Paul Walker Died RIP

[jetlee]

I watched videos and looked at maps. From the first tree he hits to the last tree where the car comes to rest is about 60-ish feet (determined by the on-screen scale Google Maps provides). In the videos, the time from the first to last tree is just under a full second. Surprisingly, 45mph = 66ft/sec.

Some people are correct in that this car was not designed to disintegrate upon impact. What they fail to realize is that this car took out a light pole and two trees before coming to rest on the third tree. That would do considerable damage to any car.

Looking at the maps and pictures, it's easy to see that they could've been doing 45mph around a 35mph curve. Then at the end of the curve there is a short straightaway before the 15mph turn. They wrecked before the 15mph turn. If they "got on it" coming out of the large curve (already speeding), the rear-end broke loose, he over-corrected and that's all she wrote.

If people take the time to examine the pictures, maps and videos, it's not hard to piece together.

 

[jetlee]

This video shows the timing and the trees taken out:
http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/entertainment&id=9347872

This photo shows the building behind the wreck:

This photo shows exact location of the car (note the parking sign):

Here's your Google Map of where the car came to rest (note the roads):

Here's a Street View of the spot where the car came to rest (note the parking sign/tree and the 15mph sign past where the car stopped):

It's not that difficult of a concept to understand. They slightly sped around a long curve, lost control at the end, 1 light pole and three trees later the carbon fiber car is shattered. 90mph is not required. I was in a 45mph wreck that tore half of my car almost completely off and put me in the hospital for a couple days...and that was a full steel-bodied car in an amolst-head-on collision. This car hitting four stationary objects sideways? Yeah, it's going to disintegrate.

 

[snrusnak]

Is that a concrete light pole? There's no way in hell a car would go through a concrete light pole like that at 45mph.

 

[jetlee]

Is that a concrete light pole?  There's no way in hell a car would go through a concrete light pole like that at 45mph.

My house is on a corner where 50mph wrecks happen frequently (every couple days). They replaced the concrete light pole with a steel one because people were constantly taking it out when getting t-boned. The now-steel pole only gets bent and replacement only takes a couple hours instead of a couple days.

I'm no expert on automotive crashes, but I've been in and seen enough to know that 45-55mph could've caused that.

 

[go cytocis]

The 911 has a black box which logs basic data like speed, throttle, rpm, brake, and gear shifts. Porsche looks at the data if/when warranty claims are made to help determine if damages were due to product failure or diver error. I'm going to assume that the GT is also fitted with a similar device, but surprisingly, I've not read anything about any attempts to retrieve a black box from the wreck. If it exists, it'll soon make all the speculation obsolete.

 

[djs2k2]

I read somewhere where someone was asking if the black box would help? I didnt know they had them on special cars as well?

 

[jetlee]

I read mention of the box being searched for, for data recovery.

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertai...-paul-walker-crash-troubled-article-1.1536644

They stopped selling this car in the U.S. because it wasn’t able to meet U.S. safety standards,” the lawyer said.

He said the car has a “black box” that should be able to reveal the speed the car was traveling prior to the crash, whether the driver was accelerating or trying to apply the brakes and whether the car’s airbags worked properly.

“It’s a black box located in the tunnel by the transmission, so there shouldn’t be a problem with it surviving the collision,” McClellan said. “It has a proprietary encryption, so I imagine investigators will have to get some special help and equipment to be able to download and interpret the results. It might take some time.”

The 2005 Carrera GT also has no stability control system and has lost control for other drivers as well.

Leno, an avid car enthusiast, lost control of a stock Porsche Carrera GT after clocking 182 mph and spun around five times at Talladega Superspeedway in 2005.

In the case of Corey Rudl, the web guru hopped into a 2005 Porsche Carrera GT driven by an acquaintance at the California Speedway in Fontana to see if he might be interested in buying one.
The driver, Benjamin Keaton, also died in the crash.

 

[djs2k2]

WOW.

 

[jetlee]

Another CGt that split in half by a tree:

The rear end is on the right, the front on the left, split by a tree just off the left of the camera shot. I was unable to find an report of speed, but alcohol was involved. Driver sustained minor injuries and passenger walked away unscathed. This happened in Holland in 2009.

Found this article, translation edited in below:

African guest hotel Wiemsel Ootmarsum In the night from Friday to Saturday a very expensive 'test drive' made ​​with Porchse Carrera GT worth 450,000 euros.

After barely a mile on the winding highway between Ootmarsum and Tilligte she got around half four with - presumably - high speed lost control of the wheel an then rammed two trees.

The car was thereby dismembered into two parts, the engine was yards away. The South African woman was caught in the wreck and had to be freed from it by the Oootmarsumse fire. Badly injured she was transferred to the hospital in Enschede. A man from Belgium, who was in the car next to her, touched only slightly injured.

