What Happens If You Crash Under a Semi Trailer?
Quick lesson on laws of physics and semi trailers.
You’ve seen it in movies and YouTube videos. You have probably even wondered about it yourself while driving down the highway: will my car fit under that semi trailer, and if not, what would happen when I hit it? When you are bombing around in a sexy supercar, sitting just inches above the payment, it’s easy to think about how you might be able to squeeze under a semi. Especially those taller, refrigerated ones. Now the fact that you might fit is not one we are prepared to discuss today. That obviously has a thousand factors and dangerous implications. Instead, we want to look at what would happen if you tried to blast under that trailer, and didn’t make it.
This is a lesson in Newton’s third law of motion.
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We want you take a second and analyze the video above carefully. Now, this is actually a test video to show off a new semi-truck system that will prevent these kinds of crashes from happening, but take a second to examine how dangerous they can be. We want all of you guys to live another day, and we want all your cars to survive, as well. We need more amazing cars on the road, helping to make more people fall in love with cars in general. It’s hard to do that when you accidentally turned your Ferrari 458 Coupe into a convertible, the hard way.
Wild things to pay attention to in this video are how far the car makes it under the semi, how easily the front A-pillars buckle, and then how far the actual semi trailer moves. This is a 35-mph collision, and there is still an insane amount of force at work.
Thanks for reading our little PSA. Now click play and watch some Chevy cars bite the dust.
