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Some packages may have been late in West Roxbury today

Flipped car in West Roxbury

A roving UHub photographer happened upon this scene around on Mountview Street near Hastings Street in West Roxbury around 9:20 this morning.

Word on the street is that the driver was delivering packages in the area, and flipped over after somehow misjudging the turn and running into a parked car (the one on the left) - not because the driver was trying to avoid the new lane configuration on Centre Street. Our photographer reports the car on the left appeared to have been jammed into a hydrant by the force of the collision.

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Comments

Seems you’d need to be going pretty fast to flip over.

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I've seen a video of a car flipping over in a relatively low-speed collision. I guess it depends on the angles involved.

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The stability of the vehicle too.

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The street has a slight grade but not enough to be a factor. It doesn't take much to roll a vehicle if the wheel climbs the obstacle it hits. It also looks like the right front wheel on the rollover vehicle took the impact.

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I’ve only ever seen two flipped cars in my life. Amazingly no one was injured. Seatbelts and airbags worked in these cases.
One skidded on ice and went over a highway guard rail. The other hit a big tree. Speed probably a factor in the second case as the punk driver still speeds today up and down the same road. The tree survived a bad gash.

Stay safe people!

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In the comments, someone explains that wheel-on-wheel contact is a major factor in this sort of rollover.

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Try to ride a bike as slowly as you can. Then speed up. Which is easier to balance and maneuver? Forward momentum leads to lateral stabilization.

If you hit something and tip at a higher speed, the momentum in the forward direction will tend to stabilize your vehicle, but the tipping motion can launch it. This is why a fast moving car hits something and launches and gets airborne because the momentum tends to keep the vehicle travelling in a straight line, like the recent sad incident at the border shows. Early concrete highway barriers could tip and launch cars, and were redesigned to roll them instead. If you are travelling at a moderate speed and get tipped, your forward momentum might stabilize you until you tip back down. If you start tipping at a lower speed the forward momentum may not be enough to overcome the rolling motion.

Video for example:

Spiny shells notwithstanding ...

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Great explanation.

That video!

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Another reason not to park by hydrants.

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Although not the cause in this case, Montview has been used for years by myself and others to detour around the previous chaos on Centre Street.

A stop sign was installed at this intersection on Montview, maybe a couple years ago, and then got removed shortly thereafter. I don't know the story behind it but I would assume NIMBYs were involved.

Centre seems saner now with motorists in single file instead of zigzagging and trying to pass each other in narrow lanes. But there is still the occasional 30 second horn blast when one of them decides to try double-parking. I have mixed feelings about the bike lanes as they are often blocked by vehicles since there is no physical barrier to keep them out of the lane. There are also many vehicles parking in the buffer area, creating a door-zone threat that cyclists can't avoid because of the sidewalk curb.

I have to ride slower and be prepared to emergency-stop in the bike lanes but I consider Centre safer and less stressful for everybody, including motorists, with the new configuration.

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… common sense has prevailed and it’s a safer ride.

I’m just full of love for the new Tremont St road diet in the South End. Walking, biking and riding the bus.

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It sure seems like the people driving in West Roxbury are worse than the average Boston driver.

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