CRASH AND LIVE

[Music] 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 [Music] not many us I know are exposed to these hazards yet the protection of the human body is of vital concern to all of us and many of today's common safety devices have had their origins and specialized occupation I mark Flemming here at the Rotunda at Deborah I'd like you to listen in and look over the shoulders of some 100 safety experts from all over the country about to arrive here for unusual safety forum some time ago Cornell University established a Research Center to safety in transportation one of their prime concerns has been auto crash injuries and what could be done to prevent or at least lessen them this year something is being done something resulting from this research something practical something available to us the public a very real forward step is being taken in the automobile industry but right now here come the safety experts so let's go along with them and learn about it on the 10th of December of nineteen and fifty-four I was the volunteer human subject for an experiment in which I rode a rocket sled from a standing start to 632 miles an hour in 2,800 feet this is Colonel John Stapp of the Holloman Air Development Center in New Mexico from six hundred and thirty two miles an hour that came to a complete stop in one and for ten seconds the fact that a properly shock mounted human body seated in the forward-facing position and sustained four tons of force applied within a quarter of a second and suffer new disability is just as significant for automobiles as it is for airplane aviation experience has demonstrated that people can be packaged as effectively as merchandised with packages to prevent damage this is John Moore director of automobile crash injury research of Cornell University Medical College these are some of Cornell's general findings first we find that the automobile package is a relativist safe structure our data indicate that ejection from the car more than doubles the risk of moderate to fatal grades of injury this finding destroys the theory that it's safer to be thrown clear about 40% of all the injured drivers are hurt by the steering wheel assembly approximately 38% of the passengers in the right and son of front seats are injured by the instrument panel in these injured producing accidents four percent of the individuals seated in the front and injured producing accidents are hurt when they strike the rear view mirror statistics such as mr. Moore's indicate the injury producing areas of highest frequency Colonel staffs work has shown that there is a range of forces that the human body probably can tolerate this is Alex L Haynes executive engineer of the Ford Motor Company our problem then becomes that of providing methods of protecting occupants car occupants involved in accidents that are not avoided our research and development program showed that it was possible to take immediate steps for reducing these injury producing areas within the car let's go to the laboratory and we'll actually see how we develop these devices let's take this piece by piece let's consider the steering wheel first you remember the statistics the Cornell statistics show that 40% of the injured drivers are hurt by the steering wheel all we have to do something about this consider an accident forty-five miles per hour at the moment of impact the unrestrained driver unrestrained driver what any by that that's uh the the driver who doesn't use a belt he's not tied down to the structure of the car the unrestrained driver he's traveling as a projectile through the car at 45 miles per hour is the original speed of the car the car slowing down during this time and the wheel part of the car is traveling perhaps 33 miles per hour the relative speed relative speed now that's a new term yeah that's the difference between the speed of the drivers chest and a speed of the steering wheel 45 - 33 12 miles per hour so in other words the driver is going at a faster rate of speed than the cars yeah that's exactly right ah this pendulum here you see this way is about the average weight of a driver 167 pounds we're gonna swing this into the steering wheel here at 15 miles per hour that's faster than the 12 miles per hour well in other words on this car then in this particular case is going at a greater rate of speed s it might be that the car may be going into the accident about 50 to 55 miles per hour this stuff to hoist please and let's step back now let's try this in slow motion this is what happens to a conventional wheel notice at the moment of impact the rim breaks away and the full weight of the driver's chest of the driver actually is carried by the small area over this hub this becomes a lethal instrument it's a spirit that's what hurts the driver we literally tried hundreds of different types of wheels before we arrived at the one that was acceptable let's see what happens now in slow motion well here's what happened to this wheel this is a safety wheel the driver's chest struck this rim and then the whole weight of the driver was scary by this rim and spoke combination and it absorbed energy as the spokes bent and yielded out of the way but notice the important thing the drivers just never did strike this hub the small area of the hub all right now what would happen to a driver who was wearing a safety belt well then a condition would it be even better because then the driver would only be the driver's chest would only be carrying one-third to one-half of the drivers weight because the rest of the driver of the lower part of his body would be carried by the floor structure through the belt well now we've covered the driver what about the passenger in the right front seat well that's another problem when I'll show you what we've done about that well here we are here is an unpadded instrument panel you recall the cornell statistics they showed that 38 percent of the injured passengers in a right front seat on the center front seat they were hurt by the instrument panel yes I remember now when the passengers head strikes this panel in an accident then it should've thanked we've been discussing the metal here will wrinkle it will tear thereby causing facial lacerations to the head or to the face in under more severe conditions the head may you may get a skull fracture or you may get a concussion let's see what happens under a 20 mile-per-hour relative speed relative yeah I remember relative speed pull this back will you please see what I mean business of crashes all right here's an apple conveniently placed an apple like this made Isaac Newton the famous physicist physicist famous that's the law of gravity yes the law of gravity let me drop this is in a shame it's bruised yeah it's bruised it's dented but the seeds in here they're perfectly all right nature provide a protection for the seeds for just such a drop that's a ball that's exactly what we're trying to do through our passengers in our cars here's a padded instrument panel feels like foam rubber yeah it feels like foam rubber but that's deceiving this is a special type of material it's of the expanded plastic family this material is five times more shock absorbing or more energy absorbing than foam rubber let's see what happens joining an accident we pull this back please see the difference it's truly remarkable I can see this has to do with doors you're right you remember the Cornell statistics they indicated that an occupant chances but twice as good of escaping injury if you remained within the car during an accident yes here's what happens this pillar tends to spring the way from the door during an impact pull this door now I'll show you this this will spring away here's here's a door with a safety door latch try this pull this daughter now I'll impose distress as they did before Oh doesn't open at all all right now open it as you would a regular door but what did that well the safety door latch this rotor