thank you for the question . it was interesting reading through the responses.
“70s car wins …but you still lose” lol
The car would win. The driver would lose.
I direct you to this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_r5UJrxcck
Tldw: cars today are designed to keep the driver safer in a crash, and by having crumple zones and such, the driver is protected more from the forces that are at play.
Edit: aw drat people beat me to the explanation as well as the video! Well shucks at least I had fun commenting lol
My sister would gush about her H3. Oh it made her feel so safe with her kids. Yeah safe for her and her kids.
Why arent people buying more cars from the 70s?
Parts and servicing is a big problem now. A lot of shops wont touch anything they cant plug a diagnostic computer into.
Some parts are made of unobtanium and require complex workarounds or paying through the nose for parts.
A lot of 70s cars were pretty damn ugly too
In the 70s the cars won but not the people. Modern vehicles let the people survive instead of themselves.
It wouldn’t win out. They typically didn’t have any crumple zones to dissipate the forces of the impact so the full forces in the accident got transferred to the passenger cell and therefore the passengers. Also no seatbelt pre-tensioners to stop you flying forward before the seatbelt locks would engage and no airbags to protect you. Steering columns were also not collapsible so the driver’s chest being impacted by the steering wheel was a common thing in a head on.
I know it’s a much older car for the example but same idea:
My late grandfather liked to restore Model T and Model A cars. One day he got T-Boned in an intersection by my house at 70 km/hr driving a Model A and Grandma was with him.
The 2005 era van that hit him was a wreck with the front smashed in. The driver was uninjured.
The Model A had a slightly bent fender front-right side and a minor paint scuff. My Grandparents went into the back of an Ambulance.
They survived but had raccoon eyes and were more bruises than healthy flesh for awhile.
How did he get T-boned by your house???
Sorry, I’m a dad, I can’t stop it.
Listen Dadeo, that was traumatizing in a way I’m not going to explain for comedic effect. There’s only one thing I can do now…
The car might sustain less damage, however, the occupant will receive more damage. People buy newer, safer cars, presumably because they like being alive and would prefer to keep doing that.
Modern cars are designed to break before their drivers do, because you can’t replace you, but you can buy a new car.
The car from the 70’s survives accidents better because more of it is rigid, but this makes it more dangerous as more of the force of the accident is transferred to the driver.
Modern crumple zones are placed intentionally so that while the car will crumple, the driver will not.
If I have to pick only one, I’m going to go with modern crumple zones
But man, I do wish we had some kind of magical smart metal that could be as rigid as an old car for low speed collisions, but still crumple for more serious impacts.
Because when you drive an old shitbox like I do, pretty much any damage is enough to total it, and having to get a new car really sucks when the accident was minor enough that no one was going to get hurt anyway.
Reverse Newtonian metal sheet. I think that’s doable in my lifetime.
Yes, the 70’s car would “win out”. Its driver, on the other hand would fare much worse than you.
Ideally, people wouldn’t treat possibly fatal transit collisions as a sports game. And also ideally, most people would see the uselessness of looking at which car is less damaged. Realistically, I know neither of those are universal, but I do hope they are common.
Yup. Any impacted component that survives means that the force was transferred to the driver instead.
Modern cars look worse after a collision for a reason: If it collapses/crumples, it means that it absorbed some of the forces applied to it rather than transferring it on.
The amount of energy absorbed by the cars is the same for both drivers. (What makes that car existence a risk to both parties.)
The problem of the old car is that it transmits the extra force to the people inside in some of the worst possible ways.
Have I got a video for you!
Edit: with narration https://youtu.be/fPF4fBGNK0U
I love how much this one video has done to explain new car safety.
It’s honestly worth keeping the principle behind crumple zones in mind with everything:
If energy can go somewhere else, then less of it will be transferred to what matters.
For cars, the energy going into bending and breaking the materials of the crumple zone then doesn’t get transferred to the interior compartment.
For Xbox controllers, they’re designed so that when they drop, the batteries shoot out and go flying, which means less energy goes into the controller shell and internals.
And with a lot of laptops these days, you’re seeing the actual toughest, most survivable ones not be built out of heavy rigid metal and glass like Apple does, but out of light flexible aluminum composites. A) they weigh less so there’s less potential energy involved in a fall, and B) some of the energy gets transferred into bending the shell which will then snap back to form.
Goddamn it’s not even close. '59 car dummy got skewered. '09 car dummy landed on a soft fluffy mattress in comparison.
Featured comment on the first video pretty directly answers the question from @OP @Patnou@lemmy.world :
As a Firefighter I was called to an accident which turned out to be a head on collision between 60’s model Chrysler and a 2000 model Subaru. The Chrysler looked to have held up pretty good but the driver was taken to hospital with life threatening injuries. The Subaru was totalled back to the windscreen yet the mother and daughter in the car walked away without a scratch.
It’s interesting considering how the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety really highlights what is more important for them to reduce in a collision. Modern cars might sustain much more damage and be more likely to get written off as a total loss, but that will probably cost them $30-40k at the high end in most wrecks. But if a person gets seriously injured the insurance company could very quickly be on the hook for the full $100-300k in medical bills most people get coverage for.
Another thing to point out is the newer car is “only” a 2009 model. We’ve had another 17 years since then to make them even safer still.
It’d be interesting to see how much cars have improved since then.
I saw a post where a Cybertruck got T-boned by like a Nissan or something. The Tesla didn’t look damaged badly at all and the other car was modern art. Tesla people were bragging about it until someone pointed out that the Nissan driver walked away while the driver of the Tesla broke both legs.
I know this is anecdote, but the point is that vehicle damage doesn’t prove people injuries.
Nope. Its much safer to crash in a today car. 70’s would break as well and break you more. Both would be totaled anyway in such a case.
Today’s cars are designed to crumple and protect you, older cars transmit more damage to your body.
My 2006 Honda Accord coupe weighs almost a thousand pounds more than a 1965 Ford Mustang.
In fact, a 1985 Ford LTD Crown Victoria only weighs about 400 pounds more than my Honda.
People WILDLY underestimate how heavy modern cars are, and how much better they are for safety of the occupants.
I think thats partly because of the 80s and 90s when unibody manufacturing became very commonplace but powered everything and tons of tech wasnt commonplace yet.
People just assume cars kept getting lighter.
The crown Vic stat is sure interesting. All that boatiness for only 400 more lbs than an accord is a pretty good deal. Brb, going to buy a 40 year old big body
And half the horsepower and half the fuel mileage. 🤣
The only reason I know either of those two stats is that my dad’s first car was the aforementioned Mustang, and my family had an 85 LTD CV bought new in 85.
It was a good car as far as it goes, and comfy as all get out, but it was definitely thirsty as fuck.
Takes a lot of dead dinosaurs to ride in supreme comfort. I was a valet (parker not rich guy dresser) for a few years and the land yachts were the most comfortable to drive and ride in by far. I would see cars that looked more comfortable but they usually had separate drivers.
