Crumple Zone: What Car Crashes Reveal About Human Hubris and Fragility
January 10, 2025 at 04:44AMCars weren’t always built to protect the driver, as the experiences Sara Mitchell and her father make clear. They had similar accidents, decades apart, with very different outcomes. Yet, it’s the many events that happened in between that give this essay its heft and impact. A thoughtful, affecting piece.
When my father was driving his car, the commodity of safety just wasn’t as attractive; it wasn’t what was selling cars. He was driving one of those classic cars, the ones built tough with American steel, that wouldn’t bat a lash at any ol’ fender bender, or any ol’ tree for that matter. When he was young, testing the limits of his car, driving fast, cutting close turns, and kicking up dust on a red dirt road in Alabama, he crashed head-on into a tree. My dad’s hood didn’t crumple, though. It, along with the car’s engine, stayed intact and shot straight back into the “safety cell,” a.k.a. him. After his crash, my father spent three months in the hospital. He doesn’t remember the day leading up to the crash. His legs were broken. There was glass shattered into his body. He survived, though, and was able to go on to have a daughter, who would get to go on and have the same crash as him.
from Longreads https://longreads.com/2025/01/09/crumple-zone-what-car-crashes-reveal-about-human-hubris-and-fragility/
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