http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=31447826

 

How come the man doesn't take the impact of the car hitting the crates? I know there has to be some law in physics that states why this is. Does anyone know why this happens? Any formulas? I'm curious. I don't take physics yet.

The guy jumped before the car hit the stuff in which he was standing. No fancy stuff here!

lol yea he jumped....thats easy to see in the vid.

Have you ever seen the trick where you set an entire table then pull the tablecloth out? (rhetorical question)

Same idea here.

Even if he hadn't jumped, he probably still would have been fine.

its because of inertia

From the video it looks like he jumped or at least began to jump as the car hit the crates. This would make his movement completely separate from the crates, the only risk would be the possibility of him falling off early and being run over or having a crate hit the windshield and come back up at him. If he had stood on the crates the whole time he would have likely been just fine anyway. I'm not a physicist (yet) but if I had to guess I would say that his inertia (or resistance to a change in his state of motion) would keep him from moving anywhere but down due to gravity. The car would likely be well out of the way by then.