The Traffic Accident Reconstruction Origin -ARnews-

Re: What do we see when we look at skidmarks?

Bruno Schmidt (SchmidtBF@aol.com)
Sun, 2 Mar 1997 08:12:28 -0500 (EST)

John,

Ed's second reply may have been a little too succinct. To determine speed
from just the length of skid marks, the vehicle must have come to a stop
due to the roadway friction. To be sure, your car stopped at the end of its
skidmarks, but not from skidding. The bus stopped it. Without knowing how
much of a role the bus played in stopping the car, you can't assign all of
the speed loss to the skidding. In fact, since you are even asking questions
about the accident, it appears that someone, perhaps several people, were
injured as a result of the collision. That means that the car still had an
appreciable velocity when it hit the bus.

If there is quantitative knowledge of the damage that was produced due to the
collision, it is possible to assign a speed change due to the collision, then
factor in the speed loss due to skidding, and from that determine the speed at
the beginning of the skid. That whole process can take an expert a number of
hours to perform.

Bruno Schmidt
SchmidtBF@aol.com

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