How can a one-ton car drive over a person’s foot and not cause any significant damages?

Question

How can a one-ton car drive over a person’s foot and not cause any significant damages?

In: Physics

Answer 1

Force per unit area; basically the weight of the car is evenly distributed on each of the four tyres so each tyre “only” has 1/4 of a ton and that weight is distributed over the whole area of the tyre which is in contact with your foot or road. This means that each square inch of your foot gets far less weight push on it than if something like a stiletto heel was to stand on the foot with a far smaller surface area.