But post-crash fires are, in fact, depressingly typical, especially in high-speed scenarios, says Philadelphia attorney Max Kennerly, whose firm represents plaintiffs in car fires.
“If someone is driving at high speed and hits a very solid object, yeah, you’ll get a fire out of that,” Kennerly says. “It wouldn’t be an underestimation to say that every day, a lawsuit is filed over a car fire right after an accident. There are every year 300,000 vehicle fires...”
Frank Markus, technical director of Motor Trend, points out that “any impact at speeds high enough to rip the drive train out of a car is highly likely to force some object to rupture the fuel tank. There is a lot of potential chemical energy in a gas tank that's even a quarter full...
So while the casual evidence might suggest otherwise, the prosaic reality is that cars involved in high-speed crashes often go up in flames
edit: boo, beaten to the punch by 2 minutes with the same cite.
I'll just say that you, Steko and jlgreco seem pretty invested in presenting the same case, ad nauseum. With that, I have some projects to head off to work on.
Curiously, if you read our histories you will see that tptacek and I could not possibly disagree more on most of the other aspects of this continuum of stories.
But hey, if I were a government shill in Virginia I wouldn't want to make it too obvious right? Gotta keep it mixed up a bit.
A 1.75 ton car wrapping itself around a tree at 80+ mph is an exceedingly chaotic situation. It really should not be surprising that some of the times that happens a fire will occur.
The whole point to gas is the wide set of "specific circumstances" in which it is flammable. It is most flammable in its gaseous form so any fuel tank leak at all during the accident could have spilled gas all around the car which (due to its volatility) would quickly flash into a vapor form.
At that point it needs only to find 1 hot-enough part of the car to ignite and spread throughout the vapor cloud to start burning all around the car.
Major crashes are one of those circumstances. I can't even believe this is being contested, it's like something out of Zoolander... Michael Hastings framed in freak gasoline fight accident
Mythbusters is not science, and gasoline is quite easy to ignite. The catalytic converter could have done it, so could an electrical short (possibly caused by the crash).
Mercedes cars are not immune to the rules of physics. Gasoline is flammable.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/car-experts-michael-ha...
But post-crash fires are, in fact, depressingly typical, especially in high-speed scenarios, says Philadelphia attorney Max Kennerly, whose firm represents plaintiffs in car fires.
“If someone is driving at high speed and hits a very solid object, yeah, you’ll get a fire out of that,” Kennerly says. “It wouldn’t be an underestimation to say that every day, a lawsuit is filed over a car fire right after an accident. There are every year 300,000 vehicle fires...”
Frank Markus, technical director of Motor Trend, points out that “any impact at speeds high enough to rip the drive train out of a car is highly likely to force some object to rupture the fuel tank. There is a lot of potential chemical energy in a gas tank that's even a quarter full...
So while the casual evidence might suggest otherwise, the prosaic reality is that cars involved in high-speed crashes often go up in flames
edit: boo, beaten to the punch by 2 minutes with the same cite.