific, 0:03:27.160 --> 0:03:33.680 detailed car podcast, emphasis on the treasure. So that's corumple zones. 0:03:33.840 --> 0:03:37.120 If you want to know more about it, go listen 0:03:37.160 --> 0:03:39.160 to car Stuff. All right, should we start with that 0:03:39.280 --> 0:03:45.040 little history bit? Yeah? Why not right. Yeah, so, um, 0:03:45.160 --> 0:03:47.000 there's actually a lot of history too. I found this 0:03:47.040 --> 0:03:51.400 really cool Museum of American History, a Smithsonian Museum. They 0:03:51.480 --> 0:03:53.800 had a like an exhibit years back. It looked like 0:03:53.840 --> 0:03:55.800 the late nineties, early two thousands, and I just went 0:03:55.800 --> 0:03:58.600 through the page. There's this really interesting essay that they 0:03:58.600 --> 0:04:01.280 had broken up over this webs light. Um, there's a 0:04:01.320 --> 0:04:04.880 lot of weird history. But initially, the idea of what 0:04:05.120 --> 0:04:10.320 caused REX has changed dramatically over the years, because at 0:04:10.360 --> 0:04:14.280 first it was strictly driver error, because the paradigm people 0:04:14.280 --> 0:04:16.760 were looking through was before you had horses, and a 0:04:16.800 --> 0:04:20.359 horse could spook and bolt and run somebody down, and 0:04:20.560 --> 0:04:23.160 the horse did that, it wasn't the driver. The whole 0:04:23.160 --> 0:04:27.560 idea of a horseless carriage was that it was just 0:04:27.640 --> 0:04:30.400 a lump of metal that responded to the driver's commands, 0:04:30.640 --> 0:04:33.680 and so anything that went wrong it was the driver's fault. 0:04:34.000 --> 0:04:37.359 And it took many, many years for people to realize like, actually, no, 0:04:37.920 --> 0:04:41.240 there's some serious design flaws in cars. We can actually 0:04:41.240 --> 0:04:44.920 make them safer, right, And once people figured that out, 0:04:45.120 --> 0:04:48.440 they didn't realize that the auto manufacturers had known this 0:04:48.480 --> 0:04:51.600 for decades. And then after the public finally realized that. 0:04:51.680 --> 0:04:53.680 It took a few more decades for people to finally 0:04:53.720 --> 0:04:56.640 implement it. Yeah, And I think the rationale for a 0:04:56.680 --> 0:04:59.360 while was and it was the style of the day 0:04:59.400 --> 0:05:01.720 as well and the materials that were available at the time. 0:05:01.760 --> 0:05:04.840 But there was a notion of well, let's build these 0:05:04.839 --> 0:05:08.280 things like Sherman tanks and it will make people safe, right, 0:05:08.360 --> 0:05:13.120 And what crumble zones proved is the exact opposite. Let's 0:05:13.160 --> 0:05:18.560 build something that that crumbles and crushes in just the 0:05:18.640 --> 0:05:20.960 right way, and that's actually much safer. And you know, 0:05:21.000 --> 0:05:24.080 it's funny. I remember when this stuff kind of came up, 0:05:24.120 --> 0:05:27.560 what probably mid to late nineties, when people really started 0:05:27.600 --> 0:05:31.440 to show up and um in normal cars, and I 0:05:31.480 --> 0:05:34.760 remember thinking, like, God, they make cars so cheaply compared 0:05:34.800 --> 0:05:37.120 to how they used to, Like they just come apart. 