Anatomy of a car crash: 4-part series in Irish Times

Iwannahurl

Today's Irish Times features the first in a series of four detailed reports on different aspects of a specific car crash.

This was the crash, as reported in the Irish Independent on 2nd January 2014: http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/new-year-tragedy-as-drivers-killed-in-headon-collision-29882260.html

From today's Irish Times:

The first Irish road deaths of 2014 occurred near Ballina, Co Mayo, when the year was just hours old. At about 4.40am on New Year’s Day two men died in a collision on a high-quality stretch of the N26.

The crash touched dozens more people: relatives, friends, paramedics, firefighters, gardaí, mortuary staff and hospital medics. In the months since, reporter Peter Murtagh has met many of these people, to discover how the collision happened – and why.

Anatomy of a Car Crash is the result of that investigation.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/anatomy-of-a-car-crash-part-1-1.2025739

Monday: Part 2, the dead men and the people they left behind
Tuesday: Part 3, the autopsy -- what the doctors found
Wednesday: Part 4, the inquest -- who was to blame?

kerry4sam

Iwannahurl wrote: »

Today's Irish Times features the first in a series of four detailed reports on different aspects of a specific car crash.


This was the crash, as reported in the Irish Independent on 2nd January 2014: http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/new-year-tragedy-as-drivers-killed-in-headon-collision-29882260.html


From today's Irish Times:





Monday: Part 2, the dead men and the people they left behind
Tuesday: Part 3, the autopsy -- what the doctors found
Wednesday: Part 4, the inquest -- who was to blame?

Interesting find.

Thank you,
kerry4sam

Iwannahurl

I'm not sure if a similar 'investigation' has ever been done before. Hopefully there will be something worth learning from the series.

So far my impression is that one of the drivers was just unlucky to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Not a lot to be done about that perhaps, in terms of trying to stay safe on the roads.

NIMAN

Very interesting to read but surely it all boils down to someone drunk driving?

braddun

crashes happen, drink, blinded by lights poor night vision,speed,tiredness,distracted driving like looking at radio while changing it, trying to overtake with on coming traffic with no power to overtake, poor road surface like leaves or stones or wet,
not paying attention to what's in front and behind you,


young people get killed because they are looking and talking to back passengers, as do some parents
not wearing seat belts,

Iwannahurl

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/anatomy-of-a-car-crash-part-2-the-victims-1.2027498

PauloMN

Just reading that you realise how small Ireland is. I went to college in Dundalk and I remember Terence Beagan's brother. Never copped it at the time, can't even remember the story - just another crash I suppose I thought. Makes you think though when you read the details, and see the aftermath in terms of family and friends.

dastardly00

Anatomy of a Car Crash: Part 3 – the investigation

Part 3 gives insight into the autopsy and the crime scene investigation.

Also, The Irish Times ask a road safety consultancy company to estimate the speed of one of the cars involved in the crash (the speed of the other car was 80-90km/h as an ambulance happened to be be driving behind it)

The Irish Times asked TMS, a UK-based road safety consultancy with a 24-year track record that includes over 11,000 road safety audits in the UK and Ireland, to estimate the speed of the Mercedes, given a set of known facts.


We gave them the following information from the Garda forensic scene of crime survey and other sources: the Skoda was travelling at approximately 55 mph and weighed 1,450 kilograms; the Mercedes weighed 1,600 kilograms and, in a head-on impact, pushed the Skoda over 12 metres back from the point of impact, on a smooth, cold but dry tarmac surface.


The question for TMS was: what is the estimated speed of the Mercedes? Using what is described as a “momentum exchange equation”, TMS senior road safety consultant Robert Cyples estimated that the Mercedes, on hitting the Skoda, was travelling at 171.2 km/h, or 106 mph – almost twice the speed of the Skoda.

Special Circumstances

Interesting articles. Wish the specifics of every serious "accident" could be published like this.

coylemj

I believe all of this data is collected after every serious accident, sadly you hear about road closures almost every day of the week for that purpose. It's just that this seems to be the first time in a while that a journalist has decided to collate all the available data and talk to the witnesses (in this case two lads in an ambulance who by chance were driving behind one of the vehicles involved), next of kin and the emergency services personnel who dealt with the aftermath to get all sides of the story.

