Re: wheels come off - speed doubles?

[Stefan Jeglinski <jeglin@4PI.COM>]

>  >What on Earth, was this discussion thread all about?
> > What was this supposed speed doubling?
> >
> > Truck wheels are big and heavy - they can pull off, they can run on
> > if the trailer was swinging at the time, and they can bounce up and land
> >    in someone's frontage.
> > I just don't see the mystery.
>
> The "mystery" is that the highway patrol claims, as if it was a known
> fact of physics, that when the wheels come off of a truck in this
> (not very well described) fashion, their speed doubles (in this case,
> from 55 to 110 mph). This point was included in the article, if you
> read it :-)


Oh, very interesting. With apologies to Brian, they've changed the
darn article! I just went and looked at it again. This practice is
becoming more and more prevalent on the web, and I don't like it one
bit.

The article yesterday discussed the highway patrol's contention that
when wheels come off a truck, they double in speed, in this case from
the 55 the truck was alleged to be doing, to 110 when they hit the
house. Not only did they rewrite the article, they redid the video
report as well. On the original video they had filmed a patrolman
interview in which the same speed-doubling claim was asserted. It's
all been excised now.


Stefan Jeglinski