Speed can provide the ultimate adrenalin rush, whether you're behind the wheel of a Porsche 911 Turbo S at more than 200 mph or flooring it like Kansas City Chiefs' quarterback Patrick Mahomes in a Ferrari 812 Superfast. But don't kid yourself – speed also kills, and to illustrate how extreme the carnage on the road can get, Bulgarian car channel Bri4ka. COM staged a high-speed crash involving a sedan, bus and a few dummies.
Pedal To The Metal
Even while the test was being set up, announcers bickered over the merits of having a lead foot. "But speed is fun!" argued host Mitko Iliev. "When you step on it, you feel good!"
"But we should think about the consequences," replied his brother Dimitar, a test driver the past 20 years. "I know how badly I can injure myself while driving and I make an error at high speed."
To demonstrate, Dimitar arranges for a layout of how much braking distance a car needs when travelling at 140 kilometers an hour (87 mph), the top legal speed on Bulgarian freeways. A test car going through the paces at that speed needed about 70 meters (230 feet) — more than half the length of a football field — when the brakes were slammed on. Braking when a car is going the 55-mph limit on a U.S. highway required only 95 feet of skidding.
This Crash Was Insane
But what if you were to test the limits of your car and slam into something without even touching the brakes? That's where the results got messy. The crew first outfitted a test vehicle with a remote control unit and a dummy in the passenger seat. They also parked a bus further down the pavement stocked with dummies. The results when the car hit the bus at 208 kilometers an hour (129 mph) were devastating.
The car sliced through the back end of the bus, which was jolted at least 30 feet by the impact. Both vehicles were write-offs in the wake of all the glass and metal strewn all over the pavement. As for the fake passengers? Body parts were wedged into side panels, the ceiling and even beyond the perimeter of the crash zone. No live person would have survived that collision.
After The Carnage
At the very least, the display was a rather graphic lesson that Dimitar wants drivers in Bulgaria and beyond to learn.
"What we saw is proof that we must not drive at high speeds," he said. "This is what kills, guys. Just because your car can go 200 or 300 kph doesn't mean you should do it. Do you get it?"
Source: Bri4ka