A drunken driver who snapped a photo showing he was speeding at 141 mph before a deadly crash in England has been sentenced to 17 years in prison

Darryl Anderson was drunk behind the wheel of his Audi SUV, had his accelerator pressed to the floor and was barreling toward a car ahead of him when he snapped a photo of his speedometer. The picture showed a car in the foreground, a collision warning light on his dashboard and a speed of 141 mph (227 kph).

An instant later, he slammed into the car in the photo. The driver, Shalorna Warner, was not seriously injured but her 8-month-old son and her sister were killed instantly, authorities said. Evidence showed Anderson never braked.

Anderson, 38, was sentenced Tuesday to 17 years in prison for the May 31 crash in northern England that killed little Zackary Blades and Karlene Warner. Anderson pleaded guilty last week in Durham Crown Court to two counts of causing death by dangerous driving.

  • ShepherdPie@midwest.socialEnglish
    31·
    4 months ago

    I’m almost 100% certain that a 141MPH impact absolutely destroyed everything that the car seat was attached to. There was an accident posted on reddit a couple years ago (from either L.A. or Texas) where a guy was going something like 120MPH and hit stopped traffic on the highway. His vehicle completely sheared off the upper half of the car he hit first and then shot over several vehicles before hitting a building probably 30 yards off the side of the freeway. A car traveling that fast carries an insane amount of energy.

    • BillThePlatypus@lemmy.worldEnglish
      22·
      4 months ago

      Energy goes up with the square of velocity. A car going 140 MPH has 4x the energy of a car going 70. Assuming a 3,000 lb car, there was about as much energy in the car as 1.4 lb (.64 kg) of TNT, but applied in a single direction, much more efficiently than an explosion would. Modern cars are impressively safe, but there probably wasn’t much left.

      Edit: He was driving an SUV, ~5000 lb, so closer to 2.4 lb (1.1 kg) of TNT. It’s a miracle that anybody survived.

    • sun_is_ra@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      5·
      4 months ago

      But take into account that the woman was also driving at certain speed when he hit her. If she was driving at 100MPH then his speed relative to her was just 41MPH

        • OneOrTheOtherDontAskMe@lemmy.worldEnglish
          13·
          4 months ago

          I think his math is bad because he just went with a cool round number.

          But, more realistically, she was probably going somewhere between 55-70 mph (don’t know road or highway or whatever) and that’s still a difference of 70-90 miles an hour. So I’d say yeah, the seat check MIGHT prevent harm if you’re super duper lucky but I don’t think that baby’s walking away from that with anything less than life threatening injuries

          • sun_is_ra@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            3·
            4 months ago

            miles is not a unit I am familiar with. I certainly wasn’t suggesting the woman was speeding or slowing down just that her speed (whatever it was) should be taken in consideration when estimating the severity of impact.

            Of course this is all theoretical since we do know for a fact that two people were killed

      • rmuk@feddit.ukEnglish
        4·
        4 months ago

        Right, but they’re not particles travelling through a vacuum. Even a tiny contact at highway speeds is enough to send one or both cars rolling.