0:05:37.400 --> 0:05:41.360 Now I realized, oh, they're designed to come apart, because 0:05:41.400 --> 0:05:43.880 before it was like the car is not gonna do anything, 0:05:44.040 --> 0:05:47.000 but everybody inside is gonna liquefy. Now it's like, how 0:05:47.000 --> 0:05:49.120 about we keep the people inside safe and just letting 0:05:49.120 --> 0:05:51.359 the car take the brunt of the impact. Yeah, and 0:05:51.600 --> 0:05:54.000 one person, there are a lot of people that that 0:05:54.080 --> 0:05:56.159 owe to this design over the years. But one person 0:05:56.320 --> 0:06:01.760 squarely in the center as a dude named Ella. That's 0:06:01.760 --> 0:06:04.960 a nice name. There's a couple of accents and everything. Yeah, 0:06:05.000 --> 0:06:06.680 I'm not even sure if that's right, but he was 0:06:06.760 --> 0:06:11.279 a very very very famous engineer and inventor for Domino events. 0:06:12.360 --> 0:06:16.920 Holds more than patents like this guy. We all owe 0:06:16.960 --> 0:06:19.440 a debt to this dude. So many more patents than 0:06:19.480 --> 0:06:24.400 either of us, Yes, than both of us put together. 0:06:24.880 --> 0:06:29.200 Do you hold a patent neither? This is kind of shameful, 0:06:29.279 --> 0:06:31.719 really at this point, do you want to hold a patch? 0:06:31.880 --> 0:06:35.080 Everybody should hold at least one patent. Well, if you 0:06:35.080 --> 0:06:39.400 could patent things like, uh, you know, stupid stuff that 0:06:39.440 --> 0:06:42.720 aren't like real, like um Chuck's method for getting out 0:06:42.720 --> 0:06:47.159 of the grocery store in a hurry, patent it, I 0:06:47.240 --> 0:06:50.680 might actually try that. What is it? Are you gonna 0:06:51.000 --> 0:06:53.520 you say patent pending first before you describe it. I'll 0:06:53.560 --> 0:06:56.320 just hold on to that. Maybe I could trademark that 0:06:56.680 --> 0:07:01.760 not patented. No, you can patent a process kenny hh okay, 0:07:02.360 --> 0:07:04.120 or you can just type a little trademark symbol next 0:07:04.160 --> 0:07:07.120 to everything you say and it's like back off, everybody. 0:07:07.880 --> 0:07:12.640 So Bella Mr Barni uh in nineteen fifty two had 0:07:12.640 --> 0:07:15.960 a patent um It was actually the very first one, uh, 0:07:16.040 --> 0:07:19.960 the Mercedes Spence W one one one fintail. You didn't 0:07:20.000 --> 0:07:22.120 say what the patent was for. I know I was 0:07:22.160 --> 0:07:25.120 getting to it. Oh sorry, the beautiful car. And it 0:07:25.160 --> 0:07:30.240 was the first car to hold to have this patent pending. Well, 0:07:30.280 --> 0:07:33.000 I guess it was patent holding by that point. Crunch 0:07:33.160 --> 0:07:36.000 zones on the front and rear of the car. The 0:07:36.040 --> 0:07:39.640 whole reason was these current zones could be designed to 0:07:39.880 --> 0:07:44.320 absorb the impact from a crash, and if the car 0:07:44.400 --> 0:07:47.000 absorbed the impact, then the people were less likely to 0:07:47.000 --> 0:07:49.720 absorb the impact because that impact, the force of the 0:07:49.760 --> 0:07:52.960 impact has to go somewhere. Yeah, it ain't going nowhere. 0:07:53.480 --> 0:07:56.440 And if the car is built to be rigid, the 0:07:56.480 --> 0:08:00.240 car is not gonna absorb it. It's gonna transfer it. Yeah, 0:08:00.280 --> 0:08:03.840 like a big ford edseil hitting a Ford fair lane. 0:08:04.280 --> 0:08:07.640 It's a lot of pounds of metal smashing into one another. 