system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Why are people told to take the brace position when a plane crashes? Is there any truth in it helping you survive?
gpt
The brace position won't help you survive the kind of catastrophic crash you're imagining, but there's a very wide spectrum of crash severity before you get to that point. It will help you avoid injuries like whiplash, slamming your head, breaking your neck, being slammed down onto your spine after a brief freefall, and the like during hard landings, sudden jolts, sudden stops of a landing plane, or those kind of less-severe crashes.