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5 dead in fatal motorcycle crash

High-Side said:
My feelings too, but this is barf - where it's always in vogue to bash Harleys and Harley riders. :(
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It's not just Harley riders. This happens with every collision incident.
tzrider said:
You're bending way over backward to find fault with the riders. There's not enough data to reach such a conclusion without a lot of conjecture. Why would you do that?
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There is this strange. "blame the victim" mentally that occurs with these things. It's like when people blame the rape victim instead of the rapist.

BTW, Gnarly Cranium, unless I missed it, you are leaving out the closing rate of the other vehicle, which reduces your reaction times in half or more.

Rel said:
Update: other driver was located and arrested for suspicion of DUI by the CHP.
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I do hope that some have noticed this little detail.
 
Gnarly Cranium said:
Okay, I'm rusty, but I'll take a swing at this.

The car is 3500lbs, the bikes with a pair of riders what... let's say 1200lbs each, and they're approaching each other at approx 100ft/s or closing rate of 200ft/s. Car hits bike #1 dead on, and loses 1/3rd of its roadway-forward momentum to that impact alone, plus some extra for skidding tires, change in direction, etc. Now we have say the bike and the car minus bike riders, 4300lbs traveling at erm... roughly half the speed it was before, say 35mph or something.
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There's a real problem with your math here. You're assuming head-on collisions with each bike. The car, however, was traveling perpendicularly, or at least at an angle, to the line of travel of the bikes. The more perpendicular to the road his line of travel, the less his velocity will be reduced by hitting one of the bikes.

One thing I can note is that- and let me explicitly say this is not the fault of the riders for not doing, only something you readers can do as a way to improve survival- they should have been able to see the swerve-off-road event happen, otherwise the given rider must have been past the incident and out of harm's way (no weird tire/sand physics will make a 65mph car suddenly go the opposite direction at full speed). Hell, if they were alert they probably could have seen the game of chicken developing. In the event you see something like that going down, you should be off the gas and on the brakes. Or hitting the gas if the situation calls for it. Or ready to jump off the road if you need to & can- I'd take wiping out in the desert over eating a grill any day. My point is, cars will begin to travel erratically before they actually cross your path, so people, if you see a car behaving strangely reduce speed and perk up. If you detect a crappy situation just 1-2 seconds ahead of time, you can have your speed down to 30mph which gives you way more time to react. I've avoided several major accidents that way myself.

Once again, placing 0 blame on the riders. Just looking for a way to avoid this sad result.
 
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It's not about blame. I'm rationalizing, and trying to figure out how on earth 1 car could hit so many bikes all at once. I dug out a calculator for like 5min. It seems pretty straightforward to me. It concerns me that some people seem to think it's pretty easy for a car to take out that many bikes at once, if the bikes are spaced out safely.

clutchslip said:
BTW, Gnarly Cranium, unless I missed it, you are leaving out the closing rate of the other vehicle, which reduces your reaction times in half or more.
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You missed it.

sliverstorm said:
There's a real problem with your math here. You're assuming head-on collisions with each bike. The car, however, was traveling perpendicularly, or at least at an angle, to the line of travel of the bikes. The more perpendicular to the road his line of travel, the less his velocity will be reduced by hitting one of the bikes.
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The more perpendicular to the road his line of travel, the less of his velocity is pointed at the bikes in the first place. If the car was traveling entirely at a right angle to the bikes, there is no way it could hit more than one unless they were stacked up in a row, because he'd be across the entire road and gone off the shoulder in a flash.

Also, in real collisions it's near impossible to cleanly subtract the force of each object from the other since they crush and spin and do all sorts of crazy stuff that I'm definitely not taking into account, but the first bike is shown still stuck to the front of the car so I just subtracted it straight.

Either way, if the car is braking and the bikes are braking, they're all going to be stopped in about 4 seconds. Maybe a bit longer for the car since it's out of control and not braking efficiently. But unless he's floored the gas pedal and is aiming his car straight down the road, he'll be stopped in not much more than 4 seconds. Somebody approaching with 8 seconds of lead time is probably going to be able to avoid the crash, and that's my only point. Maybe we've seen too many action movies, where the car spends ten minutes spinning end over end in slow motion?
 
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Gnarly Cranium said:
The more perpendicular to the road his line of travel, the less of his velocity is pointed at the bikes in the first place. If the car was traveling entirely at a right angle to the bikes, there is no way it could hit more than one unless they were stacked up in a row, because he'd be across the entire road and gone off the shoulder in a flash.
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Exactly my point, and why I believe you are probably right that they were close together.