0:08:08.240 --> 0:08:10.400 And the people inside aren't getting fare too well, especially 0:08:10.440 --> 0:08:12.880 back then when they're like, what's the seatbelt, dude? Not 0:08:12.920 --> 0:08:16.080 only what's the seatbelt? The earlier, earlier cars had plate 0:08:16.120 --> 0:08:20.000 glass windows. Yeah, there were death machines. They all of 0:08:20.080 --> 0:08:23.120 like this, the knobs and stuff. Now that's like touchscreen 0:08:23.640 --> 0:08:26.920 before where they would stick out, so you just take 0:08:26.960 --> 0:08:28.960 one and go right through your forehead into your brain, 0:08:29.440 --> 0:08:34.160 just getting paled. Dashboards. Dashboards weren't even padded. It was 0:08:34.200 --> 0:08:36.560 a steel bar that would just take the top of 0:08:36.559 --> 0:08:39.600 your head clean off. And then the cars ran on 0:08:39.720 --> 0:08:44.520 nuclear fuel. Basically it might as well. Yeah, it was amazing. 0:08:44.559 --> 0:08:48.640 I know that they've done side by side examples these 0:08:48.760 --> 0:08:51.640 days where they crashed an old car because people are like, oh, 0:08:51.679 --> 0:08:53.760 the old cars were built like tanks, and so they 0:08:53.800 --> 0:08:55.439 would do the same miles per hour for like a 0:08:55.520 --> 0:08:59.040 Volvo compared to like a nineteen fifty seven Ford, and 0:08:59.320 --> 0:09:02.600 you know, the it's obvious what happens. You just like 0:09:02.640 --> 0:09:05.120 there's a there's a point in time where the common 0:09:05.160 --> 0:09:08.040 wisdom was you didn't wear a seatbelt, even if you 0:09:08.120 --> 0:09:10.400 had it, because you would prefer to be thrown from 0:09:10.440 --> 0:09:13.160 the car because it was so deadly inside the car. 0:09:13.559 --> 0:09:16.280 And there's actually a very famous injector seat pretty much 0:09:16.640 --> 0:09:20.280 there's a famous um Reader's Digest article that really captured 0:09:20.280 --> 0:09:24.079 public opinion back in is called Eds and Sudden Death 0:09:24.920 --> 0:09:27.240 and it's just like really gory and gruesome, and it's 0:09:27.280 --> 0:09:29.800 talking about like these cars are death traps. We need 0:09:29.800 --> 0:09:31.959 to do better than this. Yeah, and they weren't even 0:09:31.960 --> 0:09:35.320 going that fast back then, you know. All right, So 0:09:35.400 --> 0:09:39.920 these days, um, it's all proprietary the exact features and 0:09:39.960 --> 0:09:45.280 specifics of crumple zones because these car manufacturers they have 0:09:45.360 --> 0:09:47.120 their own methods and they don't want to share that 0:09:47.160 --> 0:09:50.240 with everyone. Makes sense, that's fine as long as they're building, 0:09:50.480 --> 0:09:53.080 that's right. But in general, what we're talking about our 0:09:53.360 --> 0:09:56.880 frame designs, where certain parts of the frame of the 0:09:56.920 --> 0:10:01.160 car bend and collapse in such a way that it 0:10:01.320 --> 0:10:05.000 keeps the people and things like the gas tank uh 0:10:05.080 --> 0:10:08.120 safe because you don't want that gas tank exploding either, 0:10:08.200 --> 0:10:11.040 which we'll get to right, So let's talk about what 0:10:11.120 --> 0:10:15.360 a crash is, right. A crash is where an object 0:10:15.520 --> 0:10:22.520 with mass traveling at a certain rate um collides with 0:10:22.679 --> 0:10:28.760 another object with maths. Yes, and when that happens, force 0:10:28.880 --> 0:10:32.200 is created. Right And yeah, Well, I was gonna say, 0:10:32.280 --> 0:10:33.800 people saying, well, what if you don't hit a car, 0:10:34.360 --> 0:10:36.560 you're gonna hit a street, You're gonna tumble, you're gonna 0:10:36.640 --> 0:10:39.679 hit a telephone pole, that something is going to make impact. 