Quote Originally Posted by Mirek View Post
Exactly. A shot from a pistol is 500J, that is 2000x less and an equivalent of a car moving by a speed of 2 km/h but you still need 20 mm thick glass to stop it. That is about 25 kg for a side window (glass alone, not a frame to hold it during a crash). For sure the bullet has a smaller cross section than a pole so the penetration ability will be lesser but for an idea about what energies we are talking about it is a good comparison I think.
What I'm getting at is that a rally car collision at relatively low speed, side-on with a wooden fence, should not lead to the death of the driver.

But they all seem to just have accepted that it's ok...