When you’re involved in a car crash, there is a chance that you could be seriously hurt. After that, you may want to seek out compensation from an at-fault driver, but to do that you need to show the severity of your injuries.
What determines the severity of your injuries tends to be how quickly you’re moving, the safety systems your vehicle has in place, the movement of other objects you collide with and the angle of impact.
In a crash, the G-force of the collision, or the forces acting in the opposite direction of your vehicle’s acceleration, makes a difference in your injuries. You have to consider a number of factors when calculating the G-force of a collision, such as:
- The speed at which your vehicle was traveling
- If you were wearing a seat belt
- If an airbag deployed
- What kind of car you’re in
- What kind of obstacle you’ve hit
To determine the force of the impact, you follow a simple equation, F = m * v² / (2 * d). This stands for “Force equals mass times speed to the second power divided by two times the distance traveled during the collision.”
Interestingly, the further the distance you travel in the collision, the less the force will be on average. Similarly, if you wear a seat belt, then the forces acting on you will be reduced because the seat belt continues to spread out the force.
Is there any way to calculate how severe a person’s injuries should be?
No, because every crash is different and has varied factors to consider, such as a person’s weight, any debris they may come into contact with, the kind of vehicle or object they hit and others. While it is more common for someone to have severe injuries or to die after a high-speed collision, there is no way to plan for the severity of a person’s injuries based on speed or the angle of impact alone.