Empeg survives head on crash at 40MPh!

Well, the bad news is I was just in a head on collision in my 97 Sebring with a 1999 Trans AM. I was going about 20MPh and he was going about the same. My car is bad shape, but the Empeg didnt skip a beat! These things are AMAZING! The only thing I thought as soon as this happened was "God, I hope my Empeg is alright!" I guess I have my priorities all outta whack! Anyway, the car is going to be repaired next week, but just wanted to post this so you all know know how well these things are put together. (As if you didnt know already:)

Now that is a well-built machine. I don't think I'd be so lucky in my Civic. I had better drive even more carefully than I do now once mine is installed.

Greetings!

The important thing is that no one was hurt. You seem to have come out of it okay, and (if the empeg was the priority at the time) I guess everyone else was fine too...

Now, you have to stop staring at the Casualty visuals, or you will become one yourself!!!

coupe or convertible?

i'd probably rather be in the civic.. the civic may not survive, but the people inside will.. I know someone with a sebring convertable.. and was signifigantly un-impressed with the engineering.. my nissan altima did it's job perfectly when I was struck by a commercial pickup at 35mph. (chevy 2500, with bed replaced with county-fair vending equipment)

http://ben.nerp.net/pix/car/nissan/

looks really bad.. but i drove it home from the crash.. fun part was.. I had just gotten my pre-order for my mk2 tha tweek.. so i got to pick my new car based on if the empeg would work good.. and as expected.. works great in my jetta

Well, this Civic is my 3rd. I think it might do a little better in an accident. I'd still have my first (an '89 4door) today if it weren't for a rather nasty one that happened while it was parked. I am thankful that this was well before I had my empeg.

But on a lighter note - both the aftermarket head unit and speakers that were in that car survived, and were sold on eBay recently.

http://members.bellatlantic.net/~vze2hjf5/jamie.htm

glad to hear both you and the empeg are OK...

I've got a sebring convertible, and while it's no volvo, it certainly holds up in an accident. (no, I have not had 1st hand experience in an accident, but I have seen pictures and stories from others that have). It's significantly safer than most other convertibles.

I'm surprised no one else pointed this out. Assuming the cars were roughly equal in mass, your empeg actually only survived a crash at 20 MPH.

From the frame of reference of the empeg, it was traveling at 20 MPH, then at 0, so it had a net change of 20 MPH. The only importance of the other car's velocity is its contribution to the momentum of the other vehicle. (We have assumed that the crash was head-on.) If the other car was going say, twice as fast (and they massed equally), then your car would have been forced backwards at about one third the speed it was originally travelling. Your empeg in this case would have expirienced a net change of 26.6 MPH as opposed to 20. Same sort of effect if the other car were more massive than yours.

It is a coupe.

(ducks waiting for Doug to show up)

Its not the speed that determines the damage, but the rate of deceleration (which relates to your mass and velocity and how long everything takes to come to a rest).

The rate of deceleration is determined by what your mass & velocity is (i.e. what your kinetic energy level is) and how long (in time/distance) it takes to reduce your velocity (and hence kinetic engergy) to 0.

Its the rate of change, not the change itself which is the issue here.

When you apply your brakes to stop your car from say 20MPH you take up to 2 seconds/many tens of feet to come to a stop - and you experience a gentle level of deceleration.
Hit a solid wall as 20MPH and you come to a stop in a fraction of a second (and about 5 feet of distance) - and you experience a much greater level of deceleration as a result.
The total kinetic energy "loss" (from braking or from hitting the wall) is pretty much the same for both cases - just the rate of change is vastly larger for the second compared to the first case.

Running a car at any speed into a solid (practically immovable) concrete bridge abuttment will reduce the cars kinetic energy to zero faster than if you run the car into a properly designed collision barrier with crumple zones (for example).

While the degree of damage to the car may be the same for both collisions, the deceleration experienced by the vehicle (and generally to the same extent - its occupants/empegs etc) will be much reduced in the second collision.

Its on this principle that safety devices like Airbags, Seat Belts, car crumple zones, collision barriers etc are designed to work.

These are all designed to give the objects in the collision more time to reduce their kinetic energy. Increasing the time over which the deceleration occurs, must, for the same kinetic energy level, reduce the (average) deceleration rate.

[i(]ducks waiting for Doug to show up)

Oh, I'm here all right... but I can't improve on what others have said.

It's like they say -- jumping off a tall building won't kill you; it's that sudden stop at the bottom.

tanstaafl.

My favorite re-wording of that saying is: "Falls don't kill people. It's the deceleration trauma."

Takes me back to the days of Roger Wilco perilously walking along thin walkways in Space Quest 3 and having to hit the save key every step, lest you fall off the edge and experience "deceleration trauma."

Though the most traumatic part of it was the high-pitched squeal of the PC speaker sound effects as you fall to your death. Guh.

Speaking of Space Quest 3 (OT I know), I will always remember the command:

">Take Ladder"
"You take the ladder and jam it in your pocket. Ouch."

from that game. I don't know why, but it stuck with me all of these years.