CONTACTTRAFFICABOUT TOM VANDERBILTOTHER WRITING CONTACT ABOUT THE BOOK

Archive for April 19th, 2010

Dead Man Driving

The current Men’s Health has an excellent piece by Oliver Broudy (disclosure: I’m quoted), “Dead Man Driving,” that unpacks the anatomy of a fatal crash, from causes to consequences, in chilling detail.

It’s as if LaBar’s car has been dropped from a height of 54 feet. The crush easily exceeds 20 inches. There are three big impacts in any crash, says Stitzel. “The vehicle hits the other vehicle; the occupant loads the restraint system; and then the occupant’s internal organs load the inner chest wall or the inside of the skull.”

It’s this third impact that we tend to forget about. The human body, says Stitzel, did not evolve to cope with impacts of this order. If it did, our chest cavity–instead of a big open space packed with soft tissue–would be braced with internal restraints. Lacking such restraints, there’s nothing to prevent your aorta, for instance, from rupturing when you stop too quickly. At that point–even if you’re otherwise free of visible injury–you’re dead.

Your skull, by the same token, is basically a big yogurt container. The brain’s only other crash restraints are the delicate internal structures that allow it to function.

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Posted on Monday, April 19th, 2010 at 11:19 am by: Tom Vanderbilt
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Traffic Tom Vanderbilt

How We Drive is the companion blog to Tom Vanderbilt’s New York Times bestselling book, Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us), published by Alfred A. Knopf in the U.S. and Canada, Penguin in the U.K, and in languages other than English by a number of other fine publishers worldwide.

Please send tips, news, research papers, links, photos (bad road signs, outrageous bumper stickers, spectacularly awful acts of driving or parking or anything traffic-related), or ideas for my Slate.com Transport column to me at: info@howwedrive.com.

For publicity inquiries, please contact Kate Runde at Vintage: krunde@randomhouse.com.

For editorial inquiries, please contact Zoe Pagnamenta at The Zoe Pagnamenta Agency: zoe@zpagency.com.

For speaking engagement inquiries, please contact
Jenna Meulemans at the Knopf Speaker Bureau.

Order Traffic from:

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For UK publicity enquiries please contact Rosie Glaisher at Penguin.

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