Tuesday 11th October 2011

How Much Force Can A Baby Elephant Muster?

Try catching a flying Labrador to find out...

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A Labrador going for 'walkies' yesterday

The Guild Of Experienced Motorists (a branch of self-aggrandisers not wishing to remain anonymous - since 1932), has once more unleashed the unlikely concept of the airborne baby elephant in its call for a new law to make dogs belt-up in cars.

Mature PHers with an interest in such matters will recognise the airborne baby elephant simile of old. The hackneyed line (in its most drawn out form as lifted from GEM's hot-off-the-press release) is that "if a motorist is travelling at just 30 miles per hour, in the case of impact, an unrestrained average sized dog weighing approximately 50lbs would be projected forward with a force equal to a baby elephant". It's been trotted out blindly for years by campaigners against man's divine right to conduct an automobile with his best friend yapping out of the passenger side window, or chewing the arm rest. The commonly abridged version is available here.

Well, enough is enough! In the interests of truth and clarity, this time we're refusing to let GEM's baby elephant fly overhead without taking a pot-shot. Or at least asking the darned obvious questions...

The AMG dog-chipping accessory

What kind of elephant are we talking about, and why the hell (assuming a 'like for like' comparison) would being twatted on the back of the cranium by 50lb of possibly pre-pubescent pachyderm be any more alarming than a similar incident involving a Labrador? Do these people think we're a bunch of Dumbos?

Oh yes...

PS. Our dogs travel unharnessed behind a sturdy metal grille in the editorial AMG C63, so naturally we live in constant fear of being lamped in the back of the head by 25 kilos of chipped Flatcoat. (Not.)

[b14]

This article confuses me.

[ZOLLAR]

Err mmmm

Sorry are you saying we shouldn't travel with elephants in the car?, or that we should put seatbelts on our dogs?..

[GrahamG]

Slow news day?

[sinizter]

The force of a baby elephant doing what exactly ?

Completely idiotic comparison.

[davemac250]

Early gin intake today?

[thewheelman]

I don't see why there's so much confusion here.

[cuda]

sinizter said:

The force of a baby elephant doing what exactly ?

Completely idiotic comparison.

exactly - agree

[McSam]

sinizter said:

The force of a baby elephant doing what exactly ?

Completely idiotic comparison.

Exactly. Right now, I have the momentum of a full-grown elephant, assuming that elephant is also sitting on its arse. If you chuck a pen at someone, it has the momentum of a baby elephant going pretty slowly.

What the fk are they trying to say?

[b14]

thewheelman said:

I don't see why there's so much confusion here.

Its not news. Its a sudden and unprovoked rant about something that used to be on TV years ago. Therefore I'm confused.

[mgrays]

50 lbs at 10g = 500 lbs = 1/4 short ton.

There was a 1 ton 17 year old "teenage" female elephant in the Sunday papers parking itself in the road.. so how old is the baby elephant, and hence how heavy? 1/4 ton sounds fair.

How long to get from 30mph to 0mph? 1 second?
30mph = 50 kph = 14 metre/sec
Acceleration = 14 / 1 = 14g.

So not an unreal statement.

[Sushi]

I think it's fairly obvious, the rotational spin of the elephant along a parabolic arc, is both equal and not equal to that of a dog licking the underside of your foot.
got it?

[thewheelman]

[redacted]

[OlberJ]

The real question is, would the elephant take off?

[luke g28]

mgrays said:

50 lbs at 10g = 500 lbs = 1/4 short ton.

There was a 1 ton 17 year old "teenage" female elephant in the Sunday papers parking itself in the road.. so how old is the baby elephant, and hence how heavy? 1/4 ton sounds fair.

How long to get from 30mph to 0mph? 1 second?
30mph = 50 kph = 14 metre/sec
Acceleration = 14 / 1 = 14g.

So not an unreal statement.

Its been a while since I did mechanics but:

G = 9.81ms-1

Therefore an acceleration of 14ms-1 is 1.4g

To get to 5G it would have to accelerate from 50kph to 0 in 0.25s which is very unlikely.

[greeneggsnsam]

So, at a crash speed of 30mph, what would a baby elephant have the "momentum" of? An adult elephant? It makes no sense...

[Chris-R]

[redacted]

[anonymous-user]

luke g28 said:

mgrays said:

50 lbs at 10g = 500 lbs = 1/4 short ton.

There was a 1 ton 17 year old "teenage" female elephant in the Sunday papers parking itself in the road.. so how old is the baby elephant, and hence how heavy? 1/4 ton sounds fair.

How long to get from 30mph to 0mph? 1 second?
30mph = 50 kph = 14 metre/sec
Acceleration = 14 / 1 = 14g.

So not an unreal statement.

Its been a while since I did mechanics but:

G = 9.81ms-1

Therefore an acceleration of 14ms-1 is 1.4g

To get to 5G it would have to accelerate from 50kph to 0 in 0.25s which is very unlikely.

unless say, you drive into a solid object at 50kph, like in, say, er, a crash ?? ;-)

[PaulMoor]

But they don't say which is the cutest of the two. A flying Lab or a baby elephant. Or which would win in a fight.

At least we now know why people wanted to know how many elephants you could fit in a car.

[anonymous-user]

Has there been a sudden rash of people being killed by flying dogs? or have the motoring organsiations run out of other stuff to moan about?? Surely, they should invest the same effort in promoting better driver training, which would save many more lives each year ???

[Doshy]

My puppy is 50kg at 10 months old. So what happens when you have a dog that's the size of an elephant in the back? It's all very confusing.