# Speed



## roadwarrior (May 13, 2005)

In our area we had a bad auto accident. It seems that the investagators in our area cannot determine how fast the car at fault was traveling.

A 1996 Mustang was traveling at a high rate of speed. The Mustang hit a 1997 Honda CRV which was setting at a red light. Both vehicles traveled 256 feet from the point of impact. Can any one determine hoe fast the mustang was traveling.

The Mustang has had alot of modifications done to it.


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## devil lady (Sep 27, 2005)

:06: To work that one out you would need to know the coefficient friction of the tyres on the Honda. The exact mass of both vehicles, road composition and dry or wet. Were the Honda's brakes fully engaged or only lightly resting? Did the Honda's brakes stay engaged during the crash. Did the Mustang brake at all? :4-dontkno


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## Volt-Schwibe (Jan 12, 2003)

well, the co-efficient of the tires is going to matter alot less depending on how the cars bodies lined up to each other.

what i mean is, if a low car slams into a slightly higher car, it's going to transfer a few % of the energy into a slight upward motion. this is evident when you look at a wreck scene, and you notice that the car that got hit only left 2 tire marks behind, because the other two were a couple of inches in the air.

also, at the exact moment that those tires lose traction, their co-efficient almost completely dissapears.

at this point, it's going to be hard to calculate anything based off that.

the mustang obviously did not transfer 100% of it's energy into the honda, as it moved some hundreds of feet along with the honda.

honestly, i'd say the mustang was doing in excess of 90 in order to hit the honda so hard, and the reason it followed through and went a couple hundred feet is because the honda wieghs about 2/3 as much, allowing the mustang to keep a large portion of it's inertia.


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