Re: Claton Rivert death and Questions Swirl around SIU investigation.
But again using logic and the laws of movement, time and space, had Clayton not been doing 154 Km/h he NEVER would have been in the place at that time, ergo NO COLLISION. This is what makes his speed a MAJOR contributing factor. So if he HAD been doing the speed limit he would have never been in a collision.
I've left this alone up until now, but that is not the way collision investigations are supposed to work. Using this logic, all of our traffic safety problems could be solved if the parties involved each left home two or three seconds before, or two or three seconds after, because then they would all arrive at the collision point a couple seconds apart instead of getting there at the same time.
It doesn't work that way. Take the time of impact, change one of the facts, and back up in time from the time of impact and THEN see if there is an impact.
My contention is that the officer never looked (properly) for approaching traffic prior to making that U-turn. Assume for the moment that it took 1.5 seconds between when the car was parallel to the traffic lane but off to the side (tucked in behind the construction barrier), and when it was perpendicular and blocking both lanes. Back up that 1.5 seconds. Is Clayton able to avoid the collision? At 150 km/h ... clearly not. At 80 km/h ... No! It may have taken 0.5 to 1.0 seconds for his brain to process that the car that he may have seen stopped up ahead, has now moved and is blocking his path. At 1 g deceleration it's going to take about 2.5 seconds to stop and that's assuming perfect traction conditions, which are unlikely in a construction zone. At 60 km/h (My own collision scenario) can he stop? NO! 0.5 to 1.0 seconds reaction time, around 2 seconds to stop ... I'd estimate that I hit the car at between 20 and 30 km/h.
So knock off the statement that "he wouldn't have been in that place and time", because even if he had been at the posted speed limit, the collision could very well have happened anyhow.
I've been there.
What happened before that fateful second and a half that it took the car to go from parallel/beside the road, to blocking the road?
Perhaps the construction barrier was higher than a Crown Victoria's taillights, blocking line of sight so it was not visible to Clayton (and likewise, Clayton's headlight would not have been visible). If that was the case - the officer made an illegal U-turn.
Perhaps the construction barrier was NOT higher than taillights. Clayton would have been able to see the taillights. We'll never know what he thought, but he may have passed them off as simply a car parked at the side of the road. Likewise, if the construction barriers were that low, the bike's headlight should have been in line of sight to the officer's mirrors. That opens up the discussion about when the officer checked those mirrors. If he checked immediately before doing the U-turn (we're assuming 1.5 seconds prior to impact) at 60 km/h Clayton would have been 25 metres away, at 150 km/h he would have been about 60 metres away. Not very far. If the cop car slowed down from some speed (presumably 60 km/h construction zone) to 25 km/h, that would have taken a couple of seconds ... but that would have had the cop car in the same lane as the rapidly-approaching Clayton, who ought to have seen the tail and brake lamps; why he did not react by slowing down, we'll never know ... but the alternate explanation is that the cop car had been sitting stopped at the side of the road the whole time, and only pulled out as Clayton approached.
If we change one fact (cut Clayton's speed in half) but don't change the other (cop pulling out in front of him), back up a couple seconds from the point of impact, there is still a crash scenario if the timing is wrong (the severity will be a lot lower but there's still a crash). If we change another fact (have the cop bother to look in his mirrors 100 m or so up the road and delay pulling out because there is an approaching vehicle within visual range - and the law suggests "visual range" to be 150 m) ... there is no crash.
I don't dispute that Clayton's speed contributed substantially to the severity of this crash, but the more hedo2002 defends this cop's actions, the less faith I have in the SIU, and that was already pretty low, on account of the SIU consisting mostly of ex-cops who are out to protect their own.
