In other words, this is what I'm trying to say..If you hit a fly in mid air with a heavy 5 lbs flyswatter, and do the same with a regular flyswatter at the same speed, the damage is going to be the same. If you do the same thing with the fly on a table, the heavier flyswatter is going to do more damage..

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aztrucker a.k.a. Roadtrip..

ok little confused here, are you saying that because i was moving in the same direction going 20mph slower at a weight 121,000lbs lighter that the impact is less than being stopped and rearended? I mean i know if i was stopped and he hit me the impact would be much larger but there is a calculation that can be figured because of his weight and speed versus my weight and speed. This red headed mullet looking ronald mcdonald guy was strung out, and didn't hit the breaks until after he hit me and he layed 150ft of skid marks and was pushing me! Thank God he had a push a long bumber and I took our work car to town because i really feel had i been in our f350 dually he would have killed me because the hitch would no doubt went through his grill and locked us together. And had i not seen him coming, i would have hit my breaks when feeling a jolt and probably ended up road meat. Flooring my car before impact saved my life but hurt me also because of bracing and stiffening up for the impact. The idiot left the scene before the police got there but i owned trucks and knew enough to get the licence plate and name of co before he took off. Idiots like that have no concern for life of children or adults  but now we are in litigation 8mths after the wreck and his insurance in going to crap-they never knew he had an accident and even though he left, he admitted to a state trooper he "bumped me" yeah felt like a bump to him with me being 5,000lbs and him 126,000lbs. Thank God he was dumb enough to tell the trooper when they caught up with him. Thanks for the post any others greatly appreciated! My hubby drives truck so i am not biased against them, just the ones that almost kill you and then leave and lie. He hung himself with the rediculous lies because he couldn't keep his story straight. I didn't lie and i am not worried about going to court should that happen-but we all know that insurance does NOT want to see a court room and the company of the coal product is in deep, he had a bogus overweight sticker on the truck and got red tagged. Massey Coal or Addington whichever he hauled off of was negligent in checking to make sure he was legal. The overweight sticker matched the other truck they have, i am not dumb..they applied for duplicate stickers and stuck it on the truck that hit me to keep from paying out 500 bucks for the proper sticker. By the way the owner is supposed to be in the pen for bank robbery and drug sales so pray i don't get whacked during my suit. It is scarey but i am hurt and have no insurance. I am not going for gold-my attorney may be but i am not that way. You all be safe out there!

He hit you as if you were standing still and he was going 15 mph. Empty or loaded the impact would have been the same. Since you were moving, weight has nothing to do with it. Had you been stopped, and pinned in with an inmovable object in front of you, it would then have made a difference. I'm not saying this was not a serious accident, you could have easally been killed...From experience this law suit should be worth at least a half million. You might think that this is too much, but you dont have any say in the judgement amount. Your lawer knows how much it's worth...he's not going to lessen that amount just because you think that's too much to ask.   

 

 

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aztrucker a.k.a. Roadtrip..

ok although i respect your response you can't possibly think that the impact would be the same. Speed and weight are factors but the part that is right is that by me being in motion, and flooring my car it took some of the impact off. I talked with my attorney today. Do you drive coal truck? I will be honest, i am a christian i never lied through this although he has but i was shocked that the impact was so hard because when something like this happens your mind goes into shock mode but i remember thinking to myself --stay on the gas and darn that impact was hard. I never imagined being in motion although lighter and slower than him would still make me feel suck a jolt and throw my belongings forward up under the dash. Another point i want to say is this, we owned 2 coal trucks and i know the in's and out's of coal hauling and how drivers pretty much are on speed or pain pills. Believe it or not I can understand-I have went on hauls and these drivers have alot expected of them however let me add this...A driver that can't control his tractor/trailer in a broad daylight straight stretch does NOT need to be on the road. You may be married and have children and it messed with my mind even now because i really believe had God not give me that 10 secs to see him coming I would be dead with a closed casket. Another thing is that is not hard to figure he was speeding(if you only could read his rediculous report) the accident was like at 2:45pm and he dumped his load at 3:11pm pretty much 20 monutes after hitting me, he hammered down to the dock, dumped, and took KY side back to WV. My husband was looking for him and he knew the police were going to be called. The dock that he dumps at is about 15 miles away from the wreck site showing that he didn't hang around long to see if i was ok and he took off. Oh and he says i pulled out infront of him but he don't know where and he was coming to a SLOW stop at 55mph. Now you hit someone with you having a CDL and you come up with this bogus story that someone pulled out infront of you, would you not remember where they pulled out? He says I pulled out infront of him but he don't know where-well there is 2 options,  my car miraculously jumped over a gardrail onto the highway infront of him or there is a little store there but as I have always stated i was never at that store and hadn't been there in like 8mths so he left it open of where i pulled out because he didn't know how many witnesses i had to prove i left my home a mile or a mile and a half before he hit me. He is crazy. Those kind of drivers need to have their CDL's revoked and after all this fraud and lies i would say he won't have a job. I got 2 1/2 hours sleep last night due to my knee and back pain and here it is 2:30 am again. I am a young woman but I can fight like a man and i would love to beat him down and take a bat to that truck and say now prove I did it. Kinda like he is saying although he admitted to hitting me. I have a 3 1/2 year old daughter I cannot lift or wrestle with and a son that will be 5 in may. They almost didn't have a mother. These truckers need to think about these babies and the lives they put at stake. My husband still drives coal trucks or gravel trucks and he just seen the guy yesterday that hit me. Do you know how hard it is for him to not jerk him out and beat him half to death because he almost killed me? Think about it. It has screwed me up for life i might as well be 70 instead of 32. Thanks again for the post-be safe

