Jerry Eichenberger
Serious Thumper
Offline
2006 S40. OEM windshield, saddle bags, Sportster
Posts: 2919
Columbus, Ohio
Gender:
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Folks -
Lots has been written about the wisdom of not being in nuetral at a stop, so you cvan make a quicker getaway if needed. A story to bring home the point:
A few years ago my wife was in her car, stopped to make a left turn, yielding to on-coming traffic. She was driving, our daughter was riding the the front pax seat, daughter's high school boyfriend was behind the driver in the rear seat.
While still stopped, my wife was checking her "six" as she does, and noticed a dump trunk barreling full speed up her tailpipe.
She slammed on the gas, got going about 15 mph before the impact - the dump trunk was going at least 55 mph.
Crash broke the car in half over the rear wheels, and the EMTs had to use the "jaws" to open the doors, and it blew out every window in the car.
The only injury was to the kid in the back - the EMT put a Bandaid over a superficial cut on his hand where a piece of flying glass made a tiny cut.
My wife's vigilance, and starting to move forward saved their bacon. Remember, impact G forces increase at the square of the increase in impact velocity - anything you do to lessen the velocity of the impacting vehicle is a tremendous help. Moving forward lessens the relative velocities, hence reduces impact forces.
You can't do much if you're sitting in neutral.
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