Dashboard padding and airbags are both designed around the concept of impulse. How do they reduce the force experienced by a person in a sudden car stop?

1. The occupant's change in momentum in a sudden stop is fixed by their mass and how much their velocity changes, whether or not padding is present. 2. Since impulse equals force multiplied by time, the same fixed impulse can come from a large force over a short time or a smaller force over a longer time. 3. Padding and airbags stretch out the time over which the stopping force acts. 4. A longer stopping time means a smaller average force is needed to produce that same unavoidable change in momentum. 5. The person's mass does not change during the collision, and the momentum change itself is not eliminated, only spread over more time. _Source: OpenStax College Physics (CC BY 4.0), Ch 8 "Linear Momentum and Collisions", section 8.2 Impulse_