How did the safety of old cars differ from modern cars?

Answer 1

Old cars are made from older metals (alloys) that were a little more dangerous but actually safer than today's cars. today's cars have different materials used to build them such as fiber glass and plastic but what today's modern cars have that older cars don't are airbags, side airbags, Saturn's are equipped with engines that drop for your safety. but older cars if they were hit the metal was so strong that it didn't even effect the driver but the downfall of and older car is the interior which if you go in a head on collision the older models weren't equipped with airbags therefore if you got hit and you face hit the steering wheel the impact would shatter every bone in your face so thank God for airbags lol but I'm sure there are a lot more answers for your question but hopefully i could have helped you.

Edit: Older cars being made of stronger metal was not a good thing (As this fool has written above XD just kidding, but it is wrong >:(

Safety features used in modern cars include crumple zones, the fronts of cars particularly are purposely made to crumple.

This absorbs the energy of the crash by reducing the acceleration of the car/increasing the collision time. As acceleration = V2-V1/ time, and the time of collision is increased by the crumple zones, this will, in turn decrease the acceleration.

So, this means the force on the passenger(s) is less, because Force = Mass * Acceleration.

This can also be thought of as spreading the force on the passenger over a longer period of time, meaning the passenger takes less of the force at once.

V2 = velocity after crash (0)

V1 = velocity before crash (i.e. 50mph)

Time = How long the collision lasted (i.e. No crumple zone could be 0.05 seconds, while a crumple zone could make it last as long as 0.2 seconds, this will make a major difference to the injuries caused by a crash)