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Does pastor’s story about wife’s fatal crash hold up to the evidence?

January 03, 2014 / 02:02

This episode discusses the accident involving Mr. Shermer, focusing on the speed of his vehicle during the crash, the impact with a guard rail, and the subsequent reconstruction of the event by experts.

Mr. Shermer reported traveling between 40 to 50 mph when a deer jumped into the roadway, leading to a violent swerve and collision with a guard rail. However, accident reconstruction experts from Penn State determined that the actual speed at impact was much lower, between 18 and 22 mph.

The analysis revealed minimal damage to Mr. Shermer's PT Cruiser, with no airbag deployment or evidence of braking. The findings contradicted the Reverend's claims of a more violent crash at higher speeds.

Reconstruction simulations showed that at 20 mph, the vehicle would have come to a stop after hitting the guard rail, while at 40 mph, it would have gone through the guard rail and into the woods. This evidence suggests that the crash was not as severe as initially portrayed.

TLDR

Mr. Shermer's crash speed was lower than reported, contradicting claims of a violent accident.

Episode

2:02

00:00:00

Mr Shermer had told the police officers at the scene what had happened that he was traveling 40 45 50 m an hour

00:00:07

somewhere in that range the deer jumps into the roadway and he swerves violently and hits this guard rail uh

00:00:16

looking at the photographs of the accident scene I immediately noticed that it was a low- speed impact there

00:00:21

was not much damage to the PT Cruiser the airbags didn't even deploy there was no evidence of braking uh there were no

00:00:30

no evidence of evasive maneuvers in the roadway there was an excessive amount of

00:00:34

blood in the car obviously the accident photographs clearly showed that Mr shermer's vehicle struck the guard rail

00:00:42

straight on at a minimal speed in fact Mr shermer's vehicle could have been driven from that

00:00:49

scene we had accident reconstruction experts from Penn State reconstruct the crash at speeds of 20 mph and 40 mph

00:00:57

they take information from um crashed dat factors within the vehicle itself uh soil composition structural Integrity of

00:01:05

the guard rail and all those things are factored into the computer to reconstruct an animated crash they're

00:01:11

compiling all of that data to come up with an accurate reenactment of the actual crash at that location at 20 M

00:01:18

hour the vehicle impacted the guard rail and slowly came to a stop uh at 40 m an

00:01:24

hour the vehicle traveled completely through the guard rail and into the woods the Reverend uh clearly made the

00:01:29

the crash SE as though was more violent uh higher speeds 50 to 55 mph violently out of control Betty's head went flying

00:01:38

throughout the vehicle and these reconstructions uh certainly told us that the impact with the guard rail was

00:01:44

certainly at a lower speed than he wanted us to believe I think the car was going anywhere between 18 and 22 M hour

00:01:51

when it impacted the guardrail if he had been going faster than that speed he would have completely sailed right

00:01:57

through the guard rail and into the woods and that's not how we found the vehicle

Episode Highlights

Accident Reconstruction Insights
Experts reconstructed the crash, revealing the vehicle's speed was much lower than claimed.
“The impact with the guard rail was certainly at a lower speed than he wanted us to believe.”
@ 01m 42s
January 03, 2014

Episode Quotes

Key Moments

Crash Analysis01:42
Speed Assessment01:49

Words per Minute Over Time

Vibes Breakdown