las vegas cobra wreck

[Excaliber]

The car was torn in half, how fast you would have to be going for that to happen? A 100 mph or so seems like a reasonable estimate.

[DAVID GAGNARD]

State police have ways of estimating speed, they measure skid marks,and take into account the damage to the vehicle and can come up with some pretty accurate numbers.....

They compare the damage to crash tested autos with known speed....in the case of a Cobra where there is no crash test data, I would assume they would use the crash test data of a similar size and weight car.........

David

[mr0077]

Things start coming apart on modern cars at about 65-70...if you look at the pickup truck involved, it is fairly mangled, but not like it got hit by another car going over "100 mph" (as stated by police). The police suspicion that alcohol was involved could mean that the driver of the pickup truck was drunk. There's just not enough info provided here to jump to conclusions.
I just want the facts of the accident. At that point, if the truck driver was at fault (Cobra guys, have you ever been minding your own bidness and had someyone pull out or veer in front of you?), then let's condemn him...if it was solely the Cobra guy, let's condemn him.

[DAVID GAGNARD]

Agreed, I'm not condeming anyone envolved, as I know nothing about the facts of the accident...........but from the photos, I could believe the Cobra was going 100mph, whether he was at fault or not, I have no idea........

David

[vegasmike]

Just be careful what you believe and what assumptions you make.

Let's just say this guy is very close to the replica industry, was not drunk and it was not entirely his fault. From what I hear, he hit some unexpected water on the road, got turned sideways and was T-boned by the pickup. There turned out to be no alcohol involved, but the news stories make great leaps and insert works like "may" to cover their a**e*.

Unexpected water in Las Vegas is ALWAYS slick. I do not think this guy was from Las Vegas from what I hear and may not have known that. It rains so infequently here that much more oil/grease is on the road here and it gets so hot here that more rubber is left on the road as well. Those two things make any wet areas super slick and cause great havok in light rain.

[Excaliber]

If both cars were going 50 mph on impact that's a 100 mph!

[mr0077]

Ernie, the news story didn't say the differential was 100, they said the police claimed the Cobra was doing in excess of 100 mph...VegasMike brings some interesting information about weather conditions and no alcohol in the Cobra.

The well-known statistic about alcohol being involved in over 50% of accidents can mean something like this: a sober guy was driving drunk friend home, minding their bidness sitting at a light, and got rear-ended by a sober soccer mom on the cell phone, but "alcohol was involved"...or someone that had a beer but was not legally drunk, got hit by a sober person while walking across the street, once again alcohol involved. I'm certainly not in favor of drunk driving, but MADD has made a whole 'nother class of criminals, without addressing the serious issue (the guys that blow 0.15+)...instead, they went the other way and went after the guys that blow 0.08. Just some food for thought.

Wait a second and let me get my popcorn.