Truckeraz1 is actually correct. you must first take into account the speed of relative motion. since both vehicles were moving, the difference in speed is the speed of relative motion, in this case 15 mph if in fact you were doing 55. Judging by the severity of the impact,  if would guess that you were probably going slower than 55 or he was going faster than 70, thereby increasing the speed of relative motion and making the crash more severe. Also weight does have an effect, because more weight creates greater density and will result in the impacted vehicle being  propelled  a  greater distance. Try to picture hitting a  golf ball at the same speed with a golf club and then with a sledge hammer. Although the ball is hit at the same speed, the greater density of the sledge will propell it a further distance.  anyhow, hope any of this helps.

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No Granny panties allowed !!!

Now the trucker's last response makes it a little clearer. Thanks for the laugh about granny panties- I had to go back and re-read my post to see what that was referenced for, then I was like ..lol that's funny. I feel 70 not look It!!Anyways, yeah headed to knee surgery the 18th this month, dreading it but wanting to get it over so badly. Hoping to get a little pain relief-as for my back injury....Well time and alot of money for that so it has to be put on hold until more money comes in. It seems unfair that I can't get the treatment needed for my back until this is all settled because my personal car insurance took care of my medical so far and now it is exhausted. My knee surgery I am blessed to have a loan from my christian brother-n-law for or I would suffer with that until this settlement or another financial blessing fell from the money tree. Scarey where I live, my hubby has 1 haul tomorrow then another pause in the flow of money. Fuel is killing the Richest of Rich. I do believe the companies where I am located are parking up on the 20th for the protest. Ah, anyways...Stay safe all!! Had a trucker get burnt up in his truck a few months back-he ran into the back of another coaltrucker. Sorry for the family..

Sorry but the guys are correct. I worked for MoDOT for 2 years doing accident investigation and even though I didn't do the math work I know the guys (a one very smart women) who did. There are a couple of variables that go into the math and those would be your acceleration/deceleration and his acceleration/deceleration. Assuming that neither of you were going a perfect static speed the impact number is a variable. One thing not in your favor is that your speed was probably close to static (the same) since you weren't aware of what was coming up on you. The truck speed was probably decelerating since he knew you were there. He would have used his brakes, despite brake delay he would have been slowing down. In the act of slowing down the physics of the accident changes alot. The weight of the load is dramatically reduced - its not a linear line. See, hitting a parked vehicle at 15 mph include 3 forces - the speed, the physics of the moving force moving forward at 15 mph and finally the force of the "free objects" in the wreck moving forward. In a rearend moving wreck with the vehicle doing the hitting using his breaks the physics of the weight are dramatically reduced.

The other thing is when he hit you, your car absorbed the impact and continued moving forward. That also lessens the physics of hitting something like a staic wall or parked car.

So I am not saying here that you aren't hurt. I fuuly would expect you to be very hurt. I would however say that if you were parked and this same truck hit you, you would probably have become a fatality.

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Guilt is no more than a bag of F'in bricks. All ya gotta do is set it down and walk away.

