Question about car crashes?

Question

if your going 30 mph and the other car in front of you comming towards you is also going 30 mph it would equal a 60 mph impact right? so would it do the same amount of damage to you if you hit a concrete wall going 60 mph?

Answer 1

I don't think so but I could be wrong. Say both were to stop immediately, it sounds to me like it would be the same as a concrete wall at 30 also.

Answer 2

No, its roughly equal to running into a wall at 60. That's why head on crashes are so bad. Now there may be some elasticity in the collision, i.e. somebody could bounce off, but its pretty much a mess.

Oh yeah, wear your seat belt.

Also different masses of cars would be a factor.

Work out the vectors, this stuff is additive.

Answer 3

less damage. the two forces will cancel each other out.  as you speed up your chance of injury increases exponentially not geometrically.  60 miles an hour is worse, just not sure how much worse

Answer 4

Wrong

Damage = a 30 mph crash into a fixed wall.

Imagine a perfect collision where each vehicle is a mirror image of the other.  The point of collision would appear to each as a fixed wall.

Also, a single car going 60 has twice the energy of 2 cars going 30 each due to the energy being proportional to the square of the velocity.  And, since there's only 1 car to absorb the energy, it is damaged by a factor of 4.