0:10:40.400 --> 0:10:43.200 So what what's happening when you when you have impact 0:10:43.280 --> 0:10:48.480 is you are technically you're accelerating, but every and logically 0:10:48.559 --> 0:10:50.760 you should just call it decelerating in the case of 0:10:50.760 --> 0:10:54.679 a crash, but it's still scientifically, it's still accelerating whenever 0:10:54.720 --> 0:10:58.760 you have a change in velocity. Right, Um, So when 0:10:58.960 --> 0:11:02.959 you hit some thing in your car and you decelerate quickly, 0:11:03.760 --> 0:11:08.320 that force is transferred force. The force is the mass 0:11:08.480 --> 0:11:13.040 times the the rate of deceleration. Right. So another way 0:11:13.080 --> 0:11:16.240 to put is how bad you're messed up equals how 0:11:16.280 --> 0:11:19.600 heavy the car is and the object that hits times 0:11:19.640 --> 0:11:24.160 how quickly and suddenly it stops. Yeah, So you can 0:11:24.200 --> 0:11:29.199 actually take force in that equation and and diminish it tremendously. 0:11:29.720 --> 0:11:33.800 If you can diminish tremendously the rate of acceleration, if 0:11:33.840 --> 0:11:36.160 you can make if you can extend the time it 0:11:36.200 --> 0:11:39.960 takes to decelerate, and you you can understand this a 0:11:39.960 --> 0:11:42.640 lot more easily if you think about when you come 0:11:42.679 --> 0:11:45.960 to a stop slowly at a stop sign, as opposed 0:11:46.000 --> 0:11:47.680 to when you have to slam on the brakes and 0:11:47.679 --> 0:11:50.640 you come to a stop. Now, the next degree above 0:11:50.720 --> 0:11:54.839 that is when you hit like a pylon and come 0:11:54.920 --> 0:11:57.600 to a complete stop. So that's what an accident is. 0:11:57.640 --> 0:12:01.240 It's that transfer of force from one to another through 0:12:01.280 --> 0:12:05.080 this deceleration, this rapid deceleration. Yeah, and in the case 0:12:05.120 --> 0:12:07.560 of a crumple zone. Uh, there are two things that 0:12:07.640 --> 0:12:09.719 is trying to do. Their one is to reduce that 0:12:10.320 --> 0:12:14.440 initial point of force, initial force from that first point 0:12:14.440 --> 0:12:16.880 of contact when you hit that phone pole or that 0:12:16.920 --> 0:12:19.720 other car or whatever. You want to drop that force 0:12:20.080 --> 0:12:24.400 and then redistribute that away from the people, right right, 0:12:24.520 --> 0:12:27.880 So the way you drop that force is to extend 0:12:28.080 --> 0:12:31.520 the rate of deceleration, even by tenths of a second, 0:12:31.640 --> 0:12:34.040 makes an enormous impact, Like that's all you have in 0:12:34.080 --> 0:12:36.880 the case of a crash. Right. So Ed points out, 0:12:37.040 --> 0:12:40.680 um that if you take if you change the deceleration 0:12:40.720 --> 0:12:43.760 time from point two seconds to point eight seconds, you 0:12:43.840 --> 0:12:49.160 reduce the total force by huge difference. Yeah, especially if 0:12:49.200 --> 0:12:53.199 you're in a car accident, like less force being transmitted 0:12:53.200 --> 0:12:58.880 through the car, is that's preferable, yeah, right, So, Um, 0:12:58.960 --> 0:13:01.760 the whole point of crumps, the whole thinking behind them, 0:13:01.880 --> 0:13:06.160 is to basically build an area that can change this deceleration, 0:13:07.040 --> 0:13:11.000 lengthen it out some so that the forces. Yeah, and 0:13:11.000 --> 0:13:14.680 then also to kind of redistribute that force throughout the 0:13:14.720 --> 0:13:18.240 car away from the passengers. That's the whole thing behind 0:13:18.280 --> 0:13:20.880 it makes total sense. All right, let's take a quick 0:13:20.920 --> 0:13:23.280 break here and we will come back and talk a 