Miata Mailing List: September 1999, Message #969

In message <018d01bef9ba$c33f6e60$a8d20818@cc823114-a.glou1.nj.home.com>, "Keit
h Barton" writes:
> I remember a show on the Discovery Channel that indicated James Dean
> probably never saw the other car due to a mirage effect from the highway. It
> was quite a while ago so I might have the cars switched as far has who
> couldn't see who, but I'm pretty sure it was Dean who couldn't see the other
> car. They used a computer to reconstruct the roads and conditions at the
> time of the crash. They concluded that it was a freak kind of thing that
> caused the accident. Not really anyone's fault.

I did some searching on the web yesterday and today, regarding this issue.

The first thing I noticed is that lots of James Dean fans have lots of
  different stories about the incident. In some stories Rolf Wutherich,
  his mechanic dies in the wreck, in one report he has only minor
  injuries, in most hew suffers a broken jaw and leg but lives and many 
  years later (1981) dies in a car wreck in Germany. In one account 
  the driver of the other car is never identified by the police for 
  fear of retaliation by Dean fans, in another account it was a 
  farmer driving a truck, but in most accounts he's identified as 
  Donald Turnupseed (or maybe Turnipseed or Turnupspeed), a Cal Poly 
  student driving home for the weekend. Turnupseed's car is usually 
  reported to be a Ford, often a Ford Tudor, one said a '46, others 
  said a '50. In some accounts Dean didn't see Turnupseed, in others 
  he did.  In some accounts Turnupseed didn't see Dean, in others he 
  did. In some accounts the colision was head-on, in most it was a 
  glancing blow. In one account Dean was wearing a seatbelt, in most 
  he was not.  In some accounts, he died on September 31st, 1955, in 
  most he died September 30th (Considering that September has only 
  had 30 days since Caesar Augustus was Emperor of Rome, I tend to 
  doubt the September 31st date).
  
So after sifting through all of the conflicting, unofficial, Nth hand
  information I could find on the web, here's what I came up with.

Did Dean See Turnupseed's Car?

  Several accounts report that Dean did see Turnupseed's car, and 
  said to Wutherich something like "That guy has to stop!" This is 
  in several of the accounts I found, and seems to have been 
  something Wutherich reported after the accident. So I believe that 
  Dean did see Turnupseed's car in plenty of time, but didn't 
  expect it to turn in front of him.

Did Turnupseed See Dean's Car?

  Most accounts also report that Turnupseed tried to stop, and 
  skidded 30 feet. Unfortunately, it seems as if he was already in 
  Dean's lane when he was skidding (too bad ABS wasn't around then). 
  So it seems that Turnupseed did see Dean's car, at least in the 
  last couple of seconds.

Who Was At Fault?

  The police blamed Dean because he was going a reported 85-100 mph. 
  But it's pretty clear that Turnupseed was making a left turn in 
  front of Dean.

  A company called "Failure Analysis", now known as Exponent, did a 
  computer reconstruction of the accident several years ago. That's the
  sort of stuff they specialize in. They concluded that Dean was not
  speeding at the time of the accident. They don't have much info online,
  but what they have is at http://www.fail.com/gallery/james_dean.htm
  They have an mpeg of it, but I couldn't get it to work with my 
  mpeg player.

  My take on it is that Dean was speeding. Another driver (John R.
  White) reported that Dean had passed him at about 85mph just 
  before the accident. However, Turnupseed did turn in front of 
  Dean. I suspect that the small size of Dean's car made Turnupseed 
  think it was farther away, and Dean was moving faster that 
  Turnupseed thought. So Turnupseed thought he had plenty of time to 
  make the turn. When he realized he didn't, he panic-braked and 
  skidded straight toward the oncoming Porsche. Dean *almost* 
  managed to avoid Turnupseed's Ford Tudor, but was struck a 
  glancing blow, which was enough to knock the 1500 pound Spyder out 
  of control.

  I don't know the details of Exponent's claim that Dean wasn't 
  speeding, but that sort of thing is their expertise, so I'd tend 
  to have some respect for their finding.  But if they say he was 
  below the spped limit at the time of the accident, and he saw the 
  Ford starting to turn in front of him, he probably had time to 
  brake and lose some speed. So I suspect he was well above the 
  speed limit when Turnupseed started his turn.

Bottom line: Turnupseed misjudged the time he had, or didn't see Dean
  until he had aready committed to the turn. Had Dean not been speeding,
  there would probably have not been a collision. The jury blamed Dean.

Then there's the account I read that put the blame on Dean's car, 
  which was clearly posessed by some evil force. I kid you not. 
  Check out http://members.tripod.com/Novelist/dean.html

Had Dean been driving a Miata, he would probably survived (Obligitory
  Miata Content). The Porsche looked like a wadded up pack of 
  cigarettes after the accident. There's a picture at 
  http://www.eaglesk.freeserve.co.uk/jd/life4.htm 
  A picture of Dean & the car before the accident is at
  http://www.odysseygroup.com/coll496/dean.htm
  The Spyder was a race car, pure and simple, and anything that 
  didn't make it go faster wasn't part of the design. I'm sure 
  Ted4Eagles would have loved it. ;) 

The Spyder was certainly not designed to withstand collisions. I 
  don't even think Volvo was designing cars to withstand collisions 
  back then. Crumple zones? The entire car became a crumple zone, 
  with Dean inside. Airbags? Not for another 25 years. Seat belts? 
  The car had 'em, Dean and Wutherich didn't use them. Wutherich was 
  thrown clear and survived (I'm suprised I've never heard this accident
  cited by people who think not wearing a seat belt will save their
  lives). Dean stayed in the car, but suffered fatal head and 
  neck injuries, probably from hitting the dash/windshield/hood. 
  Energy absorbing bumper? The Spyder didn't *have* bumpers.

The Porsche Sypder 550 *was* designed as a race car. It weighed 1500
  pounds, and had a 1.5 liter four-cylinder engine with four camshafts,
  which turned out 110 bhp. It was referred to as "a shark in the 
  pool of perch" in racing circles (my Sadie found that interesting, see
  why at http://www.yourmiata.com/zbigpics/sadie.htm). 

So that's the result of my wasting several hours when I should have been
  working. It ended up a whole lot longer than I ever intended. I 
  hope at least one of you found it interesting.

  Keith Hearn
  '99 10AE "Sexy Sadie" the Sapphire Shark
  Milpitas, CA