Having read part 3 today there doesn't seem to be any doubt as to the cause so I don't expect that the inquest will reveal any new data in tomorrow's final instalment.

Yer man was drinking and was travelling at 100mph.

Time to name and shame in these cases. May even prevent others being so reckless with other peoples lives

Knine

The Taxi Driver - the innocent guy doing a nights work is related to me. It made for hard reading.:mad:

BrianD3

Mercedes doing 106 mph and Skoda doing 55 mph on impact? That's an enormous impact, my first reaction is that it sound like an overestimate. When 5th Gear crashed a Volvo 940 and BMW E34 both cars were "only" doing 60 mph. the damage to the Skoda in the Mayo crash looks somewhat smilar to the damage of these cars. The Skoda is more modern and stronger but not that much stronger given that it is a 1997 VW Passat design.

The Mercedes passenger compartment looks to have survived the impact very well but then the oblique angle probably favoured it.

5th gear - considerably less severe than the Mayo crash if the estimates are correct

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOFY2kT5LqA

NIMAN

Very interesting again.

Very sad for both families involved, especially the totally innocent man. It could have been any of us, of our brothers or father.

I also would like to see the statistics backed up with reasons for crashes on our roads. We hear so many car crashes on the media, yet no explanation given. Perhaps some might say that by the time its found out, would it benefit anyone?

Special Circumstances

NIMAN wrote: »

Perhaps some might say that by the time its found out, would it benefit anyone?

I think some people have a very passive "lord god aren't the roads fierce dangerous" attitude. If specific actions or inactions were directly linked to this person or that person losing a life, some people might recognise that behaviour in their own driving or lack of maintenance or whatever.
Of course you'll always have A-holes...

Iwannahurl

Special Circumstances wrote: »

Interesting articles. Wish the specifics of every serious "accident" could be published like this.

coylemj wrote: »

I believe all of this data is collected after every serious accident, sadly you hear about road closures almost every day of the week for that purpose. It's just that this seems to be the first time in a while that a journalist has decided to collate all the available data and talk to the witnesses (in this case two lads in an ambulance who by chance were driving behind one of the vehicles involved), next of kin and the emergency services personnel who dealt with the aftermath to get all sides of the story.

The RSA's yearly Road Collision Factbook (last one published in 2011?) gives the broad brushstrokes, based on aggregate data. There might well be compelling reasons to know what happened in specific cases. Families can ask for the Local Authority engineer's report in cases where road factors were a cause, and I think those reports should be available to the public.

As inquests in Ireland are public enquiries, it is possible to obtain a copy of the post-mortem report and any depositions taken at inquest, including a copy of the verdict. These official reports are only available after the inquest has concluded. There is a small fee for these documents.

http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/death/sudden_or_unexplained_death/inquests.html

coylemj wrote: »

Having read part 3 today there doesn't seem to be any doubt as to the cause so I don't expect that the inquest will reveal any new data in tomorrow's final instalment.

The inquest was held in late October, and the findings were as you might expect. I think the value of the Irish Times series is in its depth and breadth. Very often reports on fatal crashes are short, few in number and far apart. In this case the crash was reported in January and afaik was not mentioned again (almost certainly not in national news) until late October.

The role of alcohol is very clear. I would be interested in similar extensive reports where the primary cause is something different.

Comhrá

When you think of all those drivers who had their penalty points for speeding cancelled on the quiet (some for excessive and dangerous speeding offences) the Irish Times article gives a chilling insight into the evils of excessive speed/drink driving and the ambivalence of many in authority to these vices.

gctest50

tippman1 wrote: »

......... the Irish Times article gives a chilling insight into the evils of excessive speed..........

http://www.rsa.ie/Documents/Road%20Safety/Crash%20Stats/2011_Road_Collision_Fact_Book.pdf

jimmycrackcorm

I have to say the the Articles are sadly fantastic reading and every motorist should read them. For a long time its been a concern of mine that many accidents get reported but we never find out the details so we never learn the actual causes or any of the minutae that might make drivers understand the implications of our actions on the road. I hope the Times follows up with more of these.

knucklehead6

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

I have to say the the Articles are sadly fantastic reading and every motorist should read them. For a long time its been a concern of mine that many accidents get reported but we never find out the details so we never learn the actual causes or any of the minutae that might make drivers understand the implications of our actions on the road. I hope the Times follows up with more of these.

