I don't doubt your right. The impact was unbelievable though......
No doubt it was. You're talking about a vehicle that weighs roughly 6400 lbs making contact a few feet (or even inches) away from your body. That's substantial, and the Jeep did a great job of protecting you like it should.
All I'm going to remind you of is the general reaction people have to slam on the brakes impending a collision. I could be going 45MPH, and even though I am very close to the object I'm going to collide with, I will impact it at a much slower speed because of the last ditch effort to stop.
You're correct that the the impact speed could be less than the initial speed. That is assuming, that the other driver saw it coming and hit the brakes. That being said, you may be surprised at how little of a change it actually is. For example, we know the truck turned into the side of the OP so I'd venture to guess that there was very little breaking (if at all). To play devil's advocate though and I'll assume they did smash the brake and reduce speed. However that reduction would be less than you'd likely expect. For example:
Say the truck started at 35 mph (10 mph over the limit). Since they were already turning the braking distance isn't going to be much more than a lane width (otherwise they would have been braking straight ahead and not started to turn). A normal traffic lane is usually about 12' wide, so I'll assume 15' of 100% braking to give the truck more than a lane worth of braking. Using the IPTM Combined Speed Formula (assuming normal dry roads), the impact speed would be 30.5 mph. That's only taking off 5 mph. Even being optimistic and assuming they jammed the brakes at 30' away (almost 3 lanes) they would only have taken off 10 mph from that initial 35 mph speed, making impact roughly 25.
As noted though, we're assuming the truck braked prior to impact, and obviously having to make assumptions about the road surface and distance of braking. The point I guess I'm trying to make is that even if they jammed the brake they didn't reduce that much speed. So I still doubt they were going exceptionally fast. Obviously I could be wrong though without any actual evidence from the scene.
Regardless of the exact speed, that's still a lot of mass t-boning that JGC and the level of protection did its job impressively.
I couldn't agree more. That's a lot of steel hitting in very close proximity of the fragile human body. Since I'm being Mr. Math today, we can actually get an idea of force too. Figuring the average 3/4 ton pickup weighs roughly 6,400 lbs (empty) we have an idea of a minimum force. That much weight, even at the slow speed of 15 mph is a massive 48,000 ft-lbs of force. That's taking a freaking shot.
Wow you took a bad hit. Usually with a accident like that it causes neck injuries or worse. Sure happy to hear everyone is okay! Jeep does look like a total loss. !
Yeah, I'm gonna have to agree with that too. That Jeep is done. Looks like a good excuse to buy a 75th anniversary edition, or to wait a week or two and get a '17. Might as well make some good out of it, eh?
..... Be safe my friends...slow down in inclement weather.
Solid advice. We just had fatal crash in the area were a HMV hydroplaned, went left of center and struck a car head-on. The driver and the child in the back seat of the car were both killed. The crash is still under investigation, but the wet roads were, in all probability, a major factor
*And a foot note. Since I referred to using IPTM formuals. They are the Institute of Police Technology and Management. This is essentially the standard for crash reconstruction, used by police and insurance companies world wide. Engineers use similar formulas, however they take a slightly different approach.