Most dangerous seat in a car?
Most dangerous seat in a car?
(OP)
What is the most dangerous seat in car when a car crashes that has a passenger and driver? I was first wondering about seat position because depending on where you are sitting your seatbelt is either going over your left shoulder (driver) or right shoulder (passenger) and it would change which organs would be compressed by the seatbelt in a crash.





RE: Most dangerous seat in a car?
Perfectly head on, likely to be negligible difference. Although, I'm no crash engineer.
"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." L. da Vinci
- Gian
RE: Most dangerous seat in a car?
You could have a look at stats on the NHTSA or IIHS website.
Cheers
Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
RE: Most dangerous seat in a car?
Other reasons may still be valid. I suspect that the passenger seat is still the most likely to be fatal. The driver's field of vision is better on his side, so he's more likely to see impending collisions and attempt to avoid them, whereas, the passenger side has less visibility, further compounded by the passenger, who often, like my wife, is doing something to block my side view mirror during critical maneuvers. The driver is required to be more or less in the proper position to be protected by the physical structure of the passenger compartment as intended by the designers. The passenger, on the other hand, does not have to operate the vehicle, and is more likely to be doing something bad, like having their legs dangling out the window, or propped up on the dashboard. From what I've seen of the IIS crash tests, there is some risk of lower extremity injury with the driver, but the driver usually survives, since that's what the passenger compartment structural design intends.
TTFN

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RE: Most dangerous seat in a car?
That is, although in secondary crash the driver is most vulnerable, it would make sense to bias protection towards the always occupied driver seat, rather than the 50% occupancy front passenger seat.
Cheers
Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
RE: Most dangerous seat in a car?
RE: Most dangerous seat in a car?
Traffic controls, as described in the second page of the article are primarily signage, or the ignoring thereof, i.e., running traffic lights or stop signs. There's a new PSA about texting while driving, showing someone responding to a text and running a stop sign and getting smashed by a truck.
TTFN

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RE: Most dangerous seat in a car?
Cheers
Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
RE: Most dangerous seat in a car?
... except in the case of multiple impact events, as in one I witnessed on an icy Long Island Expressway, where the same car impacted the left guardrail, head-on, hard, eight times. It was before airbags, so the driver probably died in the first impact. With airbags, he might have lived to see the second impact. I drove on past the wreckage; no sense in stopping.
<tangent>
Before the rear seats had shoulder belts in addition to lap belts, rear seat passengers had a good chance of survival, but also a 'good' chance of surviving as a paraplegic, because of spinal cord injuries from being stretched by the lap belt.
Now that particular bad outcome is less likely, except in the case of one particular set of my grandchildren, who have been told by their mother that the shoulder belt will decapitate them in a crash, so they wear it wrong intentionally. The mother is an entrepeneur and a lawyer, and rather fun to watch, when she's chewing on someone _else's_ leg. No way am I walking into that buzzsaw.
</tangent>
Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA
RE: Most dangerous seat in a car?
How does the same car impact the same guardrail 8 times head on? And hard too? Was it shot by aliens?
"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." L. da Vinci
- Gian
RE: Most dangerous seat in a car?
Conditions were not dry; there was an inch of snow on the ground, tire-compressed snow on the road, a layer of ice on top of that, and freezing rain to top it off. i.e., a normal miserable Long Island winter day.
The guy just sort of lost it, overcorrected a couple times, and the ever increasing yaw became a horizontal spin.
... which might have been survivable on a straight and level road.
... which the LIE is not.
This all happened at the entry to a downhill, off-camber bend to the right, so the guy slid straight into the guardrail at considerable velocity toward the guardrail and more considerable velocity along the guardrail. It may have been a Thrie rail, or it may have been a double Armco rail. No matter; the rail deflected in, a little, then launched the car back uphill, toward the inside of the curve, where the snow was not deep enough to stop it, but the offcamber gradient was, and the car slid back to impact the left barrier again, having pirouetted through almost exactly 360 degrees since the first impact.
... and the sequence repeated until the guardrail, still basically uninjured, had transferred all of the car's original kinetic energy into deformation of the front of the car.
It looked fine from the B-pillar back, still facing the guardrail as my car, now considerably slowed from its original crawl, slowly crept by.
Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA
RE: Most dangerous seat in a car?
"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." L. da Vinci
- Gian
RE: Most dangerous seat in a car?
RE: Most dangerous seat in a car?
Collisions at an intersection where a driver runs a red light are usually the most damaging. In the US, where the driver is on the left side of the vehicle and we drive on the right side of the road, a driver usually has less time/distance to react to a collision coming from the left than they do from a collision coming from the right.
RE: Most dangerous seat in a car?
RE: Most dangerous seat in a car?
I would propose that with modern vehicles having ABS, front and side airbags, forward crumple structures, etc, the driver would likely suffer less injury than the passenger. This is because the driver will usually see the impact coming sooner than the passenger, and will be able to brace himself better before the impact occurs.
RE: Most dangerous seat in a car?
RE: Most dangerous seat in a car?
As far as bracing for impact, I heard anecdotally that a drunk driver is less likely to be injured because they are more relaxed at impact, though I don't know if that is actually supported by any evidence or not.
RE: Most dangerous seat in a car?
RE: Most dangerous seat in a car?