I'd doubt they will. What makes this accident a bit out of the ordinary is that it was the first fatality of 2014, and was a double fatality, and was less than 4 hours into the new year

coylemj

I think speed was simply a by-product of the fact that the other guy was drunk and probably fell asleep behind the wheel. I haven't seen the results of the inquest but my guess is that the catastrophic spinal injury which killed him was as a direct result of his head leaning forward at the time of the impact, otherwise it's possible the airbag could have saved him. All speculation on my part and I have not read an account of the inquest.

The relative energy of the two cars is interesting and has a big bearing on the third form of injury which Peter Murtagh describes as follows...

The third is when the internal organs of the people in the vehicle are jolted with such force, during either of the first two impacts, that the organs hit the inside of the person themselves and are damaged.


the extent and severity of these internal injuries are directly related to what happens your car at the time of impact. If your car has less energy and is pushed back in the impact, those internal injuries will be far more severe than in the case of the car with greater energy which will slow down but continue in the same direction. In this case the Merc was travelling at almost twice the speed, was heavier and by my calculations had more than four times the energy of the taxi (the Skoda) - kinetic energy is 0.5 multiplied by the mass multiplied by the square of the speed. This is why the taxi was pushed back so far and even if the engine hadn't been dislodged and hit him, it's likely that the taxi driver would have been killed anyway.

Comhrá

otherwise it's possible the airbag could have saved him. All speculation on my part and I have not read an account of the inquest.

At a combined speed of 155 mph approx, it's very hard to imagine how any airbag could save the Mercedes driver's life. I'm not an engineer but even so, I have to believe that sort of impact is totally unsurvivable.

gctest50

More tests like this are needed too :

(instead of mickey-mouse 30mph into a wall ones )

( about 5mins in )

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCecdOBCFjI

Special Circumstances

coylemj wrote: »

I think speed was simply a by-product of the fact that the other guy was drunk and probably fell asleep behind the wheel.

There is an alternative interpretation beyond drink/sleep. Interesting to see what may may have come up in the journalist's investigations, beyond what would have been part of inquest.

dr.fuzzenstein

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

I have to say the the Articles are sadly fantastic reading and every motorist should read them. For a long time its been a concern of mine that many accidents get reported but we never find out the details so we never learn the actual causes or any of the minutae that might make drivers understand the implications of our actions on the road. I hope the Times follows up with more of these.

No point. According to the RSA speed kills, end of story. Since this is end of discussion as far as they're concerned, there is simply no reason to intricately investigate every accident, since the cause has already been established by RSA policy.
Why else would we turn accidents into major national news stories initially and then not bother to report the actual findings of the investigation. Because the outcome may contradict RSA doctrine. So, more speedvans, problem solved, we can all sleep better tonight.

Padraig Mor

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

For a long time its been a concern of mine that many accidents get reported but we never find out the details so we never learn the actual causes.

Agreed. I've often considered starting a "serious collision follow up" thread here to document precisely this information, especially as in some cases things weren't always as was presumed by most at the time of the incident - but this important follow up information is buried on page 8 of the regional news. Obviously, I've never actually done it though!

coylemj

tippman1 wrote: »

At a combined speed of 155 mph approx, it's very hard to imagine how any airbag could save the Mercedes driver's life. I'm not an engineer but even so, I have to believe that sort of impact is totally unsurvivable.

The 'combined speed' actually counts for very little except as a crude way of calculating the combined destruction but it takes no account of the relative energy of each car and takes no account at all of the weight of each car.

