Bnej wrote:tuco wrote:Remember high school physics?
Vector forces?
The speed of the 55km/h force is added to the 1.2m fall force. The head hit is going to be greater than a 1.2m vertical fall.
I would have thought that the 1.2m fall would be the more dangerous component, since you're risking slowing down in the least amount of space.
Not really, 1.2m down would be bang and "Ouch!" and 55km/h would be bang, bounce, bang, grate, bounce, bang, scrape, bounce, bang, slide, scrape, etc.
Bnej wrote:
The 55km/h is going to wash off over some distance on the road as you slide, so is not going to subject you to the same g force as striking the road. Motorcycle racers fall off at 100km/h routinely and are not seriously injured, because they slide a long way.
As long as you're sliding rather than striking you're going to get abrasions rather than blunt force trauma.
The motorcycle racers' gear is designed to slide they plus they have built in titanium pads in the vital areas.
If we wore their gear when we routinely fell then we'd not be seriously hurt either but our race times may suffer.