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Thursday, January 15, 2009
Why can you stand up in buses?
How come coaches, taxis, even airplanes have seat belts, but many buses don't - and allow standing passengers, to boot? Yes, buses are safer than cars - but.
5 comments:
On the buses
said...
Coaches, taxis and aeroplanes tend to take their passengers "all the way", whereas bus passengers usually only undertake relatively short (and usually much slower and there fore probably safer) journeys. Buckling up and unbuckling would also doubtless add several minutes to each journey and would be the cause of irritation to other passengers when sticky fingered travellers were unable to operate the catches.
Airplanes have seat belts because if they hit an airpocket they can fall hundreds of feet leaving people floating out of their seats. I know - I had this rather unsettling event occur when I was in an airplane over the alps during bad weather. There was a lot of screaming at the time.
Its all a question of momentum. If a car hits a wall the car stops dead. If a bus hits a wall it doesn't stop. Hence the need for seatbelts in vehicles with high monetum is lessened since rapid deceleration is less likely.
5 comments:
Coaches, taxis and aeroplanes tend to take their passengers "all the way", whereas bus passengers usually only undertake relatively short (and usually much slower and there fore probably safer) journeys. Buckling up and unbuckling would also doubtless add several minutes to each journey and would be the cause of irritation to other passengers when sticky fingered travellers were unable to operate the catches.
Airplanes have seat belts because if they hit an airpocket they can fall hundreds of feet leaving people floating out of their seats. I know - I had this rather unsettling event occur when I was in an airplane over the alps during bad weather. There was a lot of screaming at the time.
Ok, so if no seatbelts, at least all seated, surely? Same with trains.
Oh, and many car journeys are also only short ones. Serious accidents can still happen at urban speeds.
Its all a question of momentum. If a car hits a wall the car stops dead. If a bus hits a wall it doesn't stop. Hence the need for seatbelts in vehicles with high monetum is lessened since rapid deceleration is less likely.
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