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Originally Posted by Bear Lover
I think some of you people need to study up on forensic accident reconstruction. It IS a science...
I'm sure boats create there own problems, there are no skid marks on the water. However the energy of the impact can still be calculated by the depth of damage, heat cracking etc.
The energy of impact along with the weight of the boats results in the speed of the vehicles. As in all science and engineering the is an expected percentage of error.
When measurements are plugged into a formula the answer is a calculation, not an estimate.
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If you stick a whole bunch of estimates into a formula, you get a estimate out of the formula, no matter how complicated the formula. We engineers have a term for that, it's abbreviated GIGO.
The biggest estimate in this whole calculation is the speed of the Hartman's boat. All the energy, weights, skid marks, depth of damage, heat cracking etc. data is related to the relative speeds of the boats. The forensic scientist can calculate an estmated speed for the Littlefield boat relative to the Hartman boat. But the speed of the Hartman boat is a guess by the surviving people on the boat. They had no accurate speed measurement device. A boat speedometer is useless at the 6-7 mph. Which is the reported speed of the Hartman boat. So the police can calculate that Littlefield was going about 21-22 MPH (28 minus 6or7) faster than Hartman but they have only guesses on Hartman's speed. Just subtracting is over simplfying this because the boats did not hit exactly straight on, but the point is valid.
So what if they were going 3 MPH or 10 MPH then the calculated speed on Littlefield's boat would be 25 or 32. Can someone really tell the difference between 3 MPH and 7 MPH on a boat at night, without a GPS? The Hartman's weren't watching their speed, they were just taking a quiet ride home, when someone ran them down.
So if you read the court docs here
http://www.nh.gov/judiciary/supreme/...5/littl071.htm
you will see this "...At a speed of approximately twenty-eight miles per hour..." So the lawyers for Littlefield, the NH Attorney General and a Superior Court judge all understand that this is an approximation not an exact speed.