Impact Timeline: 55 MPH in 7/10 of a Second

It takes 7/10^ths of a second to kill a person in an automobile accident. Studies at Yale and Cornell Universities provided a dramatic split second chronology of what happens when a car rams into a tree at 55 miles per hour.

At 1/10^th of a second:
The front bumper and grillwork collapse.

At 2/10^ths of a second:
The hood crumbles, rises, smashes into the windshield, grillwork disintegrates.

At 3/10^ths of a second:
The driver is sprung upright from his/her seat, his/her broken knees are pressed into the dashboard, the steering wheel bends under
his/her grip.

At 4/10^ths of a second:
The front of his/her car is destroyed and dead still, but the rear end is still plunging forward at 55 MPH. The half-ton motor crunches into the tree.

At 5/10^ths of a second:
The driver's fear frozen hands bend the steering column into an almost vertice position and he/she is impaled on the steering wheel shaft. Jagged steel punctures his/her lungs and arteries.

At 6/10^ths of a second:
The impact rips the shoes off his/her feet. The chasis bends in the middle and the driver's head is slammed into the windshield. The car's rear end begins its downward fall as its spinning wheels churn into the ground.

At 7/10^ths of a second:
The entire body of the car is twisted grotequely out of shape. In one final agonizing convulsion, the front seat rams forward pinning the driver against the steering staft. Blood spurts from his/her mouth. Shock has frozen his/her heart.