Would you like someone to hit you with a plastic bat or an aluminum bat? Would you like them to hit you with a slow tap or a fast swing?
Your answers are based on your life experiences with momentum.
Momentum = Mass x Velocity.
We have learned that the faster and heavier something is, the more it will hurt !
When a 5000 lb truck traveling at 95 km/hr hits a 3500 lb car traveling at 80 km/hr head on, the extra weight and speed of the truck will cause both vehicles to instantly move in the trucks original direction at 23 km/hr. Effectively, the truck experiences a 72 km/hr accident and the car experiences a 103 km/hr accident.
In many cases the truck will have imposed so much momentum on the car, that the capabilities of the safety features of the car will be overpowered and the passenger’s in the car will experience a catastrophic accident.
Catastrophic might mean death. It may also mean pain for every second of the rest of their life. A torture sometimes worse than death.
Either everyone has to buy 5000lb vehicles, which would be environmentally harmful, or drivers of heavier vehicles must stop speeding in them.
To try to help keep people safe, our governments have implemented speed based tickets. Unfortunately this doesn’t directly meet our main goal: To reduce the harm others inflict on innocent citizens. To directly meet this goal, we must punish the imposition of momentum on others.
Traffic tickets need to be momentum based, with the inclusion of mass in the calculation of the fine. Speeding ticket amounts should be further increased by a factor related to the mass of the vehicle they are operating.
This site will be expanded to make the case for upgrading vehicular laws.
Note: A similar argument can be made for lifted vehicles. When a vehicle is lifted, the other vehicle’s crash barriers are missed and the lifted vehicle travels further into the other vehicle, causing significantly more harm.
