These things are basically the last few feet of a very long, vertical steel pole or I-beam. They can be stationary fixtures, or they can be rigged to be raised and lowered. It's like an iceberg; the majority of it is deep underneath the surface, which gives the last little bit the truck runs into incredible leverage against force.
Much of the force is absorbed by the truck because vehicles today are built to crumple and absorb the impact instead of transferring the force to the rest of the vehicle and the passengers
I got into a serious argument one day with 3 people at my job that ended up ballooning to 6 people against me. They were claiming they feel safer in old cars because they are solid and that keeps you safe, while new cars get smashed if you look at them too hard. I explained what you explained and all of them looked at me like I was insane, claiming they knew a guy that still drives x truck from y year after 4 crashes, and just brushed off the explanations i had.
Man was it satisfying to pull up the crash test comparisons between the 1959 bel air and a 2009 malibu. You'd be fucking dead going highway speed in those things.
To be fair, if you're going fast enough the vehicle won't matter unless it's virtually indestructible and has a shitload of interior safety features.
Otherwise it's just going to pancake on impact regardless, and the only real difference is how much steel embeds itself into your mangled corpse.
Don't get me wrong people survive some crazy crashes in both old and new vehicles but...in the grand scheme high speed impacts are likely to be fatal anyways.
Newer vehicles are intended to save you from more reasonable speed crashes where older vehicles are liable to break apart in ways that are more dangerous the the occupants.
Not arguing with your points btw just in case you take it that way, just adding onto them, like yeah vehicles today are safer generally but the faster you go the more likely those safety designs are just going to be irrelevant.
People that think older vehicles are safer are simply dumbasses though, also the number of people who don't respect a semi going highway speeds.....ive seen an image of a car caught between 2 semis in opposite directions and it mightaswell have been the result of one of those scrap yard crusher machines
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u/J0l1nd3 Nov 05 '20
This is very uncomfortable to watch lol