this post was submitted on 18 Jan 2024
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[โ€“] [email protected] -3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (3 children)

F = ma

A car crash will affect an obsese 250lb bus driver much more than some 40lb little twerp.

Let's say the bus was traveling at a rate of 60mph๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ and hit a brick wall, and all passengers uniformly come to a complete stop at precisely 1 second. The 5 year old weighing 40lbs๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ would experience an impact of around 109 pounds of force (109.40 lbf๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ) whereas the bus driver weighing 250lbs๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ would experience 683.67 lbf๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ.

I absolutely did NOT run the calculations in ๐Ÿคฎ ๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡บ ๐Ÿคฎ before converting to ๐Ÿ˜Ž๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ๐Ÿ˜Ž.

[โ€“] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

High schoolers ride busses too. They're a little bigger than 40lb twerps at that point.

[โ€“] [email protected] -2 points 10 months ago

But they're objectively the worst kind of child, so meh.

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

In fact, I think newborns shouldn't need any restraints at all.

Toss em in the back of the truck on the drive back home from the hospital. They'll be fine!

[โ€“] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago (3 children)

I mean, on the other hand, a 5 year old is generally more fragile than an adult man.

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Nah. They're made ot of rubber. They'll be fine. Anyway, even if they aren't, it's not like society invested too much in them yet.

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Have you never met a kid? Were you never a kid? The kids that scream and cry over small bumps do it because that's how they were taught to get attention and the adults feed that.

Kids are (biologically) way more resilient than adults. Their bones are more rubbery and slowly harden over time.

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Iโ€™ve always thought that humans should just evolve to be smaller now that weโ€™re so smart. Weโ€™d need less food, people would be safer in impacts, we could build smaller and more efficient homes, etc. Think of the efficiency of a space program where each astronaut was 1/3 the weight and half the size!

Itโ€™s not like we have any natural predators any more, so size isnโ€™t a big deal.

[โ€“] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Small bumps are not the same as a vehicle crash. There's a reason young children can't sit in the front seat, because air bags deploying can kill them. Kids are small and flexible enough to have an advantage with lower impact stuff, but for high impact stuff they're smaller and squishier and that extra flexibility doesn't help as much, and once they hit puberty they mostly lose that because of the reduced cartilage in their skeletons. Younger children are especially vulnerable to head and neck injuries because of their less developed muscles.

[โ€“] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Please stop.

You're arguing about something I didn't say. I was responding directly to the point about kids being fragile. As you say kids have a major advantage in smaller crashes for similar reasons as to how/why the highly intoxicated can sometimes walk away seemingly without a scratch. If a crash is bad enough to kill a kid, good chance the driver isn't walking away from it either.

As for kids sitting in the front seat, yes, airbags kill but pre airbags the kid would also be more likely to go through the windshield and that's also why smaller kids are buckled in facing the back of the back seat, so they have extra protection from the seat they are in. There is also the whole seat belt nit fitting right in the front or back seat and that's why we have them in something up to a certain weight class. It's not about age, it's about height and weight.

Seriously, stop. I didn't say anything about kids not needing seat belts or other protective measures. I was simply countering something that was definitely not accurate.

[โ€“] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Dude, fully grown men are objectively fragile.

[โ€“] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago

Children are objectively small and squishy. Car accidents are one of the leading causes of death for children for a reason.