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Old 06-03-2005, 12:45 AM   #4
Vansquish
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Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA/ Bloomington, IN, USA
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The problem is that they were probably moving fairly fast when they hit that retaining wall...and despite the fact that the barrier is designed to give a bit on impact, the car is obviously pretty heavily damaged...the roof sections can be seen lying quite a way down the picture as if thrown from the car, the rear diffuser is lying on the other side of the wall and as far as I cant ell, the whole right hand side of the car is destroyed, door included. You can also see that the seats are no longer aligned properly and that may well be a result of a heavy impact. In any case, the maximum deceleration that a human can sustain and survive is something in the neighborhood of 30g's. Most roller coasters barely hit 4, most people pass out around 7, and fighter plane pilots have to wear special pressurized suits to avoid passing out at the controls in banked turns of up to 9g. A decel from even 70mph into a wall that stopped you in a matter of 30 feet would probably kill you, no matter what kind of restraints you were wearing (in a production car, even one so sophisticated as the CGT). Anyway, it's a great shame that this happened. Condolences to the family and hopefully this is a wakeup call for the overagressive drivers out there.
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