0:13:23.320 --> 0:13:48.000 little bit about how they're doing that stuff. All right, 0:13:48.120 --> 0:13:52.800 So a car is it can't be one big crumple zone. 0:13:53.400 --> 0:13:56.360 There are parts that need to be rigid, Like the 0:13:56.840 --> 0:14:00.760 if you picture a car, picture the four seat. Let's 0:14:00.760 --> 0:14:02.760 just talk about a four seater. Let's do it. I 0:14:02.800 --> 0:14:04.480 know people will be like, what about the third row, 0:14:04.559 --> 0:14:07.440 there's seven of us in here, whatever the case. Just 0:14:07.520 --> 0:14:11.680 picture a small box where the people are actually sitting. Yeah, 0:14:11.679 --> 0:14:14.439 that's the called the passenger compartment. The passenger compartment, that 0:14:14.559 --> 0:14:17.560 is that box that needs to be rigid. You don't 0:14:17.559 --> 0:14:21.400 want that crumpling. You want everything before that and after 0:14:21.520 --> 0:14:26.080 that crumpling to reduce that force and that decert rate 0:14:26.080 --> 0:14:30.600 of deceleration. So you want that middle to be super strong, 0:14:30.640 --> 0:14:34.480 and you don't want to because if that crumples, the 0:14:34.480 --> 0:14:37.280 people aren't protected any longer. They're exposed all sorts of 0:14:37.400 --> 0:14:40.960 terrible stuff. So it does have to be rigid. But again, 0:14:41.160 --> 0:14:44.640 before they made the whole thinking was, well, just make 0:14:44.680 --> 0:14:48.240 the whole car super rigid. And the problem is there 0:14:48.240 --> 0:14:53.480 has to be something that's absorbing into redistributing that force. Um, 0:14:53.560 --> 0:14:56.320 and that's what the crumple crumple zone does. So they 0:14:56.360 --> 0:14:59.600 took that tank of a car and rather the whole 0:14:59.600 --> 0:15:01.840 car being that, they shrunk it down to just the 0:15:01.840 --> 0:15:04.840 passenger compartment where it's really needed, and then made the 0:15:04.880 --> 0:15:07.760 rest of the car a big crumple zone and then 0:15:07.760 --> 0:15:11.640 surrounded that part with air bags, side curtain, front and 0:15:11.680 --> 0:15:14.680 all that stuff. So that's what protects the people. But um, 0:15:14.720 --> 0:15:17.160 the way this article put it in Man sure has 0:15:17.160 --> 0:15:20.040 a way with words. He talked about thinking of it 0:15:20.080 --> 0:15:23.400 in terms a car crash in terms of a budget, 0:15:23.440 --> 0:15:26.640 like a monetary budget, and that's what that forces. And 0:15:26.840 --> 0:15:32.160 everything that happens is paying a little bit of that budget. 0:15:32.200 --> 0:15:34.600 It's spending some of it, yeah, spending some taking away 0:15:34.600 --> 0:15:37.520 from that budget, like like on glass breaks, when the door, 0:15:38.080 --> 0:15:40.840 you know, when anything any kind of damage happens, that's 0:15:40.880 --> 0:15:43.760 spending a tiny little bit of that budget because that's energy, right, 0:15:43.800 --> 0:15:46.160 And then eventually the budgets entirely spent and all the 0:15:46.160 --> 0:15:48.680 force has been distributed in the accidents over the crash 0:15:48.760 --> 0:15:53.080 is over right. Um, if you can get other parts 0:15:53.440 --> 0:15:57.680 besides the passenger compartment and even more importantly the passengers 0:15:58.360 --> 0:16:03.560 to distribute that force, then ad can be distributed before 0:16:03.680 --> 0:16:06.040 it gets to the passengers. Yeah, you wanted to be 0:16:06.080 --> 0:16:08.160 paid down to almost nothing by the time it gets 0:16:08.160 --> 0:16:10.040 to you. I don't think it's get the imperson. I 0:16:10.080 --> 0:16:13.480 don't think it's possible to distribute a percent of the force. 