Right or Left Lane?

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CuriousCitizen
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Joined: Sat Aug 13, 2016 7:53 pm
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Right or Left Lane?

Post by CuriousCitizen »

Hi, tried to post this last week, but I guess somehow it didn't cross the administrator's review. Here is my question again:

Scenario: It is 2:00 or 2:30 am on an overcast, pitch-dark, heavily humid and misty-little bit of fog here and there night. The way is 19 ft-wide asphalt-paved rural road with no sidewalks, curbs, paved shoulder, or streetlights. Even the fog lines have worn away or actually eroded in many places. A 5000+ lb. 4x4 ABS-equipped pickup truck, comparable to a Dodge RAM 1500, Ford F-150, etc., comes up over a rise onto a flat of about 50 feet, then a 3-ft decline over the next 50 feet, then a 100-ft flat followed by a 3-ft incline over the next 50 feet followed by a decline of 10 feet over the next 100 feet.

Somewhere on that 10-ft decline, the left front corner of the pickup strikes a 6-ft tall, approx 180-lb pedestrian, breaking the driver's side headlight and mirror and possibly the driver's side A-pillar as the driver reports his door seemed a little hard to open.

Driver says he did not see pedestrian "Until I hit him," but he does remember seeing the color of the pedestrian's jacket. He does not remember seeing the pedestrian's face.

Driver says he started braking hard immediately, steering straight or nearly so, feeling the characteristic grind of the ABS brakes. Pickup truck continues down the decline, then goes up about a 5-ft incline over the next 50 feet and stops in the right-hand lane less than a foot from the center line.

Pedestrian's body comes to rest face down in the grass and leaves by the left side of the road. His feet were just to the edge of the pavement, and his body was angled away from it.

The pickup truck was going between 35 and 37 mph. The vertical distance between the final resting places of the pedestrian's body and the pickup was about 75 feet. The lateral distance was about 12 feet from left truck edge to pedestrian's midsection. The resulting right angle triangle would have a hypotenuse of about 76 feet.

So, which side of the road was the pickup truck on when it hit the pedestrian?

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CuriousCitizen
Posts: 8
Joined: Sat Aug 13, 2016 7:53 pm
First Name: Curious
Last Name: Citizen

Re: Right or Left Lane?

Post by CuriousCitizen »

That is, the pedestrian's body came to rest 65-75 feet behind the final rest position of the truck.

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