Ahhh, I don't want to think about this anymore. Don't want to stare at those photos anymore. Keep safe following distances y'all, keep your eyes open, react early. Be safe. I'm out of this one.
 
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High-Side said:
If you're going 65 and the car going the other way is going 65 you have a closing speed of 130 miles an hour which is 190 feet per second - not a lot of time to react no matter how good a rider you are.
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I sure wish, every motorist, bikers alike, would keep that in the front of their mind.

It doesn't diminish with lower speeds...when the speeds drop, with shorter sight lines either.

Speeds are typically 45 mph in the twisties here. Closing speed of 90 mph when the sight lines run around 100 ft max to down to 20 ft, with a tight corner dropping to 12 ft. At that point..you would have to look quite a while, before finding someone that wasn't over riding/driving their sight line.
 
From what I was reading in an account by the leader of the motorcycle club whose bike was the first bike in the pack, the oncoming driver (the Avenger that tried to miss the oncoming Honda who was passing the bikers), successfully made it all the way off to the opposite side of the road--meaning the dirt shoulder of the biker's side of the road. He then lost control and pulled back into the roadway, actually missing the lead bikes and plowing into the path of the tail bikes.

This reduced the biker's options as the Honda was in the opposing lane next to them and the Avenger was to their right--oncoming in the shoulder. If the driver of the Avenger had kept the car off on the shoulder, things may have been much less tragic; but as some of the early posts pointed out, many drivers will try to correct with the wrong input when in the dirt in a slide and propel the car in the wrong direction.
 
sliverstorm said:
Exactly my point, and why I believe you are probably right that they were close together.


Ahhh, I don't want to think about this anymore. Don't want to stare at those photos anymore. Keep safe following distances y'all, keep your eyes open, react early. Be safe. I'm out of this one.
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"He came out of nowhere," said Smith, who was riding point and was narrowly missed by the Dodge. "The other car went out of control and then started smashing into motorcycles. It was like bowling."

Sounds like the Dodge went right through the middle of the group.
 
Gnarly Cranium said:
It's not about blame. I'm rationalizing, and trying to figure out how on earth 1 car could hit so many bikes all at once. I dug out a calculator for like 5min. It seems pretty straightforward to me. It concerns me that some people seem to think it's pretty easy for a car to take out that many bikes at once, if the bikes are spaced out safely.

You missed it.

The more perpendicular to the road his line of travel, the less of his velocity is pointed at the bikes in the first place. If the car was traveling entirely at a right angle to the bikes, there is no way it could hit more than one unless they were stacked up in a row, because he'd be across the entire road and gone off the shoulder in a flash.

Also, in real collisions it's near impossible to cleanly subtract the force of each object from the other since they crush and spin and do all sorts of crazy stuff that I'm definitely not taking into account, but the first bike is shown still stuck to the front of the car so I just subtracted it straight.

Either way, if the car is braking and the bikes are braking, they're all going to be stopped in about 4 seconds. Maybe a bit longer for the car since it's out of control and not braking efficiently. But unless he's floored the gas pedal and is aiming his car straight down the road, he'll be stopped in not much more than 4 seconds. Somebody approaching with 8 seconds of lead time is probably going to be able to avoid the crash, and that's my only point. Maybe we've seen too many action movies, where the car spends ten minutes spinning end over end in slow motion?
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You seriously need to take a physics class:rolleyes

It's bad enough that you continue to try to explain to many here how this happened without much evidence at all but to use your special brand of mathematics is just going beyond irresponsible.:thumbdown

http://ffden-2.phys.uaf.edu/211_fall2002.web.dir/Ben_Townsend/PhysicsofCarCollisions.htm
 
Coffae said:
From what I was reading in an account by the leader of the motorcycle club whose bike was the first bike in the pack, the oncoming driver (the Avenger that tried to miss the oncoming Honda who was passing the bikers), successfully made it all the way off to the opposite side of the road--meaning the dirt shoulder of the biker's side of the road. He then lost control and pulled back into the roadway, actually missing the lead bikes and plowing into the path of the tail bikes.

This reduced the biker's options as the Honda was in the opposing lane next to them and the Avenger was to their right--oncoming in the shoulder. If the driver of the Avenger had kept the car off on the shoulder, things may have been much less tragic; but as some of the early posts pointed out, many drivers will try to correct with the wrong input when in the dirt in a slide and propel the car in the wrong direction.
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The Dodge went to the shoulder on his right side.
 
