Okay...here's a very bad drift ending...

[Brian C.]

Now you guys know that I usually don't post pics like this, and I'm certainly not doing it to thrill anybody. Some of you may know that I'm a Forensic Photographer with a large southern Police Department. One of my many duties is to photograph auto accidents. I didn't happen to shoot this one, one of my partners did a year or so ago, but it can be fairly typical of what happens all too frequently. I don't want to blast anyone, but everyone, especially young people need to get it into their heads that human beings are not invincible. Metal, concrete, wood, stone, all these things can destroy flesh and bone in an instant in the right situation.

Here's the story that I got from the Investigators. Residents reported that a white 2 door had been speeding around a neighborhood after midnight. From the tiremarks at certain intersections it was apparent that the car had been driving in a circuitous route at high speeds and sliding or "drifting" around a few wide corners. One side road ended in a "T" and had a 4 foot hedge along the opposing sidewalk. There were no skidmarks at this intersection.

The vehicle plowed through the hedge and headed through a yard and chain link fence towards a home. It impacted the side of the home at about a 30 degree angle below a window.

The windows were equiped with what are known as accordian-style hurricane shutters. These sit in a metal box attached to the exterior wall until needed.

The front passenger quarter panel hit the wall first. It was estimated to have been traveling about 75 mph. The passenger's head was knocked out the open window and onto the concrete and the metal shutter housing.
As the vehicle's momentum carried it down the house's wall, the head was dragged too.

As it travelled towards the rear of the house it wiped out the home's central A/C unit and a garbage recepticle and came to a stop.

The 16 year old passanger died instantly, while the 17 year old driver, being intoxicated, was barely injured and had no memory of the accident afterwards.



Again, I'm not trying to shock or impress anyone. I just think that reckless driving has more consequences than on just the driver. The 17 year old driver was not only charged with DUI manslaughter, a slew of driving infractions and who knows what else, but he'll also go through life knowing that he killed his best friend. And what about the family who heard a crash late at night and went to their yard to investigate and find this scene? And how about the father that had to identify his only son. Other close-up photos, that I won't post, show a head and face completely destroyed. And how about the parents of the driver? And you know....police people aren't heartless either. As I said I usually don't involve my occupation here but the "drift" video and the assorted reactions had a few of you request that I come up with some example of reckless endangerment on the road.

I hope you all take this as friendly advice. We ALL drive and have driven when we shouldn't. We ALL have done stupid things behind the wheel. Let's just think a bit about how the world might change one second after impact.

Brian C.
Peace

[DanDombrowski]

Damn right.

Brian, at the company I work for, we're the engineers that look at the forensic evidence of vehicle accidents to determine vehicle speed, direction of travel, direction of impact, crush energies, etc. I wouldn't be suprised if our Ft. Lauderdale office hasn't read at least a dozen of your homicide reports.

With something like this though, you just kinda look at it and don't know what to say. The best thing to do is hope that other people learn from their mistakes, however painful.

[Brian C.]

...how, using the photos, notes and assorted measurements that I might take, the engineers are able to reconstruct precisely how accidents happen. Even if they never saw the scene. Our old friend Mr. Physics doesn't lie. Do you do the 3-D modeled CG reconstructions? I've seen some, even if they are just stick-frames, that blow you away with their accuracy. That's a very interesting field. You'll never lack for business either.

Brian C.

[winfred]

ooooo massive head trauma. one of the guys i work with was behind a drunk when he wadded his car up, being the only person on the seen he went to see if there was anything he could do, finding no pulse he started cpr, he stopped cpr when brain squirted out his ear

[1992 BMW 535i]

Sad. Nothing else to say other than that. What a waste. It makes me incredibly angry to hear and see about such incredible stupidity. I was 16 once (long time ago) and I made mistakes. Driving drunk at speed? Craziness.

[DanDombrowski]

We almost always go out to the scene to take measurements, at least for the enviornment. Even if its a month later, we pretty much have to go out to the scene to measure the intersection, lane widths, etc, otherwise we get beat up in court saying our **** ain't accurate. Stuff like the skid marks, if we cant find them a month later, we will use from police photos. We get SO much of our information based on the initial photos that you guys take at the scene. I've sat for hours going through many rolls of police film determining distances and final rest postitions, etc.

We can do 3-D modeled reconstructions for high profile cases to explain what happened (I.e. they can see the cars collide, roll, spin, etc), but the majority of our calculations are 2-D. Although 2-D, everything is measured from the CGs, and that's pretty accurate, usually to within 5%. The calculations are for the lawyers for the insurance company, the 3-D models are to show people like the jury. I actually wrote a program that calculates a vehicles initial speed based on the skidmarks of a spinout that my company uses now.

In a case like this one there's unfortunately not much in the way of determining inital speed. Drag factors on road surfaces are pretty well known, but when a car goes bouncing through a yard, they can be anywhere. We would measure the crush of the car, the drag distance, and energy used to take out things like air conditioners on the side of the house, but a 75mph estimate is probably only accurate to within 25%

[Hector]

for my kids although they are not driving yet. This may traumatize some kids but I think it wouldn't be a bad idea to show them this picture just before they officially put foot-to-pedal and are on their own in a vehicle. My sons (specifically, my younger one) loves watching cop documentaries of people being arrested for DUI, drugs, certain chases that end up pretty fatal... From this, hopefully, he already got some sense not too let things get way over his head when he gets a car. I just hope that I can teach them to be different but yet cool and be themselves without giving in on youth peer pressure. If a friend smokes because he thinks it is cool, doesn't necessary mean to that you have to smoke to be cool as well. I think more now than before many teens are under a lot of pressure to keep up with their friends regarding fashion, sports...

[1992 BMW 535i]

Brian, may I send a link out to this thread? I am a member of a few other forums and I think that everyone should take a look at this. I don't know how you feel about large numbers of people viewing your story...

I also agree with Hector in that this should be a wake-up call. Drunk drivers tend to survive with little or no injury while the passengers usually end up paying with their lives. Perhaps seeing this will have an effect....

[Jeff N.]

Sobering.

[Brian C.]

And yes, I don't post these things because of many reasons, not the least of which might be that some people will get upset. Well, that's not always a bad thing. As far as not having a lot of people see it, I factored that into my decision when I initially posted it as now being seen worldwide.

You don't see reality on reality TV. Trust me.

Brian c.