I saw this in the Seattle Times online. I guess we should all be careful with speakers in the back of the Z.....So sad...

Redmond man paralyzed after crash sends speaker flying

By Peyton Whitely

Seattle Times Eastside bureau

A 27-year-old Redmond man is a quadriplegic after a stereo speaker in his car came loose in a rear-end crash and smashed into him, breaking his neck.

The speaker, in the rear of the man's 1973 Datsun 240Z, was not attached to the car, said Trooper Jeff Merrill, public-information officer for the State Patrol.

The man was rear-ended by a pickup while stopped at a ramp-metering light at the Northeast 70th Street entrance to Interstate 405 about 4:15 p.m. Saturday.

The driver of the 1998 Ford F-250 truck, a 40-year-old Bothell man, was speeding when he approached the ramp and failed to stop, Merrill said.

The speaker flew forward on impact and hit the Datsun driver in the neck. He was paralyzed by the injury and remains in serious condition at Harborview Medical Center, Merrill said.

The driver of the truck was not injured. The pickup was owned by a Seattle painting company.

The collision remains under investigation, and no charges have been filed. The drivers' names were not released.

The Patrol warned that it is important to secure objects in vehicles to prevent such catastrophes.

A widely reported incident involving similar circumstances took place in Kirkland in 1994 when Mike Frier, a Seattle Seahawks player, was paralyzed from the waist down when a 200-pound stereo speaker broke loose from the rear cargo area of a sport-utility vehicle and crushed him in a collision on 108th Avenue Northeast.

Man that sucks! Thats where I live, I was just up the road at that time.

I will be sure all speakers are secured in my car when it is done.

Strange physics. I wouldn't expect the speaker to fly forward in that situation. The inertia of the speaker would normally cause it to want to stay put while the car is moved forward beneath it; in other words, the speaker should actually tend to travel backwards. Also, I would have thought that the high backed seats would offer some protection in this case. Perhaps he was leaning to the right?

ya, sounds like a strange circumstance. but crazy nonetheless! really sad

Yeah, I heard about this yesterday. My prayers to the driver and his family...

Strange physics. I wouldn't expect the speaker to fly forward in that situation. The inertia of the speaker would normally cause it to want to stay put while the car is moved forward beneath it; in other words, the speaker should actually tend to travel backwards. ...snip...

That's just aweful!

With that picture Arne posted, with the rear so crumpled toward the cockpit, it wasn't a plastic collision. A LOT of inertia (W=MV) was inparted from the truck into the non-mounted speaker. I bet the speaker DID stay put, or even move further back in the car at the beginning of the impact, but the truck didn't stop when it first hit. The truck travelled into the back of the Z for at LEAST 2 feet.

We can work it out... The large mass of the truck M(truck) times the velocity of said truck V(truck) equals the small mass of the speaker V(speak) times the resulting velocity of said speaker...

M(truck)V(truck)=M(speak)V(speak)

therefore,

V(speak) = M(truck)*V(truck)/M(speak)

That's pretty fast, even if the truck was only going 10 miles an hour (when it got to the location of the speaker), based on the truck weight of 3000 pounds, and the speaker being about 10 lbs....OK, the mass of the truck was distributed across the rear of the car, so let's give the impact mass of 100 lbs, making the speaker velocity calculate to 100 miles an hour!