Manslaughter charges for improper towing equipment.

bucky wrote:
OK, so how did the trailer get loose without a failure?

The coupler came off the ball, either the coupler was the wrong size for the ball, or not correctly tightened before traveling.

OK, so how did the trailer get loose without a failure?

As an aside here, there were several incidents in our area involving vehicles with utility trailers on the way to the dump. The local sheriff,not the county I live in, decided to staion a deputy at the scales to watch the weights and inspect vehicles and write tickets if need be. There was a huge uproar and only warning tickets were written.
Over 60% of the trailers and20% of the pickups were in some kind of violation. Alot of it was safety issues. One in particular was a guy that was pulling one of those 4x8 utility trailers that you can buy anywhere and put together yourself and they have a 1500# limit and the tires are little more than utility tires with a 45 mph limit. He was pulling it behind an old car with one of those old uhaul bumper hitches,no chains,wrong ball size and about 3000# in the trailer. Oh and the driver was driving with a suspended license.

spoon059 wrote:

Dutch_12078 wrote:
How is speed determined in the absence of skid marks?

I have some advanced collision investigation training, but I am certainly not a crash reconstructionist.

Skid marks can only advise a speed range, and is most accurate when the skid brings a vehicle to a stop. If the vehicle skids into a curb, another vehicle, a building or simply stops skidding then its very hard to nail down a specific speed.

The computers in cars have a LOT of information. They can tell if you were braking, had lights on, were accelerating, etc. The most accurate measure of speed is based upon what the computer claims your speed was. Skid marks, vehicle crush data, etc are all used to corroborate the information on the computer.

Thanks, Mike. I was thinking of all the newer vehicles with ABS braking that pretty much eliminate brake related skid marks. Side slides, spins, etc, could still provide valuable information of course.

wa8yxm wrote:

One of the more interesting discussions I have had on this issue was with a Driver's training instructor who was a retired police officer, RVer and an accident investigator, His training in these matters went way beyond mine or the average cop on the road's.

I ask him: When you are using skid marks to estimate the speed of a vehicle.. Does it make a difference if it's a car or a semi truck (NOTE on a semi all wheels brake) and his answer was "NO"

Yet in the law, it makes a difference.

CLEARLY if the formulas used by the police, I might add around the WORLD, say the skid marks are the same for all vehicles with all-wheel braking, no matter what the size...

And the government feels the need to give me more room to stop my House than my Car.... I got to have brakes on the towed to make it stop faster.

Once braking starts the rate of deceleration is about the same. But the large vehicle with air brakes requires the extra distance because of the lag in the air brake system.

Hey Wa8yxm,
Energy does not equal force. F=M x D/time^2 or F=MA.
Metals have known bending moments.By using dimension of the metals involved, their attributes, the vector of the acceleration, the distortion of the metal, and the amount of acceleration, an investigator could estimate what force or speed was present. There are more variables, also like the fastening to other members and the attitude of what's hit. I'm gonna' assume a crash scene investigator pulls up some software and hits a few buttons. Maybe the data collection and technology hasn't advanced that far, I dunno.

Dutch_12078 wrote:
How is speed determined in the absence of skid marks?

I have some advanced collision investigation training, but I am certainly not a crash reconstructionist.

Skid marks can only advise a speed range, and is most accurate when the skid brings a vehicle to a stop. If the vehicle skids into a curb, another vehicle, a building or simply stops skidding then its very hard to nail down a specific speed.

The computers in cars have a LOT of information. They can tell if you were braking, had lights on, were accelerating, etc. The most accurate measure of speed is based upon what the computer claims your speed was. Skid marks, vehicle crush data, etc are all used to corroborate the information on the computer.

Dutch_12078 wrote:

How is speed determined in the absence of skid marks?

That is one question I have never ask the Investigators, however....

I am trained in science, Math, And Electronics.

From physics I know that if you take a metal something and apply force to it it will bend now if it is "A little force" (relative to design lmits) it will spring back.. If it's a LOT OF FORCE it remains bent.

If you know the metal, and how badly bent, you can calculate the force.

Einstein said E=MC^2

Lots of folks seem to think that is hard to understand but..

for this we need only make one change E=MV^2

Energy is the product of the mass of the vehicle times the square of the speed. (Velocity).

So having seen many crash test dummy crashes where the speed and other factors were known to a very serious number of decimal points the investigator only needs to compare the degree of damage.

Nope, agriculture implements fall under a completely different law, plus neither the tractor OR the hay wagon are registered as a highway vehicle.

Wouldn't that mean that any tractor pulling hay wagons down the road would have to have brakes on the hay wagon wheels?