The Traffic Accident Reconstruction Origin -ARnews-

Re: Pedestrian Accident Reconstruction

Joseph Shreve (jwshreve@sierranet.net)
Fri, 14 Nov 1997 00:01:59 -0500 (EST)

Ed, your response to Jim's question perplexed me. In reading his post I gathered that the ped was struck, went onto the hood, into the windshield, over the car and then onto the roadway surface, sliding 52 feet in the same direction as the car was going.
Now, assigning directions for the sake of argument, if the car was going north when it struck the ped and the ped did all the motions described above then we can be sure the car continued north and the ped was now going basically south. (Uncle Issac's 1st and 3rd, especially considering the strike below the center of mass, causing her to rotate CCW). Now once the ped is free of the car and on the pavement the force vectors on the ped are south and the body should continue south, not north as Jim's thread implies, cuz there ain't anything to change the peds direction. The only way I can see the ped coming off the car and sliding 52 feet in the same direction as the car is if the ped achieved common velocity with the car, and the driver, now braking because he or she now had a new hood ornament, caused the friction differential between the ped on sheet metal and the car tires on asphalt, causing the body to roll off the car and then travel in the same direction as the car, since now th
e force vectors are northbound, as is the cars, due to achieving common velocity. Hence, the speed of the body should be pretty close to the speed of the car, because both should have achieved common velocity in order for the body to slide the same direction as the car after separation.
Joseph Shreve
jwshreve@sierranet.net

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