0:16:13.840 --> 0:16:16.240 Probably not, because in that case, like the person wouldn't 0:16:16.280 --> 0:16:22.080 even you wouldn't feel anything, right, So, but I mean, 0:16:22.360 --> 0:16:25.320 is that possible? I guess could you design something to 0:16:25.360 --> 0:16:29.400 where somebody could come to a complete and sudden stop 0:16:29.520 --> 0:16:34.000 in an impact and not not experience any force whatsoever 0:16:34.040 --> 0:16:36.560 because all of it was distributed away from the person. 0:16:37.640 --> 0:16:40.440 Probably not. And that's the point the article makes. Probably 0:16:40.480 --> 0:16:45.080 not like a drivable manufacturable car, because that's the delicate balance. 0:16:45.160 --> 0:16:47.520 They they still have to drive and handle in a 0:16:47.520 --> 0:16:50.440 certain way. And like when you that's what it fascinates 0:16:50.440 --> 0:16:52.960 me about this is car design. You have to take 0:16:53.000 --> 0:16:56.280 all these things that are knocking heads against one another 0:16:56.320 --> 0:16:59.120 into consideration. You know, it's got a gas think in there, 0:16:59.440 --> 0:17:03.920 things full of flammable fuel and it's crashing into things 0:17:03.960 --> 0:17:07.600 like it's amazing. It's really like that delicate balance they've 0:17:07.600 --> 0:17:10.199 walked these days to make cars as safe as they 0:17:10.200 --> 0:17:13.280 are as astounding to me. So so there are some 0:17:13.320 --> 0:17:14.960 things that they have to trade off. Like if you 0:17:15.040 --> 0:17:17.760 have a really good um crumple zone, a big one 0:17:18.400 --> 0:17:21.200 in front, you're gonna have to do something with your engine. 0:17:21.280 --> 0:17:23.280 And you can only put an engine so much on 0:17:23.320 --> 0:17:26.119 top of itself before it needs to just kind of 0:17:26.119 --> 0:17:29.200 go back toward the passenger right, And you can only 0:17:29.240 --> 0:17:31.320 move it back so much. And the problem is with 0:17:31.359 --> 0:17:33.359 an engine. An engine is one of the few things 0:17:33.520 --> 0:17:37.119 in the car aside from the passenger compartment that is 0:17:37.640 --> 0:17:41.280 rigid and basically immovable. Like an engine is not going 0:17:41.359 --> 0:17:46.320 to crumple and bend. It's going to transmit that force. 0:17:47.040 --> 0:17:50.320 And if that engine comes into the passenger compartment, it's 0:17:50.320 --> 0:17:54.080 going to say hello and transmit that force right into 0:17:54.080 --> 0:17:57.159 the people that it runs into. Yeah, and that I 0:17:57.160 --> 0:18:00.359 mean I remember old car Wrex where the engine is 0:18:00.400 --> 0:18:03.320 like in the front seat, you know, where the person 0:18:03.400 --> 0:18:05.560 used to be. That's not a good place for an engine, 0:18:05.560 --> 0:18:08.000 and that's not a good place at all. So there 0:18:08.040 --> 0:18:10.399 are considerations you have to you have to do in 0:18:10.640 --> 0:18:13.680 making a crumple zone, um Like, so in that case 0:18:13.720 --> 0:18:16.680 you would be like, well, it's likelier that the engine 0:18:16.760 --> 0:18:19.200 is going to kill the passenger by getting pushed into 0:18:19.200 --> 0:18:21.159 the passenger compartment. We're just gonna have to make the 0:18:21.160 --> 0:18:25.200 crump zone a little less um And then another thing, 0:18:25.280 --> 0:18:26.760 