How do the G forces in a Louisville motor vehicle accident affect the severity of the resulting injuries?  Imagine you are driving down the road.  Your body and all of its interior bones and organs are traveling at the same speed as your car.  When your car is suddenly forced to stop (as it is in a motor vehicle accident) your body, bones, connective tissue and organs actually continue to move at the same speed until they come into contact with either the safety harness or some other obstruction inside your car.

Vehicles are specifically designed today to absorb some of the actual G forces in a Louisville motor vehicle accident.  The panels are designed to crumple, absorbing energy.  Engines may be designed to drop down, steering columns to collapse inward and all of this helps to absorb some of the G forces associated with the sudden stop.

1 G is equal to the normal gravitational pull of the earth.  According to a Hyper Physics Project at a major university, a 150 pound person who is wearing a seat belt and traveling at the relatively slow speed of 30 miles per hour experiences nearly 30 G’s of force in a collision with a stationary object.  That results in 2.4 tons of force acting on the body at impact.

While this is staggering, it is also a strong argument for seat belts.  The study found the same occupant who was not wearing a seat belt at the time of impact would experience 150 G’s or 12 tons of force.

30 MPH accidents still carry substantial force and often result in extensive soft tissue injuries, especially to the discs in between the vertebra in your back and neck as well as the ligaments, tendons and muscles which surround the spinal column.  Broken bones and fractures are common at this speed.  The higher the rate of speed, the greater the G forces in a Louisville motor vehicle accident affect the severity of the resulting injuries.

If you believe you have walked away from an accident without injury you might want to reconsider the facts above.  Your body sustained massive forces during impact.  This is why HLH strongly recommends seeing a physician for a thorough medical examination within 24 to 48 hours of any collision.  You may feel fine in the moments or hours after an accident.  The forces applied to your body will translate to painful symptoms revealing injuries you didn’t realize existed after a few more days or weeks.