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Accident Investigation
Posted: Wed Dec 24, 2008 10:50 am
by excon
coppied from another forum:
Help folks my son got into a fatal accident on dec 1st. I cant understand why he could not stop the car it had 31k miles was stock in mint condition one previous owner a college professor. the police still have the car and suposedly are going over it again after i told them that he just got the car back from the body shop. my son went into the turn/median lane and rode there a good 500 feet or more and took a sharp turn in witch he was able to stay in the median past a sharp turn then went strait for 200 feet then spin side ways to the right and into a utility pole killing him. are there any codes that will show up on the cars obd computer. the emergency brakes where disconected 2 days before by the body shop they told my son that the lines where getting caught in the suspention. if one of the brake lines burst would all the brakes fail. the body shop had both sides of the rear suspension totaly apart. and could you put that car into first or second gear at 50/55 mph. i believe that would have made the care spin out to the right. i know that that car should be able to stop from 60 to 0 in 120 ft. please help me figure this out. i gave the police a list of questions but i get no feedback from them. and get the feeling that they dont care.
Posted: Wed Dec 24, 2008 11:03 am
by Danteneon
It sounds like that car should never have left that shop. This strikes me as a serious liability issue
Posted: Wed Dec 24, 2008 11:11 am
by excon
I was going to tell him that In a panic stop you use 100% of your brakes in the front and rear. Without those rear brakes it would take longer to stop the car.
I don't believe that the lines were caught in the suspension. If they were, it was probably in between the coil springs on the back. The springs dont compress enough to crush the brake lines.
Posted: Wed Dec 24, 2008 1:33 pm
by bone-yard-racing
Brakes work on circuits, front and rear. One goes the other should still work. Assuming this was a FWD car the front brakes do 70+% of the work, unless its a neon which is all screwed up. I hate to say it but it sounds like he locked them up and lost it nothing more. Remember E-brake and parking brake are used interchangeably today even though they arent the same.
Posted: Fri Dec 26, 2008 11:48 pm
by excon
it was an SRT-4
Posted: Sat Dec 27, 2008 7:00 am
by Donkeypuncher
The description of that accident is a little too vague to really say it was one specific thing. I hate to say this, but a lot of parents look for any reason to believe it wasn't their childs fault. It's just a natural reaction of a parent in a situation like this. It's not real hard for an investigator to piece it all together, but it does take some time if you're pulling the car apart to look for defects.
I know of at least 4 teens that died in similar accidents, all of them were speeding and driving recklessly. Not saying that's the case here, but the odds are not looking good that it was a defect. If he was a young teen or an inexperienced driver, it makes it even more likely he was at fault.
Posted: Sat Dec 27, 2008 11:41 am
by occasional demons
Once yor're off the pavement at anything over 15 mph, especially at 60 mph, it wouldn't matter if all the brakes were working. Grass and dirt have very little braking traction. Not as bad as ice, but almost, and if it was wet at all, he didn't stand a chance. Having grown up on 160 acres of farmland, you learn to respect off pavement speed. 50 mph across a field will have your undivided attention.
Posted: Thu Jan 15, 2009 1:11 pm
by 2kLX
is the car lowered?