Poor Physics #3

Car tilts and stays tilted by balancing on motorcycle

Lee and Carter drive away from their pursuer with the help of their handy taxi driver, George, realizing that they are being chased. Being preoccupied for a brief moment, George fails to notice a man pushing a cart full of wooden merchandise. But just in time, George steers to the right, keeping it titled while Lee and Carter fight off their pursuer. 

There are visible parts in this scene that are impossible in real life. First of all, after the car tilts by trying to miss the cart full of wooden merchandise, the car should have gone back to its original position. This is because of the center of gravity of the car and the weight distribution in the car. The car’s center of gravity is positioned slightly towards the driver’s side since there more people on the driver’s side than the other (Lee and George against Carter). Since the car is heavier on the side where there are more people, it shouldn’t have stayed tilted that long. Also, the car ends up moving while being balanced on a motorcycle. Say that it is possible to even get into that situation in reality. When the motorcycle gets kicked out by Lee later on in the scene, the car should have gone off balance and went onto its side. It is like when a person is leaning on a chair, having his body's balance purely dependent on the chair. When the chair suddenly disappears like the motorcycle in the scene, the guy would lose balance and fall. So, after the motorcycle is gone, the car should have fallen to its side like the guy in the example. In addition, the car moves back to its original position after George shifts his weight to the side. While Lee and Carter were fighting, the weight distribution would have been disrupted, so if shifting the weight to the side would have made the car back to its original position, it would have occurred while they were fighting and moving about (even more so since one of the pursuers were also partially in the car on the already heavier side). It shouldn’t just go back when George wants it to. Therefore, this scene is an example of poor physics because of the car staying tilted in the first place and still staying tilted even after its support is gone, only going back when George moves slightly.

Assuming that all three men are roughly the same mass (m), we can show that because there are two people(f2) on one side (the elevated side) and one (f1) on the other that the force of gravity would be two times as great. Which should result in the car falling back down. However, this is not the case.

In this situation we see that the car is balanced on the motorcycle. The motorcycle is supporting the weight of the car. Because the car is leaning on the motorcycle, if the motorcycle were to be removed the car would fall down in the direction of where the motorcycle used to be.