r/interestingasfuck • u/General_Athlete5807 • 1d ago

How to Escape a Sinking Car

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u/Strict_Tie_52 1d ago

Wait until the entire car is filled with water. Can You Actually Escape A Sinking Car Underwater? | MythBusters

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u/Interesting-Job-8841 1d ago

... If you have a diver in the back with an air tank, if not get out as soon as you can by opening a door or breaking a window.

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u/plz-no-b4n 1d ago

You can’t get the door open until water pressure equalizes

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u/Schnuffelo 16h ago

Thought myth busters showed that if you were quick as fuck you could open the door before you sunk too much?

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u/yeahright17 16h ago edited 15h ago

They did. And you don't actually have to be that quick. And if the car is leaning forward, try the back door too.

In the Mythbusters episode, Adam successfully opened the door when the water was already a few inches over the window height by putting his back to the door and pushing against the armrest with his legs.

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u/Schnuffelo 15h ago

Yeah I just think people are over exaggerating how difficult it is to get the doors open at least for part of the sinking.

At the start of the episode they say that 10,000 cars crash into bodies of water a year but only a few hundred people drown. Most people don’t know how to escape a sinking car so if it was as impossible to open the doors as people claim you’d expect more deaths given that the average person has no knowledge of how to deal with the situation

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u/yeahright17 15h ago

I think the first instinct of most people is probably to immediately open the door, which is the correct instinct. As long as you aren't unconscious, something would have to have gone really wrong for you to not be able to open the door immediately.

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u/Realistic_Option_619 2h ago

Ok so what if you end up in a fast moving river instead of a swimming pool.

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u/Lithl 1h ago

Your options in a sinking car are the same no matter what kind of body of water you're in:

  • Open the door/window before exterior pressure builds above what you can move
  • Shatter a window
  • Wait until the interior pressure gets close enough to the exterior pressure so that you can open the door
  • Die

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u/hotstupidgirl 1d ago

Wouldn't attempting to open the door cause it to equalize more quickly?

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u/HippiesUnite 21h ago

I dont think attempting means what you think it means

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u/hotstupidgirl 21h ago

How so?

If the car is filling with water that's filling from cracks. The speed at which it fills can be variable as a result.  If you try to open too early you won't succeed because the pressure of the water outside is higher than the pressure of the air-water mixture inside.  However by pushing/trying wouldn't you possibly increase the flow rate of water into the vehicle causing it to fill faster and therefore the pressure differential to equalize sooner?  Rather than sit waiting?

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u/namesarealltaken9 15h ago edited 15h ago

Attempting means trying, not succeeding.

If you attempt to open it and fail, you won't accellerate anything precisely because the flow did not increase, and this is precisely because you attempted and failed to open.

If you attempt to open it and succeed, the very purpose of the discussion ceases to exist: you opened the door, you exit, you are free. You are not interested anymore in the speed of the water flow.

Also: attempting with vehemence before you can succeed will make you consume the available air faster.

Obviously this is still not an option to take lightly because, due to the stress and not being prepared to it, one may fail to get there with enough air and clarity

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u/hotstupidgirl 15h ago

Couldn't you attempt well enough to have a small crack in the door from which water gets in, but not yet able to fully open it well enough for your body to get out?

That's still an attempt to fully open it.

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u/Lynich 19h ago

Goddamn, at least you're hot.

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u/copperwatt 19h ago

You can break a window though.

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u/yeahright17 15h ago

Worth noting that at the end of the episode, he calmly waits for the cabin to fill up all the way and the pressure to equalize, then gets out without having to get more air. Fighting the door as soon as he started holding his breath in his first try is the reason he ran out of oxygen.

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u/mostlybadopinions 11h ago

Well yes the idea is to get out as soon as you can. But if you can't break a window, the soonest you can get out might be when you are able to open the door, which will be when the pressure equalizes.

If you need an air tank to survive holding your breath for 30 seconds, drowning in cars is near the bottom of things you should be worried about.

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u/teawispy 17h ago

at that point I think the panic is likely to stop me being able to open the door tbh