Heroic Engineer Crashes Own Vehicle To Save a Life

scottbomb sends in this feel-good story of an engineer-hero, calling it "one of the coolest stories I've read in a long time." "A manager of Boeing's F22 fighter-jet program, Innes dodged the truck, then looked back to see that the driver was slumped over the wheel. He knew a busy intersection was just ahead, and he had to act fast. Without consulting the passengers in his minivan — 'there was no time to take a vote' — Innes kicked into engineer mode. 'Basic physics: If I could get in front of him and let him hit me, the delta difference in speed would just be a few miles an hour, and we could slow down together,' Innes explained."

Comments

Re:What about the passengers?

[T Murphy]

Assuming your kids aren't riding in the trunk, the people in the car really shouldn't be put in harm by doing this. As the engineer said, he let the pickup hit his car at a low relative speed (the article doesn't mention airbags, but they might not have deployed). Cars can brake far stronger than they can accelerate, so once the cars are in contact you can do a controlled stop without a problem. I assume he had a nice minivan (at least for safety and braking)- he should have decent pay in his position- so the only other risk would be from other drivers. Given how the pickup had yet to hit anyone, I assume that wasn't much of an issue either.

Even if the people in the car were put in harm's way, it would most likely be far less danger than what could have happened if this pickup made it to the intersection. Given we would now be talking side-on collisions, if the pickup hit a passenger door with a kid on the other side...