Why do cars stop faster when they crash?
Momentum
Why do cars stop faster when they crash?
Imagine you're driving and suddenly hit the brakes hard. You skid to a stop much quicker than expected.
It's because when cars crash, the force of the collision pushes them together, slowing them down faster. This is due to the principle of conservation of momentum, which states that the total momentum before and after the crash remains constant.
Example
If a car moving at 20 m/s crashes into a stationary car of the same mass, both cars slow down together, showing the total momentum is conserved.
Remember this
The total momentum of colliding objects remains constant, explaining why cars stop faster when they crash.
Text adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
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