like you said, that they have to deal with is 0:18:26.960 --> 0:18:30.200 gas tanks. Thought that most cars fuel tanks are in 0:18:30.240 --> 0:18:35.240 the back, and this is really cool. Most modern cars, 0:18:35.240 --> 0:18:39.119 when you getting a rear end collision, it's designed the 0:18:39.160 --> 0:18:42.119 rear crumple zone is designed to go up so that 0:18:42.200 --> 0:18:45.160 the gas tank is actually lifted up and away from 0:18:45.280 --> 0:18:47.399 the point of collision, which is usually the hood of 0:18:47.440 --> 0:18:49.879 a car behind it, right, which happens in a fraction 0:18:49.920 --> 0:18:52.320 of a second, right, So it's designed to do that. 0:18:52.320 --> 0:18:54.280 That's part of a crumple zone as well. And that's 0:18:54.280 --> 0:18:59.280 a huge improvement from the seventies, specifically with the Ford Pinto. 0:19:00.000 --> 0:19:03.320 So the Ford Pinto. Man, this is this one may 0:19:03.520 --> 0:19:06.840 even deserve podcasts in and of itself, but I think 0:19:06.880 --> 0:19:11.480 in like ninetevent definitely the seventies people were dying in 0:19:11.680 --> 0:19:16.879 fairly low speed rear and collisions because the Pinto's fuel 0:19:16.920 --> 0:19:21.360 tank would break and catch flame and burn people alive. 0:19:21.680 --> 0:19:24.159 These cars were exploding in minor collisions, and then the 0:19:24.200 --> 0:19:27.000 autopsy would show they had like basically not even a 0:19:27.000 --> 0:19:29.600 bump or a bruise. They had just been burned to 0:19:29.640 --> 0:19:33.720 death because the Ford Pinto gas tank blew up. And 0:19:33.880 --> 0:19:38.440 Ford got caught very famously with some internal memos where 0:19:38.440 --> 0:19:42.720 they calculated the cost benefit of a recall as opposed 0:19:42.720 --> 0:19:45.600 to paying out lawsuits for human lives, and they said, 0:19:45.600 --> 0:19:47.280 the human life we're going to say is about five 0:19:47.359 --> 0:19:50.960 hundred thousand dollars, So if if you know X number 0:19:50.960 --> 0:19:53.479 of people see us will end up probably spending forty 0:19:53.560 --> 0:19:56.440 nine million. But it cost us a hundred and thirty 0:19:56.480 --> 0:19:58.639 seven million to recall these things and actually make them 0:19:58.680 --> 0:20:01.760 safe to protect people. So they went with the just 0:20:01.840 --> 0:20:04.879 handling lawsuits and it was a big deal, and finally 0:20:04.920 --> 0:20:07.240 there enough of a public outcry came out about it 0:20:07.320 --> 0:20:10.640 that they finally did something. Um and I think they 0:20:10.640 --> 0:20:13.360 did recall some Pinto's and then they were like, oh, 0:20:13.400 --> 0:20:15.359 we'll just put the guess thing in front of the 0:20:15.440 --> 0:20:19.320 rear axle so that's not exposed during crashes, and a 0:20:19.320 --> 0:20:22.080 couple of other improvements that cost like a dollar a piece, 0:20:23.000 --> 0:20:25.440 and they at that point it was kind of um, 0:20:25.560 --> 0:20:30.240 the Pinto was dead. Yeah, they weren't selling longer. No, 0:20:30.359 --> 0:20:32.120 I mean, like you want to get a bad name 0:20:32.160 --> 0:20:35.240 for your car, fiery death is a good way to 0:20:35.280 --> 0:20:38.480 do it. There was a movie, what was it. It It 0:20:38.600 --> 0:20:42.200 was one of the spoof movies. Oh it was. It 0:20:42.280 --> 0:20:47.080 was don't don't talk top secret, Secret barely tapped the tree. 0:20:48.320 --> 0:20:51.120 It was a Pinto that exploded like it slowed down 0:20:51.119 --> 