Calculating the Impact: A Detailed Look at My Car Accident on Friday Night

[OdinsTech]

I was in a car accident Friday night and we both claim the other guy ran the red light. I drive a 2005 Audi A4 which is approx. 3205 lbs, I weigh 350. the other guy was in a 96 toyota corolla which weighs 2,553. I was going about 4 mph when the accident occurred, I had been sitting at a red light it finally turned green I started going. The other guy I estimate was going beteen 35(speed limit) to 45 I think he was speeding to catch the yellow light but was way to late. My front Bumper is barely scuffed his car was scraped down the right side and it tore my front license plate off completely. If I was the one who was speeding I am estimating I would have been going roughly 35 mph myself which if he was going 35-45mph I believe he would have been in the medium which was immediately next to his car. I hit him in the drivers side door. If there is any more information I can provide. I love everything to do with physics especially the cosmology side of things unfortunately numbers confuse me a great deal and my school did not offer physics. Any help would be appreciated and would gladly return the help of any computer related questions, I am an IT guy.

 

[OdinsTech]

the other guy I estimate based on my time as being a carney was around 185

 

[Dale]

Did you have a question?

Note, we are not accident investigators, just people that like physics.

 

[davenn]

Hi OdinsTech

welcome to PF

we see this type of post relatively regularly
As Dalespam said ... we are no accident investigators, so cannot give you any info that could be use legally
Also because we cannot see the accident scene to study, there are just too many variables that would be unknown so as to give good solid facts

hope you didn't get too badly hurt and you recover quickly

cheers
Dave

 

[OdinsTech]

I am wondering I guess what kind of formula I would use for a general purpose how far would car b go sideways if car a tboned it doing sat 5,10,20,30 mph. I am not injured at all my car is barely damaged. so if car a weighs x amount, travels at y amount car b travels x amount, travels at y amount car a hits b what kind of formula would you use to calculate car b's displacement by the accident. I would rather be able to find a formula and have fun trying to find out the answers myself I know you guys are not accident reporters and do not ask you guys to solve the issue for me, just a push a long the way. thank you!

 

[Lt_Muffintoes]

You could just look at the extent of the damage to your crumple zone and the side of his car. If he really is claiming you t-boned him at 35, he is really, really dumb.

The distance he would move sideways would also depend on how fast he was moving. A stationary vehicle would move a different distance than a moving one when struck from the side.

 

[Drakkith]

The damage looks to pretty convincingly support your claim. Your bumper is scuffed and there's a scrape all along the side of his car. If you had been going 30+ there should be FAR more damage to both vehicles.

 

[mrspeedybob]

If he's going to state that you were the one who ran the red light he can't say it was a 35 mph to 35 mph 90 degree collision because the damage evidence does not support that story. What he might claim is that you hit your brakes, but too late to stop and entered the intersection at lower speed while he drove through a green light. Having been at the scene, can you think of any evidence you can present to differentiate that story from what actually happened?

 

[Student100]

Aren't there traffic cameras at just about every intersection these days?