DataDan said:
No. I've kept it up to date with all the latest mods. ;)

I'm not making this shit up. You can read about one of the cases here. As the article says, a CHP officer insisted that the driver was under the influence of marijuana, but "three subsequent blood tests have shown no illegal drugs." Though the first test results were known four days after the crash, they kept the guy locked up on the DUI manslaughter charge for a month.

A judge eventually threw out the felony vehicular manslaughter charge, and the defendant was convicted of misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter.

News about the other case (also 2003) is available for a fee from the paper that covered the story. PM me for references.
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I don't think you're "making this shit up," but two stories from 2003 does not equal CHP SOP, just like the plural of anecdote =/= data...
 
Brown81 said:
You think that people who are bright enough to realize police sometimes make things up is part of the "tinfoil hat brigade" huh?

Wow. Good stuff! :thumbup
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No, I think that a couple of newspaper stories don't necessarily indicate an official LEO policy.

(And the riders were probably clogging the lane anyway, so you probably figure they got was was coming to them... :thumbup)
 
The "suspect"--who it should be very clear by now is not a suspect, but a victim of the crash--has been released. From the Imperial Daily Press (in El Centro, seat of Imperial County):
Suspect in multi-death wreck released

A Mexicali man was released from custody related to a collision that killed five Saturday near Ocotillo, said a California Highway Patrol official.

Carlos Ramirez Bobadilla, 36, had a blood alcohol test done after officers smelled alcohol on his breath hours after the crash, said Officer DeeAnn Goudie. Ramirez was suspected of driving under the influence, but any charges would be pending the blood test results.​
After losing his wife when he swerved off the road to avoid the oncoming Civic, lost control, and swerved back into the group of motorcycles, Mr. Bobadilla is arrested, called a "suspect", and featured in headlines such as Driver held in motorcycle crash that kills 5, portraying him as the guilty party. All without substantial evidence.

Continuing from the LA Times article quoted above by xlcr, Carl Smith, president of the motorcycle club and witness to the crash, said of Mr. Bobadilla: "He's a victim, just like us."
 
Gnarly Cranium said:
It's not about blame. I'm rationalizing, and trying to figure out how on earth 1 car could hit so many bikes all at once. I dug out a calculator for like 5min. It seems pretty straightforward to me. It concerns me that some people seem to think it's pretty easy for a car to take out that many bikes at once, if the bikes are spaced out safely.

You missed it.

The more perpendicular to the road his line of travel, the less of his velocity is pointed at the bikes in the first place. If the car was traveling entirely at a right angle to the bikes, there is no way it could hit more than one unless they were stacked up in a row, because he'd be across the entire road and gone off the shoulder in a flash.

Also, in real collisions it's near impossible to cleanly subtract the force of each object from the other since they crush and spin and do all sorts of crazy stuff that I'm definitely not taking into account, but the first bike is shown still stuck to the front of the car so I just subtracted it straight.

Either way, if the car is braking and the bikes are braking, they're all going to be stopped in about 4 seconds. Maybe a bit longer for the car since it's out of control and not braking efficiently. But unless he's floored the gas pedal and is aiming his car straight down the road, he'll be stopped in not much more than 4 seconds. Somebody approaching with 8 seconds of lead time is probably going to be able to avoid the crash, and that's my only point. Maybe we've seen too many action movies, where the car spends ten minutes spinning end over end in slow motion?
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If the car was in a parallel track 30-40 feet away, coming towards the bikes, then fishtailed towards the lead bike when adjacent to it, that would explain the impact. The two lead bikes cleared the impact zone as the car slid into the trajectory path of the bikes, so they didn't get injured. It slid laterally directly into the path of the 3rd and 4th bikes, which impacted the vehicle, one of them went right into the passenger door killing that person, which is on the right side of the car. The rest of the bikes had maybe 1-2 seconds to react which why they also hit the car, or were hit by the bikes that bounced off the car. That would explain how the car took out so many bikes.

Looking at the pictures, the car ended up in the far right portion of their lane. Those bikes had no where to go. If I knew I couldn't stop in time, I would have attempted to squeeze by on the right, without going off the road. The spinning car and impacted bikes directly in your path of travel would have made that impossible.
 
DataDan said:
The "suspect"--who it should be very clear by now is not a suspect, but a victim of the crash--has been released.
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arrested when officers smelled alcohol on his breath about five hours after the Saturday crash
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Results of a blood test were pending and not expected for about two weeks
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Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
 
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