The Incredible Engineering That Helps You Survive Car Crashes

These people, or their European counterparts, are directly responsible for my Mum still being here. A van hit the front of her car... totally wrecked the front of the vehicle, the airbag punched her in the face and the seatbelt bruised her but she walked away from a crash that 20 years earlier would have killed or seriously maimed her. Thank you to these people for all their work.

It was great having you, Joe! Come back and visit anytime!

Cool. I see the end product of crashes every day. I work in an automotive recycling center. I've seen some serious damage that people walked away from.

I calibrate airbag deployment behavior at Bosch in Germany. This video was very well made and simple to understand! Great work not overcomplicating it and yet still showing the importance attached to crash testing!

being a crash test engineer sounds like every 5 year old's dream

I have a sticking point about the Ft=mv. Engineers, of all people, have the ability to change the mass of vehicles. They do not need to be at large as they are. They are literally massive. We do not need these multi tonne SUVs on the road.

Ayyy! I work here! I saw him walking around filming this back in August! So cool to see the final video!

Long form suits you Joe. Brilliant video… reminiscent of SEDs rocket factory video. I approve this content 👍.

Crazy how much engineered and tested is used for the safety of vehicle occupants. Hopefully we can get just as much testing for pedestrians as well.

Really appreciate all the crash testing and engineering improvements over the years. I walked away practically unscathed from 2 really bad crashes. Eternally grateful to the engineers who crash tested and designed cars that protected my life and well being.

My favorite fact in the topic is that the most violent looking motorsport crashes where the car rolls like 300 times are the safest because it has a long time to absorb the energy. As long as the rollcage remains intact you are most likely good.

The last time I read about this they were talking about how the dummies were modeled after average healthy adult males and that people outside of the range of healthy adult males were suffering more injuries in part because they weren't being looked at. In the videos you showed, the only time smaller dummies were used were as passengers. I was sad to see that it doesn't seem to have changed. There might be a small woman in charge, but has she ever seen a dummy representative of her in the driver's seat.

Why don't they crash light trucks and SUV agaisnt cars? That's what happens often on the roads. Where are lifted trucks in these tests? What about cyclists and pedestrians collision test with the front of the vehicule so high off the ground. Is there visibility and dead zones tests too ? Protect people inside the 2 ton steel chassis to the detriment to everyone outside of them... :(

No matter how safe they may claim cars are, they still account for millions of injuries and thousands of deaths every year. We MUST reduce our dependence on cars because even after a century of innovation we still can't stop the carnage. There are just so many better and safer alternatives, we just have to collectively decide to use them.

I've been in many car accidents and their work is the reason I'm still alive with all my limbs intact! Thank you, to all the engineers and professionals within the Insurance Institute for all the advancements in car safety!!! Great video, Joe!!

FIrst off, overall a great video about the physics of crashes. However, I have a bit of a problem with what you said at 6:05 - 6:15 about there not being much to work with and "The car's mass is whatever it is." I'd argue that the engineers have a lot of say in what the mass of the entire car is. They design the whole thing! Every year cars keep getting larger and larger and heavier as a result. It affects braking distances, crash forces and it seems to have become an arms race between manufacturers to make bigger cars so that people "feel safe" driving. And once you get these massive cars on roads everywhere, one can feel unsafe in a smaller car and ends up getting a larger car to compensate. So I would have liked to hear more about how the mass affects crash outcomes. if you have a 1000kg car and a 2000kg car collide head on, what's going to happen to either car? In addition, based on this video it seems like the tests are only testing the safety of the occupants inside a car. Does the testing suite have any pedestrian safety tests? And with cars getting taller and more square on the front, I feel like pedestrian safety should really be emphasized a lot more as people who get hit by a modern car, are more likely to get hit in the torso as opposed to the legs if a older, lower car hit them. Pedestrian traffic death statistics really paint an ugly picture about the direction in the US right now, so I'd hope to see more on how that is being addressed.

Incredible work that helps to save oh so many lives! But... There are even more things we can engineer to save even more lives: * Road side barriers are often the things that are hit by cars and other motor vehicles and they both pose a danger and an opportunity to prevent other dangers; you don't want a car turning over, scaling over the barrier or bounce back into on-coming traffic. the barriers can also be designed with their own crumple zones to extend the crash times and the barrier can of course work to shield other traffic from the out of control vehicle like on-coming traffic or cyclists and pedestrians in separated guarded lanes. Best practice is to always separate different kinds of traffic and vehicles to keep the places of conflict to a minimum. * Mass and velocity DO matter and CAN be engineered; As American Cars have gotten larger and heavier because of regulation-skirting practices by car manufacturers and extensive PR campaigns that say everyone needs a semi-truck or whatnot, the mass involved in crashes have increased to make every impact more dangerous and even worse so for those in smaller vehicles or outside of a car entirely. That is to say 'BiG CAr loOks sAFe, bUT WiTh bIG Car aROunD oTHeRs ARe unSaFe'. * As for velocity (speed), we should set the limits around what is safe for the road, not around what gets the traffic flowing as is practice right now in the U.S. We also need to use traffic calming practices that make drivers feel uncomfortable to go at too high speeds; fewer and tighter lanes, raised pedestrian crossings, speed bumps, separating stroads into aptly desgined higher speed, transportation-oriented roads and lower speed, destination-oriented streets, less straight streets and more roundabouts. * More and more air pollution and greenhouse gases lead to lost years of health than crash events with vehicles so improving on the pollution front of cars is still an overlooked area of possible improvements: Electric Vehicles (aside from when the batteries combust) are cleaner in this way especially so if the electricity was generated through renewable sources or through nuclear energy. Biofuels are hydrocarbon fuels that aren't fossil fuels but made from agroculture, forestry and waste by-products that are somewhat cleaner but don't typically contribute to greenhouse gas emissions as long as there's sufficient replanting done with each harvesting. More effcient motors, aerodynamic shapes, again smaller sizes and less polluting production methods and cleaner materials lead to better fuel efficency or otherwise mitigating the pollution associated with cars. * Fewer cars and less miles travelled in them help everyone. By prioritizing pedestrian, cycling and Mass-transit infrastructure everyone will be safer and have happier, healthier lives. By designing our cities and other developed land in cleverer ways we can make many personal errands unneccessary by either clumping destinations together or providing services that do errands for people or provide services online. Higher density also lead to shorter distances travelled by car and DOES NOT have to be skyscarpers. The benefits of density exists on many levels and in the U.S. you are missing out on the middle density and mixed purpose zoning. Great video and all that but there are so many more things we can do to make the deaths due to cars come close to zero.

I have been to the IIHS crash facility myself and it’s quite exciting watching them test vehicles. Great video.

Be nice if they also engineer some safety features for the pedestrian when these giant trucks inevitably hits a pedestrian they can't see due to their increasing ride height.

my wife and I were in a head on collision 9 months ago. We were hit by a drunkdriver going the wrong way on the freeway. I was going 85 and he was going 80. Our Yukon Denali had a collision avoidance feature. My car turned and hit the brakes which minimized the impact to my drivers headlight area. The collision sent us spinning 8 times. We were released from the emergency room 7 hrs later with no life threatening injuries. Even though I am still in pain and recovering from my injuries. I have NO doubt that our car saved my life.