The two had a Swiss hotel guest received approval as a ride to the Porsche Carrera GT. Of this highly sophisticated car (top speed 330 km / h) there are only 12 in the Netherlands and worldwide in 1200.

Was hoping that could shine some light onto the speed required to split a CGT in half.

 

[go cytocis]

It has a proprietary encryption

I was wondering if this would be the case. Who owns the data? Who has legal access to it? The manufacturer? The vehicle's owner? Investigators? The public? You can be sure there'll be a legal tug-of-war in a high-profile crash like this!

 

[jetlee]

I was wondering if this would be the case. Who owns the data? Who has legal access to it? The manufacturer? The vehicle's owner? Investigators? The public? You can be sure there'll be a legal tug-of-war in a high-profile crash like this!

In this age of lawsuits? No doubt.

Don't know where the black box pulls its mph from, but if it's from the rear wheels then it's going to be inaccurate. In reading about the car, it was built without Porsche's stability control system. The clutch is super tight and it's very difficult to take off without squealing the tires. Try to power-out of a corner with no traction aid? As soon as that rear end starts to slip, the tires spin faster and the black box will record 90mph (I dunno really, just an arbitrary number for an example) and the LEO's will jump all over that instead of the steady speed before the huge jump in rev's.

Point is, the Carrera GT (discontinued in the US because it didn't meet safety standards) is notoriously difficult to control and 45mph sideways through 4 supposed-to-be-stationary objects (3 trees and a light pole) is going to destroy that carbon fiber car.

I didn't get it in before the edit time-limit in my last post, but I did find a reference to that black CGT as having been travelling at 112km/h, which calculates to about 70mph. Also note where the car hit the trees though...the firewall vs the passenger compartment. It also apparently caught fire as you can see the fire retardant all over the ground.

 

[go cytocis]

the Carrera GT is notoriously difficult to control

Just like the old days! Whereas the new-millennium 911s are exceptionally easy to drive, some of those older air-cooled models, especially the turbos, were outrageous!

A former boss of mine a couple of years ago had a Porsche CTR (which was the equivalent of a GT when it was new in '87). One time, he had me drive it back from an out-of-town meeting 3 hours away The power, handling & sound of that thing was absolutely unreal, but it was very difficult to drive due to its heavy clutch, power delivery & over-steer. Rather than returning it safely to my boss's underground parking stall when I got back into town, I foolishly decided to take it home for the evening. Well, it snowed, heavily, overnight and the next morning I was forced to drive around a RWD, 2500lb, 450hp collector car, in rush hour, through a ******* blizzard! The back-end was taking up 1/2 lane on either side of me, and it was simply impossible to launch in any gear lower than 3rd! One of the best, and worst, days of my life.

 

[jetlee]

Whereas the new-millennium 911s are exceptionally easy to drive

No kidding! A brand new-looking 911 came weaving through traffic one day. I saw him stomp on it (sounded amazing!) and swerving this way and that. At one light, traffic cleared and I rolled up next to him and was amazed; it looked like a 17 year old driving! I sat there in my RX-7 as he revved at me, I had no intentions of racing. Light turned green and he revved and took off like a rocket with no tire squeal. It just amazed me cause my RX can't clutch drop over 4k without lighting up the rear and here's this young kid just flying through the gears flawlessly and the damn car isn't breaking traction in the least.

SUV that wrecked at 55-ish:

http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/20...h-20130701_1_crash-scene-serious-injuries-suv
That's truck-steel wrapped around that tree...

 

[jetlee]

heres another gt wreck where high speed a trees were involved

Read my previous posts. I even posted a Dutch newspaper article about that wreck. The speed was estimated at 112km/h

(source) translated:

Immediately after the accident, the 112 was called by going public, which has seen the accident happen.

which is 70mph. That CGT, at the 70mph estimated sent the tail end sliding 30ft away. Paul Walker's car was wrecked but still attached, suggesting it was moving at slower rate of speed.

You need to read everything.

 

[go cytocis]

A brand new-looking 911 came weaving through traffic one day...Light turned green and he revved and took off like a rocket with no tire squeal.

A friend of mine’s got a 2009 911 turbo with that PDK dual-clutch transmission & AWD. When it launches, getting to 60mph in just 3 seconds, there’s zero wheel-spin. I once ‘raced’ him on my 919 and it was actually a pretty even match up to ~160km/h (100mph) at which point he just walked away like I was standing still, spraying chunks of asphalt at me to add to my insult!

 

[go cytocis]

LA coroner's office is reporting that there was no mechanical issue with the car, road conditions were clear, there was no alcohol or drugs, and that the estimated speed at the time of the collision was in excess of 160 km/h (100 mph)...

 

[djs2k2]

Dang!