marko snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.co.uk opined the following...
I'd rather make my own excitement...
I know it's a joke, but this is a common attitude. I find that I need at least an extra hour before I notice the difference.
The difficulty is that when filtering on red, that right of way is no longer obvious. Sure, there's a green man, but there are cars driving across your crossing. You have to rely on them to cede priority. Few drivers will jump red lights under the current scheme which makes life simpler for peds.
Depends on location. A good loud "discussion" with a driver who is obviously in the wrong, in the centre of town, surrounded by pedestrians and other cyclists... It's quite funny when they realise that they are centre of attention, and that no-one is backing them up.
They may design it, but an incident doesn't always happen according to design, and anyway there is simply no way to stop 1 ton of moose being bad news for 1 ton of car when they are traveling at relatively large speeds, particularly when the car has to be designed to crumple and the moose doesn't.
Well he or she would have time to slam on the brakes, ineffectually. This would make skidmarks (assuming no ABS, which this car didn't have, I suppose, given the analysis).
Optionally they didn't realise there was a cow there (and wouldn't brake) or did realise and thought it didn't matter (and didn't brake).
AIR, this was a small car, much like a focus but a fair bit older. I don't know what, it was trashed so bad I didn't know what it was and I don't know the story is true, but the car I saw was really badly trashed and had a cow-shaped inward bulge in the front so I don't see any reason to doubt the story.
Apart from anything else, I do realise how quick cars usually go (120 feet in a second is routine) and what happens when a big, robust object hits a lightweight, spaceframe object.
Well, much the same result.
A wall interferes with the bumper, then the engine and wings and similar, then begins to threaten the passenger compartment in various ways. This fell into the car via the windscreen and didn't slow the car down much first.
I agree, I think the cow would have been damaged. The story wasn't urban, it was from the side of a field with the wrecked car in the grass verge with the farmhand saying what he heard about what did it.
I can't see any *good* reasons for this to be a lie, so I think the cow was a lucky cow and in most cases of this type it would be hurt badly - at least damaged legs - but I have no real issue with this.
Doesn't take much. 70 mph means the boulder is doing about 100 feet per second. This is to do with the car, the boulder can be bouncing and of arbitrary weight, it can be quite a lot heavier than the car and is going to pass through it unless it hits something that can absorb the energy (e.g. an occupant or the engine, etc)
It's rare to find this situation and this is why we travel at 100 feet per second (and some faster) without worrying about it. But we shouldn't fall into the trap of thinking it's not important. Sometimes it is.
The car is designed to be able to deflect the moose up and over the passenger compartment. The car will be wrecked, as will the moose, but the incident is survivable.
More likely: "Is that something in the road, no it can't be...OH SHITE!?
*BANG*!!"
Ohhh yes.
Indeed.
There is no car on earth that will allow the passengers to escape unscathed going head-on into a solid wall at forty. The damage to all involved will be severe.
The cow-shaped indentation suggests the cow encountered significant transfer of momentum.
Suburban legend, then :-)
I think that cow has been eaten, and the steaks did not need tenderising.
Yes, the boulder is just stationary in the air like a fixed, solid wall of exactly passenger size and section.
A stone the size of a golf ball will go through a windscreen like a bullet at that speed.
A very, very tiny fraction in a modern car, and that is scooped carefully from the airflow that would have gone under the car.
Moose strike is a fairly common problem in Scandinavia in winter despite the moose fencing alongside many roads. The moose tend to stand on the road as its warmer and cause about 7,000 accidents a year. It was the famous moose or elk test that derailed Mercedes launch of their A-Class
All Volvos are elk-tested with an artificial elk, hence the large A pillars. In Sweden wildlife is the main cause of single vehicle fatalaties. Plenty of users of the VVspy and Swedespeed forums have these experiences.
Well, that's long enough to wait. I emailed thames valley police but whoever they passed the enquiry on to hasn't come back with an answer about how the police stand on that one.
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