What matters far more is the deceleration experienced by each car and driver. If a big car travelling at 60 kph meets a much smaller car travelling at the same speed, the combined speed will be 120 kph but you will have a far better chance of survival if you are in the bigger car, not only because it's probably better built but because you will simply slow down (say from 60 to 20 kph, a deceleration of 40 kph) whereas the other guy will come to an instantaneous stop and get violently shoved backwards - from +60 kph to -20 kph, a deceleration of 80 kph. That's what kills you because airbags and seatbelts can't prevent internal injuries.

mickdw

coylemj wrote: »

The 'combined speed' actually counts for very little except as a crude way of calculating the combined destruction but it takes no account of the relative energy of each car and takes no account at all of the weight of each car.

What matters far more is the deceleration experienced by each car and driver. If a big car travelling at 60 kph meets a much smaller car travelling at the same speed, the combined speed will be 120 kph but you will have a far better chance of survival if you are in the bigger car, not only because it's probably better built but because you will simply slow down (say from 60 to 20 kph, a deceleration of 40 kph) whereas the other guy will come to an instantaneous stop and get violently shoved backwards - from +60 kph to -20 kph, a deceleration of 80 kph. That's what kills you because airbags and seatbelts can't prevent internal injuries.

Yep and so often ignored but very very critical.

RandomAccess

Special Circumstances wrote: »

There is an alternative interpretation beyond drink/sleep. Interesting to see what may may have come up in the journalist's investigations, beyond what would have been part of inquest.

What you are thinking occurred to me as well.
That incident in Wales with the family from ireland on vacation was why I considered it.

coylemj

RandomAccess wrote: »

What you are thinking occurred to me as well.
That incident in Wales with the family from ireland on vacation was why I considered it.

That incident (it was in Devon) where the guy deliberately drove into the Irish family happened in broad daylight and the driver had left a suicide note. This one happened at 4:40 a.m. and the guy driving the Merc had been drinking. The end of part 3 published on Tuesday gives a hint .... Dr Bennani was the pathologist and we already know that the results of blood and urine tests on the taxi driver (Scully) showed that he was 'clean'. In relation to the Merc driver, part 3 of the article ends as follows....

Dr Bennani also took blood and urine samples and sent them to the State lab for analysis.

These results would tell their own story.

Part 4: http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/anatomy-of-a-car-crash-part-4-the-verdict-1.2031924

Special Circumstances

RandomAccess wrote: »

What you are thinking occurred to me as well.
That incident in Wales with the family from ireland on vacation was why I considered it.

There have been several cases not as obvious as that.

Hinted at in the inquest. No comfort in it for anyone to dig deeper I suppose. At least the taximan was shown to be blameless.

dastardly00

Very insightful articles to read, and also deeply saddening.

But it does scare me to think how vulnerable we are on the roads. You could be driving along a road, within the speed limit, your car in good condition, concentrating on driving ..... and then you meet another car coming at you in the opposite direction, at twice your speed, containing a driver (who is not the owner of the car) who is pi**ed out of the head and has had taken drugs.

blackwhite

It's a very well done series by the IT.

Hopefully it will resonate with people over the coming weeks who, otherwise, would have considered taking the car after a few drinks.

Comhrá

Hopefully it will resonate with people over the coming weeks who, otherwise, would have considered taking the car after a few drinks.

Unfortunately it's the people who are most likely to be of a mind to drive after consuming a load of drink/drugs and have serious personal issues like depression/suicidal ideas, who are the least likely to even give a thought to the possible consequences of their actions.

H3llR4iser

tippman1 wrote: »

At a combined speed of 155 mph approx, it's very hard to imagine how any airbag could save the Mercedes driver's life. I'm not an engineer but even so, I have to believe that sort of impact is totally unsurvivable.

Speeds don't "combine" in an head-on collision, however. Two identical cars with the same mass, both doing say 120 Km/h colliding head are subject to the same amount of energy dissipation than one of them crashing into an unmoveable object at 120 Km/h. It's Netwon's 3rd law of motions - in the case of an impact against say a wall, the latter is applying a force towards the crashing object (say car) that is equal in magnitude and opposite in direction; The very same as if the impact was against another identical object, traveling at the same speed.