0:20:54.000 and went and then went boom. I didn't think it 0:20:54.000 --> 0:20:56.919 was top secret. So when that World War two, it 0:20:57.000 --> 0:21:05.040 was an anachronism. I'm I'm nine point nine. That was 0:21:05.119 --> 0:21:09.639 my first thing too, my first guess. Alright, so, uh, 0:21:09.960 --> 0:21:13.160 not only gas tanks, but these days with these fancy 0:21:13.160 --> 0:21:16.439 schmancy electric and hybrid cars, you've got these big battery 0:21:16.440 --> 0:21:19.280 packs and you've got toxic chemicals, and you know it's 0:21:19.400 --> 0:21:22.040 you've got to protect that as well. If you, in 0:21:22.080 --> 0:21:24.800 the case of a Tesla Roadster, if you get into 0:21:24.840 --> 0:21:27.920 an accident, elon Musk himself comes and pulls you to safety. 0:21:29.320 --> 0:21:33.399 That's the level of service. Yeah, oh wow, I might 0:21:33.440 --> 0:21:35.919 be worth it. If you need it. Uh No. In 0:21:35.920 --> 0:21:38.440 the case of a rodster though, it is pretty neat. Though, Um, 0:21:38.480 --> 0:21:41.200 it's got a safety mechanism. It shuts off the battery packs, 0:21:41.520 --> 0:21:44.560 drains all the electric energy from the cables the instant 0:21:44.680 --> 0:21:48.320 it senses an emergency. Pretty rad. It is pretty rad. 0:21:48.720 --> 0:21:51.000 What about if your car is tiny, though, it's pretty easy. 0:21:51.040 --> 0:21:54.399 If you've got a stretch limo, you've got plenty of 0:21:54.400 --> 0:21:56.800 things to crumple, Yeah, crumple away. But what about like 0:21:56.800 --> 0:22:00.159 a Mini Cooper. What's this thing? Smart car? Yeah, like 0:22:00.160 --> 0:22:04.160 a smart car. Um. So the grabster says, well, let's 0:22:04.240 --> 0:22:07.560 use a smart too as an example. Um. They came 0:22:07.640 --> 0:22:10.280 up with crumple zones that they call crash boxes, one 0:22:10.320 --> 0:22:12.040 in the front and one in the rear. But the 0:22:12.040 --> 0:22:15.480 problem is these are extraordinarily small cars. You've seen smart 0:22:15.480 --> 0:22:18.399 cars before. It's like the kind you could put like 0:22:18.440 --> 0:22:20.520 a giant penny in the back and like pull it 0:22:20.560 --> 0:22:22.640 backward and it takes all It looks like a McDonald's 0:22:22.640 --> 0:22:27.000 happy meal very much, except a very very expensive one. Um. 0:22:27.080 --> 0:22:29.840 But the smart cars very small, and when it does 0:22:29.880 --> 0:22:31.760 get in the crest, it does have these crumple zones, 0:22:31.800 --> 0:22:34.880 and they do do something, but they The engineers also 0:22:34.920 --> 0:22:37.120 had to like get kind of clever to like, for example, 0:22:37.119 --> 0:22:40.960 I think, um, the transmission actually turns into its own 0:22:41.000 --> 0:22:44.560 crumple zone to redistribute the force, right, Yeah, it's amazing. 0:22:44.720 --> 0:22:47.600 And um they use the wheels and the tires. They 0:22:47.600 --> 0:22:49.520 were like, well, these things they're gonna be getting a 0:22:49.520 --> 0:22:52.520 lot of impact right away, so why not design the wheels, 0:22:52.600 --> 0:22:57.200 the suspension, the tires, uh two deform and breakaway or 0:22:57.240 --> 0:23:00.439 even rebound and distribute that kinetic energy elsewhere, which is 0:23:00.440 --> 0:23:04.200 pretty awesome. It's amazing. Yeah, And so again we should 0:23:04.240 --> 0:23:07.000 say this is proprietary stuff for the most part, but 0:23:07.560 --> 0:23:09.840 you can really let your imagination run with these things. 0:23:09.840 --> 0:23:12.919