Who:
Todd Spencer Ringheim, 50, was killed Wednesday morning 3/26/14 near Sherwood, OR. He drove a 2009 Cadillac Escalade SXT and collided with a dump truck by Southwest Scholls-Sherwood Road. He was on Southwest Roy Rogers. The dump truck driver had minor injuries.
How:
Ringheim headed south on SW Roy Rogers Rd at approximately 55 mph and approached a road curve that he was unable to negotiate. He crossed the center line and crashed into a northbound dump truck. He died at the scene while the dump truck driver sustained minor injuries.
Why:
This appears to be a textbook case of a small frontal overlap crash; the kind where the vehicles almost missed each other, but didn’t. These kinds of collisions tend to be even more severe than moderate (e.g., 50%) overlap crashes, which in turn, are more severe than full head-on crashes, since each crash offers progressively less of the vehicle to absorb the tremendous energies involved.
It is likely that Ringheim was traveling too fast for road conditions and lost control in the turn; it is essential to remember that the speed limit describes the speed limit in idealized conditions, and that it is often necessary to travel slower than the posted limit. The pictures indicate it was or had recently been raining that day, indicating 55 mph would have been too fast to safely negotiate that turn, due to the reduced traction available in rainy weather.
Despite the presence of ESC in the 2009 Escalade SXT, he was unable to negotiate the turn. The Escalade, a modified Silverado, weighed ~5990 lbs and was not tested for frontal impact scores by the IIHS. It was impacted by what appears to be a standard 10-wheel dump truck, which can weigh at least 24,000 lbs. That’s at least 401% of the simulated weight the Escalade would have experienced in an IIHS front impact test.
Given the likely speeds of the collision (~55 mph), the collision likely imparted at least 3.29MJ of energy into the Escalade. The standard front impact test for the Escalade would simulate 434KJ of energy (an Escalade impacting its twin at 40 mph). In other words, Ringheim faced 758% of the force he’d have experienced in the types of crashes Escalades would be front rated for. Given these forces, his odds of survival were, sadly, virtually non-existent.
It is noteworthy, though not unexpected, that there is negligible damage to the front of the dump truck, while the same cannot be said for the Escalade, where the front and side deployed airbags are visible, as is a significant amount of intrusion. The A pillar appears to have completely disintegrated, as does most of the driver’s side of the front of the vehicle, consistent with a severe frontal overlap crash.
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