As for the IT special, well done. It's a rare event to see the causes of a road collision being so well dug into, not just in Ireland.

There seems to be a strange tug-o-war going on in many countries. On one side, some of the road safety campaigns want to point the finger on alcohol (and drugs) abuse; On the other side, there seems to be a considerable effort trying to ignore them and almost shift the focus away. I repeat, I've seen this in other countries as well.

cruizer101

Have only read the first part so far but will get through the rest. Something like this should really be mandatory reading for getting your licence.

Not sure is it answered or if its known at all but would like to know where and why the merc driver was going, also how did he get the keys, it wasn't his car, did someone give them to him or did he just take them.

Will be reading through the rest anyway.

blackwhite

cruizer101 wrote: »

Not sure is it answered or if its known at all but would like to know where and why the merc driver was going

That seems to be the great unsolved element of this story.
Where was he going to, and why did he have his bags packed in the car with him.

Paulownia

I always wonder when there is a crash at two in the morning involving young people if alcohol is involved but that aspect never makes to papers. It might be a deterrent to others if it was stated, I have been driving for over forty years without losing control of my car, how are all these single car accidents reported that merely state the driver " lost control of the vehicle "
We now have NCT which costs a fortune for car owners but there is no evidence that it stops accidents.

Knine

blackwhite wrote: »

That seems to be the great unsolved element of this story.
Where was he going to, and why did he have his bags packed in the car with him.

Doing a runner on the G/F & leaving her to pay the hotel bill. He was certainly no upstanding member of society that's for sure.

H3llR4iser

Paulownia wrote: »

I always wonder when there is a crash at two in the morning involving young people if alcohol is involved but that aspect never makes to papers. It might be a deterrent to others if it was stated, I have been driving for over forty years without losing control of my car, how are all these single car accidents reported that merely state the driver " lost control of the vehicle "
We now have NCT which costs a fortune for car owners but there is no evidence that it stops accidents.

That is what I was referring to, and quite frankly irks me out a little bit. If one wanted to read through the lines it would look like the media try to "avoid damage" to the business of pubs, nightclubs and the likes. Might be just a tinfoil hat theory, but the doubt has to exist.

Mind you, as I said this happens in other places too; As always, I can bring the example of Italy being the country I know the most about. Most fatal accidents there happen on national roads (surprise surprise), in the timespan that goes from Friday nights to Sunday evenings. Yet nobody ever seems to ask the relevant question: are people coming out of the nightclub at 5.30 am on Saturday morning and getting into cars drunk, sleepy and/or stoned?

blackwhite

H3llR4iser wrote: »

That is what I was referring to, and quite frankly irks me out a little bit. If one wanted to read through the lines it would look like the media try to "avoid damage" to the business of pubs, nightclubs and the likes. Might be just a tinfoil hat theory, but the doubt has to exist.

Mind you, as I said this happens in other places too; As always, I can bring the example of Italy being the country I know the most about. Most fatal accidents there happen on national roads (surprise surprise), in the timespan that goes from Friday nights to Sunday evenings. Yet nobody ever seems to ask the relevant question: are people coming out of the nightclub at 5.30 am on Saturday morning and getting into cars drunk, sleepy and/or stoned?

This really is a major problem in how we (don't) educate our drivers on what causes the deaths on our roads.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=93378867&postcount=18
This post was made earlier, linking to an RSA report, and the link has a graph showing that 52% of fatal accidents were caused by "Went to the Wrong Side of the Road."

But it fails to explain why.

Cars don't just randomly cross onto the wrong side of the road of their own accord.

Was the driver trying to take a corner too fast and drifted across?
Was the driver drunk, and steered to the wrong side of the road (as appears to be the case in the IT case study)?
Was the driver using their phone and lost concentration?

