There was talk of betting. Did they ID the racers yet? I heard they drove off, whether they knew about the accident I don’t know, but it seems likely. No talk of arrests for gamble, or participation in illegal activity of any kind. Seems to me that the paticipants, spectators, bear more responsiblity than the CV driver, given the facts presented.
Sounds as if the spectators were lining the road ahead of the starting point, after the racers did their “burnout” and proceeded down the road, the spectators surged onto the road to watch them go, but they were on the wrong side of the smoke cloud. I saw a short interview w/ a young woman who stated that the CV had no headlights, but I’m skeptical.
I don’t think they usually test blood evidence in accidents. Maybe if the driver had run off and they couldn’t find him but otherwise everyone involved is right there. What does it matter where each individual hit the car? They’re dead and the white car hit them. Even if a death was caused by the eighteen wheeler it doesn’t matter which driver hit which victim unless one or both drivers were drunk and they are going to be charged for multiple deaths.
I thought I read in one report that the woman with the daughter moved off the road when she saw the car’s headlights. If you’ve ever driven through smoke or fog you know that the lights make it worse. They bounce right back at you ans blind you.
There’s a rather large subset of car culture where street racing is pretty popular. Heck, the Cannonball Run movies were inspired by articles in Car and Driver magazine, so I’m not really surprised at the ages of folks involved.
Street racing, in one form or another, has probably been around as long as the automobile. Some of it has no doubt been created because it’s pretty hard to find a track which will allow the average joe to run their cars (insurance costs being the reason). Much of it, of course, is simply stupidity. Generally, folks look for a stretch of road that’s flat, straight, and not heavily traveled. You’ll have locals and out-of-towners competing against one another, and accidents aren’t uncommon. I’ve known plenty of people involved in street racing, a few of whom died in races.
I dunno, but you could as easily say the same about all the bodies and bits scattered over the road. Yet, investigators took time to mark dozens or even hundreds of places on the road where they collected evidence. When I first saw pictures of the road I thought there was an extraordinary amount of blood, but some closeups showed that it was spray-painted red circles around pieces of evidence they collected.
You beat me to it, I was about to say the same thing.
If it’s true that “What does it matter where each individual hit the car?” and “I don’t see where there is going to be a big investigation to figure out which body was flying where” why take all that time to meticulously spraypaint the location of each and every body part/fragment? Pretty ghoulish for the mourners to see when they visit the scene to grieve…
The spray-painting struck me as nothing more than a highlighting for the photographer to go and record that item, before they can clear the road. (I suppose they could have drawn a big red circle around the car, too, for consistency.)
This stretch of road in Maryland is where my brother lives. It’s outside of DC, but pretty rural and untravelled, really. I can see how people would gather there late at night to have a good stretch of road to race on. Not saying it’s right, but can understand it with that stretch of highway. It was a safety hazard, and now will be dutifully closed.
Okay, but again, if it “doesn’t matter” who hit the car where, or where the bodies and parts landed, why go to all this meticulous trouble to mark, spraypaint and photograh every single little piece of remains? Why does that all matter so much, but they don’t care if blood and other evidence from other parts of the crime scene are smeared onto the windshield by shoving the car door through it?
And also, why leave the gruesome reminders (the spraypainted circles) at the scene to horrify the mourners? Hell, if they at least used chalk to mark it, the marks would wash away when the firehoses cleaned up the scene…
Here is an example of the above: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/bal-dragracing-pg,0,4371521.photogallery
Is that* really* necessary?
I’m starting to lose track of what your point is. The spraypainting is not meticulous trouble. It’s just making record of the layout of items. As photographs of the vehicle, inside and out, will have done. This obsession with blood transfer just doesn’t bear any relation to reality, especially with the facts of how such things are dealt with have been spelt out by others.
But now you’re going onto a different matter entirely, that if there wasn’t some huge conspiracy, then it’s the insensitivity that’s the issue. :rolleyes: Why not use chalk? Two obvious reasons come to mind. It takes more time, and isn’t as visible, especially in an overhead photograph showing the overall scene.
