Combining speed from crush calculations

[Redline Recon]

Question - 5 car crash. All cars wer parked except one. The investigator took crush measurements from each vehicle struck and the bullet car. The the data was plugged into ARPro and calculations for each impact were done. Then each impact speed was taken and plugged into a combined speed formula and a initial speed was determined. Does that sound right? Can you combine speeds from crush like that to get a initial speed? Some of these impacts were merely sideswipes and I doubt the crush measurement anyway. I am doing some research on this crash and wondered if anyone out there had ever done a crash like this? Thanks for the help.

[actar670]

Unless all of the vehicles were the same mass, then a combined speed formula would not be an appropriate formula to use. If we assume that the objective of the crush calculations was to estimate the amount of energy expended by the striking vehicle to cause the damage, and we also assume that there was some scientifically valid way to estimate each of those energy "losses," one could add all of the energy losses experienced by the striking vehicle and arrive an initial speed for the striking vehicle.

It does not sound as if that is what actually occurred in your case, however.