Monday, April 27, 2015

This is kinda scary to watch


Here are some General Motors crash tests from the 1960's.  Note how the almost complete absence of modern safety features - airbags, seatbelts, etc. - means that the crash test dummies are exposed to the full force of the impact.





I'm rather glad things have improved since then!

Peter

3 comments:

Expatriate Owl said...

To appreciate what went into those tests, remember that in those days, the videocams, what with their image orthicon or vidicom vacuum tubes, were almost as expensive as the cars.

Anonymous said...

I noticed some of the cars have "UCLA" on them. When I went there in the 1970's I learned that UCLA Dept of Engineering had developed a lot of the pioneering crash tests.

In my explorations of the engineering building I came across a vast storeroom of old equipment and test apparatus (apparati?) -- including a couple of vintage crash test dummies. Had they not weighed so much I would probably have one now.

Don in Oregon

Randy said...

I was surprised to see how easily the seats broke loose from their mounts.