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Lithuim t1_j257gr3 wrote

You’re moving one way

The other car is moving another.

Your vehicles collide and transfer momentum, so now your vehicle is moving in some third direction.

You, however, continue moving in the original direction until something stops you.

If you’re smart, this is a seatbelt.

If you’re less smart, the now-deformed doors unlatch or the windshield pops out and you continue moving down the pavement.

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ScienceIsSexy420 t1_j258wsi wrote

So to see a demonstration of this, put an orange in your open palm next time you are in a car and slam on the brakes. See how the orange seemed to speed forward, splatter on the dashboard, and make a massive mess? Same thing happened to those people in the minivan. WEAR YOUR DAMN SEATBELT

Edit: spelling

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maveric_gamer t1_j25u22n wrote

> slam on the breaks

brakes. Breaks are cracks and splits and fissures, brakes are ablative devices that slow down wheels.

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ScienceIsSexy420 t1_j25ve0m wrote

.... Yeah, good point. Oops 😔

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maveric_gamer t1_j25x2mv wrote

It happens, I'm certainly not innocent of a homophone mixup in the billions of posts across the internet. And sorry, it is compulsive, and not really necessary - clearly the meaning made it through, which is the main point.

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ScienceIsSexy420 t1_j25xs9y wrote

No worries at all, I'm always glad to have a stupid error pointed out and corrected. Thanks!

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manurosadilla t1_j257fba wrote

Inertia is the answer. When the car stops, anything that isn’t the car will keep going at the speed it was going previously. A body hitting a windshield at 70mph will break it. In spin outs, the inertia still acts on the unsecured bodies but we call it centrifugal force. Kind of like a washer doing a spin cycle flings the clothes to the edge of the drum.

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Gnonthgol t1_j2595kf wrote

There are several ways. Firstly when the car is hit in the side it suddenly starts accelerating sideways. If the people inside the car is not wearing seatbelts they will not be accelerating with the car. And so the car door will come and smash them in the side so hard that the glass shatters and the steel doors buckle and tear. The door might therefore let people through it, either through the window or through a torn up opening. It might for example just catch a leg and tear it off as the rest of the body is squezed through the window hitting the other car.

But if the car door is able to keep the passengers inside the car they are now bounced back inside the car. They might also hit things like the center console, dashboard, car seats, etc. and get bounced all over the place. If someone hits a weak point in the car such as the windows, windscreen, sunroof or a damaged door they might do so with enough force to go thorugh. Not always the entire body though, commonly only an arm, a leg or a head is able to get outside and the rest of the body stay inside the car. There are a lot of forces involved here.

And lastly as you say the car may spin out of control, either sideways or rolling. This creates a centrifugal force pushing everything outwards. So again people might get smashed against windows and doors already weakened or broken from the initial crash.

The seatbelts are there to protect you. They keep you in your seat away from any of the windows and doors as well as away from any impacting vehicles. Instead of getting smashed in the head by the inside of a car door which used to be on the other side of the car a fraction of a second ago you get a comperatively slow acceleration with the car.

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beachgirlDE OP t1_j25hig4 wrote

Thank you. It was a family on Christmas eve. 74 year old, his 35 year old daughter, and 9 year old granddaughter. I wonder if the granddaughter was on his lap. Everyone else had their seatbelts, some injuries but not critical.

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