None of this gets reported, and instead we get bland statistics that tell us SFA.

kirving

Cynically, I would think that much of the reason we're only given bland statistics is because it suits the current law enforcement policies. How often does a car crash because it was mechanically faulty .vs. the punishment for no NCT.
Is it the case that geography, driver education, and socio-economics have more of an impact on the probability of a young driver crashing then an N-Plate ever would?

in order to prevent this type of cynicism, all the available facts should be released after an accident.

gctest50

blackwhite wrote: »

............

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=93378867&postcount=18
This post was made earlier, linking to an RSA report, and the link has a graph showing that 52% of fatal accidents were caused by "Went to the Wrong Side of the Road."

But it fails to explain why.

.

some would be suicide
some would be mechanical failure
some would be falling asleep/loss of concentration
some would be swerving to avoid animals/people that have left the scene
some would be drink
some would be drugs


the airbag computer on newer cars records all sorts of data:

whether you were braking, wearing a seatbelt, speed, throttle position,steering angle and so on

asking the airbag computer what happened should help fill in the gaps

i'm assuming this why the airbag light must be working for your NCT test - getting ready for the "next phase"

knucklehead6

an ex garda neighbour of mine told me that a number (he didn't quantify the exact number, or whether it was a large number) of accidents in the 12 to 6 am time frame did indeed involve drink. But not on the drivers part. What seemed to be happening was that the driver might stay sober, and be driving his friends home from where they were and through high jinks in the back seat lost concentration/control and would end up crashing

bucketybuck

Certainly a very strong implication in the article that people were not being entirely truthful at the inquest.

blackwhite

gctest50 wrote: »

some would be suicide
some would be mechanical failure
some would be falling asleep/loss of concentration
some would be swerving to avoid animals/people that have left the scene
some would be drink
some would be drugs


the airbag computer on newer cars records all sorts of data:

whether you were braking, wearing a seatbelt, speed, throttle position,steering angle and so on

asking the airbag computer what happened should help fill in the gaps

i'm assuming this why the airbag light must be working for your NCT test - getting ready for the "next phase"

This is exactly my point - the current packaging of accident information is so vague as to make it useless.

Proper reporting of accident causes should hopefully lead to better driver education, which might actually result in safer roads.

dr.fuzzenstein

blackwhite wrote: »

This is exactly my point - the current packaging of accident information is so vague as to make it useless.

Proper reporting of accident causes should hopefully lead to better driver education, which might actually result in safer roads.

As I said before, this is not going to happen.
Current dogma stipulates that crashes are caused by speed and old "deathtrap" cars (i.e. more than 5 years old and NCT out by a month:rolleyes:).
Therefore we need to enforce speed by mobile speedcameras in accident blackspots (i.e. sections of dual carriageway where the speedlimit goes from 100 to 60) and handing out points and fines for NCT out of date.
Road safety policy is dictated by doddery old farts in the RSA who say "It's all dem boyracers fault!" and frankly I believe that it's nothing more than a cushy number so they can do about half an hours work a day and then sod off to lunch in posh club.

Peter Anthony

175km/h just seems insane to me, I get nervous at anything over 80km/h and I'm a young driver. Some of the roads especially this time of year are incredibly dangerous, theres random potholes everywhere which at high speeds cause accidents.

reitoei

salonfire wrote: »

Yer man was drinking and was travelling at 100mph.

Time to name and shame in these cases. May even prevent others being so reckless with other peoples lives

Name and shame... what are you talking about? The guy is dead.

The only people who would feel any shame would be his family. Why do they deserve that?

visual

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

As I said before, this is not going to happen.
Current dogma stipulates that crashes are caused by speed and old "deathtrap" cars (i.e. more than 5 years old and NCT out by a month:rolleyes:).
Therefore we need to enforce speed by mobile speedcameras in accident blackspots (i.e. sections of dual carriageway where the speedlimit goes from 100 to 60) and handing out points and fines for NCT out of date.
Road safety policy is dictated by doddery old farts in the RSA who say "It's all dem boyracers fault!" and frankly I believe that it's nothing more than a cushy number so they can do about half an hours work a day and then sod off to lunch in posh club.

couldn't agree more RSA just isn't fit for purpose and their fixation on fines and points isn't saving any lives.

Even their own data doesn't support their strategy and contempt for road users.