AS YOU READ THIS BOOK I HAVE WROTE YOU SOUND SUPER INTELLIGENT BUT LET ME CLEAR UP SOME FOG I MAY HAVE PUT IN THIS MESS. HE WASN'T DECELERATING WHEN HE HIT ME, HE HIT THE BREAKS AFTER THE IMPACT AND STILL WAS PUSHING ME AND HE DID LAY 150FT OF SKID MARKS. OH I ABSOLUTELY AGREE I WOULD BE DEAD AND I AGREE WITH WHAT YOU HAVE SAID ABOUT THE IMPACT. SEE THE KICKER IS...THE IDIOT DID NOT HIT HIS BREAKS UNTIL AFTER HE HIT ME! I WAS IN AN OLDER CAR WITH THE REAL STEEL BUMBER AND IT SHOVED THE SHOCKS OF THE BUMPER IN 2 1/2 INCHES NOT TO MENTION BROKE THE BOLT IN TWO ON THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE BUMPER THAT HOLDS THE BUMBER ON. I DID SEE HE WAS GOING TO HIT ME AND I DID FLOOR MY CAR BUT HE WAS FLYING AND I WILL SAY IT IS REAL CLOSE IF I HIT THE GAS BEFORE HE HIT ME OR WHILE HE HIT ME...I KEPT IT FLOORED THE WHOLE TIME HE WAS BEHIND ME. SEE HE WAS PUSHING ME FOR 1/2 MILE HE WAS LIT AND DIDN'T SEE ME AT ALL !!I DON'T KNOW IF HE FELL ASLEEP OR JUST POPPED OVER A SMALL-VERY SMALL HILL AND THERE I WAS. HAD I HIT THE BREAKS YES I WOULD BE DEAD BUT GOD KEPT ME ALIVE TO SEE THOSE FEW SECONDS BEFORE IMPACT SO I COULD TRY ATLEAST TO SPEED UP TO GET AWAY FROM HIM-IT DIDN'T WORK  BUT HELPED I AM SURE.HAD I FELT A JOLT AND NEVER SEEN HIM, I WOULD HAVE HIT THE BREAKS THINKING SOMETHING DROPPED OUT OF MY ENGINE OR A DOG OR SOMETHING I HIT. SO YEAH I AM LUCKY TO BE ALIVE AND THANK GOD THAT COMPANY HAD THE LOW PROFILE PUSH A LONG BUMPER THAT KEPT ME INFRONT OF HIM INSTEAD OF UNDERNEATH! HAD I TOOK OUR F350 DUALLY FORD I DON'T BELIEVE I WOULD BE ALIVE BECAUSE OUR HITCH WOULD HAVE WENT THROUGH HIS GRILL AND I THINK POSSIBLY LOCKED US TOGETHER. I HAVE SURGERY FOR MY KNEE FRIDAY (THANKFUL TO HOPEFULLY HEAL 1 INJURY) THE COMPANY IS IN SERIOUS CRAP.YOU DON'T HAUL 126,000LB WITH A BOGUS OVERWEIGHT STICKER AND LIKE I SAID IT LEFT EVERYTHING OPEN NOW FOR THE COAL PRODUCT CO. TO GET SUED FOR NEGLIGENCE OF MAKING SURE HE WAS LEGAL HAULING THEIR PRODUCT. I AM NOT A GOLD DIGGER BUT FOR 9 MONTHS I HAVE HAD HORRIFYING PAIN, MY KIDS HAVE SUFFERED AND ME MENTALLY?WELL I CAN'T HOLD IT AGAINST ALL TRUCKERS JUST THE RONALD MCDONALD RED HEADED MULLET DUDE THAT HIT ME. I WAS TOLD FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE MY BACK IS INJURED AND MY KNEE ALSO.WHICH OF COURSE TAKES AWAY MY QUALITY OF LIFE AND LIMITS ME. MY KIDS HAD A HARD TIME UNDERSTANDING WHY ALL THE SUDDEN I CAN'T RUN OR PIGGY BACK THEM OR EVEN PICK THEM UP.THE PLAY TIME I HAVE WITH MY KIDS NOW IS COLORING IN A BOOK AND READING. MY ATTNY LAID IT TO THAT COMPANY..THEY FINALLY WERE OFFICIALLY SERVED PAPERS FOR COURT AND WE ARE DEMANDING A TRIAL BY JURY BUT DOUBTFUL IT WILL GO TO TRIAL. I WISH THIS DIDN'T EVEN HAPPEN. NO MONEY IS WORTH LOSING PRECIOUS TIME WITH MY KIDS AS THEY GROW UP FROM TODDLERS. I CAN'T GET THAT BACK.IT IS HARD FOR ME TO SEE THE SUNNY SIDE THROUGH THIS..YES I AM ALIVE BUT IF YOU WOULD SEE HOW I HAVE TO WALK WITH A LIMP, CAN'T BEND OVER OR STAND UP WITHOUT CRAZY BACK PAIN NOT TO MENTION THE OLE KNEE OF MINE. AS FOR BEING OLD OR FEELING OLD... YES I FEEL 70. MY HUSBAND IS 22 YEARS OLDER THAN ME SO I GUESS HE FEELS YOUTHFUL AND I FEEL OLD -SO WE MUST EQUAL EACHOTHER OUT! HAHA STAY SAFE AND THANKYOU FOR THE INFO. I WAS JUST CURIOUS.