engages behind the lock plate on this striker element of the lot it engages like this it keeps the pillar from springing away from the door now tell me how is all this research we've seen here today applied in practical use come with me incidentally this car has the safety door lock I see and also the brand new safety belt yeah if that cushion strike to punch that cushion we'll use that instrument panel and also the cushioning on the Sun Visor yes that's right take a look at that safety rearview mirror the no steering wheel also yeah this automobile has everything yeah I it has the new devices they so called safety devices now let's see how these devices actually work in safety features the car in front of you the rent two door will be impacted on the right rear fender at approximately 35 miles an hour I should also point out both of our crashes today one will be slightly over 35 the other slightly over 40 we have picked this speed because we have found by accident statistic data you will note on your right in my left the small table with the awning type cover which contains all of the instrumentation which is recording what's happening in this parked car in the car which is doing the impacting which is a green and white four-door down the runway we have two test dummies one is in the driver's seat he is wearing a lap belt which is also instrumented the one in the right front compartment the passenger is completely unrestrained he will be permitted to fly within the automobile the tow car which will run in backup this red car and it will releases tow cable just before impact an automatic freak application will be applied to the green and white corridors to prevent its run away this brake application will go on approximately six feet after impact this car incidentally will spin around maybe 90 degrees and slide sideways some 16 feet you will note the large instrument band down the track which is cabled into the crashing car here we have all of our mobile instrumentation and we record in the van what happens in the crashing vehicle I should also mention that the two test dummies in the crashing car contain their own instrumentation and accelerometers in the stomach of the driver dummy and one in the head of the passenger dummy the dummy's heads have been chopped with blue chalk so you can see where they hit inside the car I think we're about ready to roll now [Music] here is the same crash in slow-motion first thing on the kind that we hit you will note that the driver dummy is still in back of the steering wheel although he is angled slightly to the right with this impact you'll also note that the door the right front door did not come open in the car which did the hitting you will notice that the visor has been bent where the dummy's head hit it the fat or the diver dummy being belted in place it's nothing he impacted the steering wheel a little bit with his chest again on this car of course no door is open because safety locks were included the right front wheel this again is another typical intersection accident when I say impacts be slightly over 40 miles an hour the car actually in the actual accident could be running faster than this because we do not put the brakes on before the impact in this car you will note the park vehicle that we have a dummy in the rear seat this case this dummy is also belted in place and it will show you how a belt will keep you from flying sideways in the automobile the car which is hitting this time will also have two velvet dummies in the front seat in this case the driver dummy will be unrestrained so that he will impact the safety steering wheel his head should also impact the safety visor the right front dummy in this case will have a belt again we will be measuring bail load and you will know that when he jacked nice in the impact he will impact the safety pad on the panel are we ready ok let's go [Music] and now in slow motion hey that's quite a wreck but notice the doors have stayed shut in this condition oh I see and that's quite an important thing ordinarily these doors would have opened well can we have safety door locks that we have worked out to take care just a specific condition I see well can you tell us a little something about our old friend the back seat over there well let's take a look at him fine look at this dummy this is bird number 3 that's for engineering research dummy misses a third one that we use work heard he wasn't named for heard and the bowling hall nut Ferdinand the bull this is an afterthought morphic dummy it simulates the human being as much as it is possible to do it he weighs about a hundred and eighty pounds notice that this dummy he was strapped in for this test this means that the dummy was restrained in it and it did not fly all over the car so to speak and perhaps either cause injury to another occupant that may have been here or to himself well that's a common occurrence isn't yes it is this is a common occurrence in these type of crashes thank you well let's take a look at the other moving car yeah let's think this is a crashing car let's take a look inside that time alright fine say can you tell me about those wires sticking out of the dummy yeah those are attached to electronic instrumentation that we use in connection with this work we have accelerometers in the dummy's head and they measure these accelerometers measure the forces and decelerations for just such condition these impact conditions I noticed that fire dummy 2 has his head on the dashboard yes and this new type cushioning on our dashboard probably reduced the injury on this dummy and also it reduced the facial laceration that usually occurs in this type of accident 93 and notice this wheel this wheel probably saved the dummy's chest and probably saved the dummy from severe injury because of the recessed hub that's a very interesting you know with all this wreckage here I'm gonna try this door see if it opens and closes it opens all right very well - you know I'm very impressed with all the work being done on the automobile crash of safety yes we think we've made a good beginning yeah there's still some a lot of work to be done and of course we intend to continue but there's still one thing I'd like you to see this afternoon let's go into this that's battling Rotunda and let's see what's over there fine this must be an important announcement because Henry Ford second is addressing the group himself we at Ford Motor Company feel a particular gratitude to the automobile crash injury research project of Cornell University Medical College through its statistical sampling and its analysis of injuries to people involved in automobile crashes the Cornell group along with others has helped us materially in setting up our own crash injury research program and the developing of our safety equipment designed to reduce injuries in event of an accident I'm most happy therefore to present at this time $200,000 to Cornell University so that this vital program may be expanded the purpose of this grant is to increase substantially the testing set the research base upon which the project is developing its findings furthermore we wish to announce that all of the pioneer safety features and the specifications and design of those features developed by Ford Motor Company are to be made available to any automobile company that wants them we also will release any and all information which has been developed through our new research program in the crash injury field I want to point out that gathering this information has taken a lot of diligence and devoted effort at considerable expense but we want to give this knowledge away to anybody that will use it we hope they will take it and such is our report for this year on what is being done here it is a bold and significant step its aim is your safety you the driver and you the passenger its aim is to prevent needless injuries and help save the most precious thing in the world human lives [Music]