This article mentions that the driver of the Crown Vic was 20 years old, which pretty much rules out him being in law enforcement. Maybe they are not publicly identifying him due to the fear of repercussions form family and friends of the dead and injured, that and the fact that he appears to have done nothing wrong.
http://wjz.com/local/crash.victims.prince.2.656373.html
As for the doors, the car is on the truck backwards and the roof is smashed in. if the doors couldn’t be counted on to stay closed at highway speeds, it would make sense to remove them to prevent another incident during the vehicle transport.
I’m familiar with this road, having driven it many times enroute to DC. While I can’t mentally pinpoint where the accident occurred, I can safely say that most of Indian Head Highway is not lit by streetlights. So any suggestion that the driver didn’t have his headlights on, well, that doesn’t mesh with my reality. Given the lack of ambient light along most of this road, I can’t imagine anyone being able to drive blind.
What boggles my mind is that these people were outside at 3 in the morning in the winter watching a street race. Our weather has been a little milder than normal, but still, it’s winter! I don’t get it…
Are you asking if the paint is necessary or if positional marking is necessary? I doubt the paint is permanent; I suspect it’s similar to race paint, which generally washes away after a few rains. If it rained before the accident investigation was completed, chalk markings would wash away.
As for the markings themselves, if you remove the emotional component, accident reconstruction is a physics exercise. The final position of each of the objects is key to the investigation.
I was just responding to 2gigch1 , who said:
and **Mongo Ponton ** who wrote:
I can’t see why there wouldn’t be a huge investigation, there are going to be lawsuits galore, including many against the police for allegedly failing to respond to past complaints about racing at this location. So it would make sense to conduct a very thorough investigation and not take any chances on screwing up on any evidence. Hence my puzzlement over them shoving the door through the windshield when there were plenty of other ways to transport it that didn’t compromise the evidentiary chain.
Bingo. You are exactly right on all counts.
I think you are suffering from the CSI effect / syndrome
There is no question how the people died. Blunt force trauma administered via a large car. The only questions here are who got hit first, and the path of the car. Who’s blood is on the windshield? Probably the bloody dead guy in the front seat. If you still have a question, pick up a piece of glass and type the blood on it. No reason to run DNA and OG knows what other tests.
Yes I found this very odd too. Most of the dead were middle-aged/older men. When I first heard about this, I thought it was going to be a crowd of teenagers. There are stories of grandparents, parents and children together at this thing. One person said: “My mom was trying to grab my grandfather, then when it hit him, all his body pieces just jumped up.” It’s just so odd…
And yes it also surprised me at first that most of the people at this thing were black; but then again, most of the residents of PG County are black, so it does make sense.
What I really want to know if how all of these people knew where to be and when to be there…???
My thoughts exactly. I cannot comprehend the stupidity of participating in an event like this. It’s so incredibly idiotic. The whole thing makes me so sick, and I am perplexed at why the police can’t do more to stop this. Many articles talk about how the police have been trying to crack down, but it’s hard due to how fast these things happen. They should install speed-activated cameras every mile to catch the license plates of these hoodlums.
One last thing - it is very odd and mysterious as to what happened with the white Ford, and its doors. Why hasn’t a reporter asked this question? This question should have occurred to any good reporter.
What happened? It was towed away. End of story. Yet again invoking CSI, it was not and never would be taken off to its own hermetically-sealed garage for further examination.
You are the only one “invoking” CSI, you keep mentioning it over and over. For the record, I’ve never even seen the show.
Please provide a cite/proof that the car is not being examined further by anyone, anywhere.
There’s not likely to be any “proof” that the car won’t be examined further, but the investigation seems to be pretty cut and dried. Police have methods of estimating speed prior to a collision, they probably determined the likelyhood that the driver was running w/o lights. The driver apparently showed no signs of impairment, nor did I hear any claims of mechanical failure. Police investigate primarily for criminal behavior, not to satisfy tort claims that may arise. I’d guess they will impound the car for a period, probably until the local D.A. signs off, maybe a month or so. The driver’s insurance co. will probably inspect it, along w/ getting copies of the investigation, to defend themselves in case of future suits. Beyond that there’s not really any reason to minutely inspect the car. The idea that shoving a door through the windshield makes any difference to future investigation, or legal outcomes, is not worthy of consideration.