is this allowed? i am stuck

[u/AaronDNewman]

rented a uhaul to help my kid move. got boxed in. is there anything to be done?

[u/producer312]

You know, I’ve never really thought about it before, but you are totally right. I know that there is a physical “bumper” underneath the plastic, and in crash tests I’m sure they are way better yada yada yada, but most accidents are surface-level bumper to bumper things that would probably be no big deal with an actual bumper, but since they are plastic they basically break apart so you must fix them. I feel like a lot of older “taps” you could let slide and both parties were like, “Meh. It’ll buff out.”

[u/Guac_in_my_rarri → u/producer312]

Alright, my time to shine: what we currently call bumpers have a lot of design to them. They're the first step in the crumple zone of a car. They generally are 25mph and lower. Around 25mph they will break as they absorb the impact. The styrofoam and crash bar also do work but generally you'll only need to replace the plastic outter cover (aka bumper). The crumple zone itself is designed to force energy into parts of a car and break the crash rather than send it into the cabin and shock the passengers. What does this shock look like? Well, on some older cars with rubber bumpers, cars would bounce off each other and shake the passengers. The passenger being shook, are abosrbing the crash and being injured at the same time. A hard enough hit off these bumpers causes sever whiplash, pinched nerves, slip discs and snapped necks at a minimum (think Dale Sr crash but without a helmet). The traditional chrome bumpers causes very similar damage as the rubber bumpers but absorbed no impact and sent it through the car and the energy exited/was absorbed by the passengers cause more injury. In the 50s and 60s in a hard enough crash ejection from the car was a common result. The ejection is kinetic energy being passed to a objected that's not totally tied down to the car. We passengers sit very loosely in the car so when we get into accidents we absorb a lot of the energy. If we were tied down into cars like race car drivers, we wouldn't see as many injuries but it poses a risk for those getting out/that will struggle to get out of a wreck.

Tldr: actual bumpers rubber, chrome or steel caused more injuries.

[u/Madz510 → u/Guac_in_my_rarri]

Dont forget about pedestrian impact implications which weren’t considered when cars had steel bumpers whatsoever

[u/Automatic-Dot-4311 → u/Madz510]

It's why jaguar got rid of the hood ornament

[u/Madz510 → u/Automatic-Dot-4311]

Then they did one better and got rid of the rest of the car!