When a person is envolved in a hit and run accident, why do or does
the persons shoes remain at the sight of the impact point? The
closest I have to an answer is due to inertia, however it has been
pointed out to me that the body re-acts strangely under stressful
conditions and that this could possibly form part of the answer |
Request for Question Clarification by
tutuzdad-ga
on
27 Oct 2004 07:10 PDT
I'm not sure what kind of answer your after but I can tell you from
personal experience (having investigated many, many accidents myself)
that people not only get knocked out of their shoes, the impact, if
great enough, can knock them completely out of every stitch of
clothing they have on.
An impact this great is no different, and follows the same basic
principle as the technique of indirectly striking one croquet ball
through another. It is this same transfer of energy that propels the
second ball while the ball physically being hit remains motionless.
In this same context think of the clothing, shoes or whatever, as the
first ball (the one being physically hit) and the body as the second
ball (the article recieving the tranfer of energy) that is propelled.
Having said that, it is not uncommon to see a pedestrian "knocked out
of his shoes" and the shoes sitting on the highway at, or very near,
the initial point of impact while the body is many feet, or even many
yards away.
Let me know if this answers your question.
Regards;
tutuzdad-ga
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Clarification of Question by
badnewsschlodds-ga
on
27 Oct 2004 07:47 PDT
The whole debate has been around the fact that the shoes stay behind
and why that happens. I understand the principle of transference of
energy, but the person that I am having this debate with has stated
that under extremely stressful conditions, that the foot does
extremely starnge things, and there explanation is that in fact the
whole foot curls up and that the toes actually touch the heel of the
foot and that is why they slip out of the shoe. I think that this is
totally impossible for the foot to ben d like that, I mentioned that
it was inertia and not transference of energy. Would it also be that
fact that when you are hit by a car, that the whole body relaxes and
this is why the foot actually slips out of the shoe or is there
another explanation
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Request for Question Clarification by
tutuzdad-ga
on
27 Oct 2004 10:08 PDT
The idea "that the whole foot curls up and that the toes actually
touch the heel of the foot and that is why they slip out of the shoe"
is nonsense. This is physically impossible without leaving injuries
(fractures, brusing, muscle laceration, ligament damage, etc). As
someone with more than 20 years of professional law enforcement
experience, I'm hear to tell you FOR A FACT that not everyone who gets
knocked out their shoes by the impact of a vehicle suffers from these
types of injuries, or in some cases, any foot injuries at all.
The loss of ones shoes in such a tremendous impact is not related to
the body's response, it's merely related to a stationary object being
hit by a fast moving object and the stationary object being knocked
out of it's wrapper - nothing more. There's no big mystery here and as
such, your debate partner is simply mistaken. In fact, if anything,
the body "tenses" (assuming the victim is conscious at the time of
impact) so the notion that the relaxation someone turns loose of the
shoes in the fraction of the second of impact is a theory has just no
basis in fact whatsoever.
I'd be delighted to know if my information suffices as an answer.
tutuzdad-ga
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