[geeks] Mac definitions

[Bob]

>it's an urban folklore that bigger, heaver cars are safer, and it's
>true to a point. but counterintuitively, in this sort of crash
>you're also safer if you're speeding.

>speed was on her side -- k [kinetic energy] = mv^2. if her car
>weighed the same as your friend's, she was still carrying more than
>double his kinetic energy, and all of that gets transferred to his
>car, while his gets transferred to hers. after subtracting his, she
>still has positive k; after subtracting hers, his goes negative.
>guess who gets the big delta-v... that's why she walked away from the
>impact.

>back in the '70s, there was a long article in the new yorker by a
>journalist whose wife was crippled in a crash like your friend's.
>they were hit by a low-life habitual drinker in a no-insurance state.
>i guess he was a mean drunk; when he was feeling particularly mean
>he'd take his car - always a big cheap heap from a junkyard - and
>prowl the back roads. when he saw oncoming headlights he'd steer into
>their side of the road and floor the accelerator, going as fast as
>possible when he hit them. he'd done it more than a few times at the
>time of the article's crash. i don't know why he was still at
>liberty.

That's why seeing an 18 wheeler 10-20 feet off my rear bumper
scares the poop out of me.  I also stay further away from a motorcycle
in front of me because they could stop faster than I could.

Bob