Car Safety Features

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Car safety features Airbags Airbags provide a soft cushion between a passenger and hard objects. In a car accident there is 2 collisions. Collision 1 is between the car and another object. Collision 2 is between the driver and another object such as the steering wheel. An airbag is designed to reduce the injury from collision 2. When a car crashes the person inside will have a large deceleration and therefore a large force acting on them as they come to rest (F=MA) shows this. The airbags are designed to increase the time over which the person comes to rest a= (v-u)/t shows us that if t increases a will decrease and therefore the force exerted will be less. Seat belts are made of a flexible material which allows them to stretch so this increases the time for which the force acts on the person. Seat belts also stop you from flying out of your seat. By slowing down more gradually the force acted upon the body is many times less than it would be if it stopped almost instantly like slamming into a hard object. Also, the lap belt and shoulder strap design balances pressure across the more sturdy parts of the body. Without a seat belt, the head is likely to strike part of the car focusing a huge amount of impact force into a small vital area. Crumple zones are areas in the front of and sometimes back of a car. They are designed to absorb energy upon impact in a predictable way. Newton’s first law states that an object in motion will stay in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force. So if a car is travelling at 60mph the people inside are as well. The front of the car acts as a cushion that slows the time it takes for the car to come to a complete stop like airbags. If the time taken to come to a stop is increased a=(v-u)/t shows us that the acceleration is less and if the acceleration is less F=MA shows us

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