Car crashes are very violent. They usually end up killing the passengers in the car or severely hurting them. Scientists have been trying to minimize the risk of injuries ever since the first car was made. Scientist look at the following four things to determine how to minimize the injuries in car crashes: Inertia, Kinetic energy, Potential energy, and Force. By looking at these terms, scientists have been saving a ton of lives. The tendency to resist changes in their state of motion is described as inertia. As the car accelerates, the passengers accelerate with it; as the car decelerates, the passengers decelerate with it; and as the car maintains a constant speed, the passengers maintain a constant speed as well. So when you hit a wall, the car stops but your body keeps going forward due to inertia. Kinetic energy is the energy of …show more content…
The driver of the car already has kinetic energy. When you stop your car suddenly, your body will keep moving forward. Potential energy is the stored energy of position possessed by an object. Since people normally try to brake and stop the car to try and prevent a crash, the car is going to keep moving because of potential energy. No energy is lost or gained, it is just transferred. A force is a push or pull upon an object resulting from the object's interaction with another object. So if two cars are heading toward each other at the same speed, both at the same weight, the force acted upon each other will be the same. Scientists have been coming up with inventions to protect passengers in a car. These inventions are: Seat belts, air bags, crumple zones, an bumpers. A seatbelt's job is to spread the stopping force across sturdier parts of your body in order to minimize damage. The 1st part of the seatbelt is the webbing. The webbing is made of polyester and is woven into 300 strands. Webbing is the part of the seat belt