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Student Killed Driving Solar Car
Lev13than writes "Tragedy struck the University of Toronto's Blue Sky Solar Racing Team on Thursday when 21-year old student Andrew Frow was killed in a car accident. It appears that Frow lost control of the low-riding experimental car and was struck by a minivan head-on. The team was driving from Stratford to Waterloo (about an hour west of Toronto) as part of a tour of universities in Ontario and Quebec to mark the one-year anniversary of the 2003 Blackout. This is a big setback for solar power advocates, especially as the blackout anniversary will pass with remedial legislation stranded in Congress. More information on the accident is available here." The vehicle's design is not really street-safe - this will be a problem as more efficient, lighter cars share the road with Hummers.
The most detailed story I've read about this was in The Kitchener-Waterloo Record, which unfortunately is subscription-only. From a Google News search, I don't see the article duplicated anywhere, so I am copying and pasting the article here. (There were also two photos, which unfortunately can't be linked to. Perhaps someone else with a subscription can set up a mirror.) Andrew Frow, RIP. :-(
U of T student dies in solar car; Vehicle out of control near Waterloo Regulations being followed, police say
A University of Toronto student is dead after the solar car he was driving veered out of control on a highway just west of Waterloo Region yesterday afternoon.
Andrew Frow, 21, of Toronto was driving the university's team car east along Highway 7 and 8, from Stratford to Waterloo, as part of a Canadian solar car tour. The small low-riding car suddenly went out of control at about 4 30 p.m., veering across the centre line of the two-lane highway, said Constable Glen Childerley of Perth County Ontario Provincial Police.
The car then swerved back into its lane, hitting the right shoulder. It then plowed across the highway into the path of a minivan in the westbound lane.
"It zoomed right across the road and was T-boned by the van," said Childerley, adding the driver was alone in the solar car.
The impact destroyed the car. Its solar-panelled roof was flung off and its shell ended up in the ditch on the north side of the highway.
The driver's teammates rushed to his aid. The students were in two minivans, one driving in front of the solar car, one behind, when the crash occurred.
Two of his teammates frantically performed CPR on the young man as he lay in the wreckage, said truck driver David Hackett, who pulled up at the scene moments after the accident.
Hackett, a volunteer firefighter in his hometown of Maryhill, offered to take over from the visibly upset woman doing mouth-to- mouth.
"I'm just sorry we couldn't do more," said Hackett, who was delivering groceries to Stratford when he came across the crash.
"I am grateful for the training that I had and that I could respond."
Paramedics, Stratford firefighters and OPP soon arrived on the scene and took the driver by ambulance to another ambulance with a doctor and waiting medical team.
The crew took the young man to a Kitchener hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
After he was rushed away, police began inspecting the mangled wreckage in the ditch to determine why the crash occurred. That section of the highway was closed for hours as they worked.
Hunks of metal, some bearing the University of Toronto logo, were strewn across the grassy ditch.
As police worked, students on the U of T team huddled across the street, many hugging each other.
They did not want to talk to the news media last night.
Rudy Schoenhoeffer, who was driving the minivan that hit the solar car, was also there.
"I'm just saying a prayer for him," the Stratford man said quietly as he stood by his van, its front end dented.
He was on his way home from work in Cambridge when the crash occurred.
Jessica Whiteside, U of T's acting associate director of news services, said it was too early last night for anyone at the university to comment.
Childerley said solar cars have to get a special permit from the Ministry of Transportation to drive on roads and highways, and must travel with a regular vehicle in front and behind. Those vehicles must have flashing yellow lights on their roofs.
The U of T car was following these regulations.
Kitchener-Waterloo Record
[Photo] The U of T solar car drives along Western Rd. toward the University of Western Ontario in London yesterday. Later, near Waterloo, another driver lost control.
[Photo] OPP investigate the scene of the fatal solar car accident on Highway 7 and 8 near the town of Shakespeare, Ont., yesterday.
nope it is a set back for them. Why are solar powered cars designed like that in the first place? Because there isn't enough power to move a normal car for any reasonable distance. Frankly that car was not street legal, it shouldn't have been allowed on the highway
did you forget to take your meds?
After all, many of the most popular ones are banned from many roads in California and other states. Since its a MSN article, I''ll elaborate - they are popular because they are big enough to get the large truck for commercial use tax discount... which also happens to be the weight limit for restrictions on most residential streets in Californial (and other places).
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
The convoy was supposed to stop here at our company this afternoon because we helped the McMaster University team build "Fireball II." I just found out this morning that today's stop, along with the rest of the tour had been called off due to the accident. Looks like it was a mechanical failure of some kind in U of T's vehicle, and what a tragedy. The engineering student who died was only 21.
The tour was planned to coincide with the one year anniversary of the 2003 blackout, to remind people that we ought to be looking into alternative energy sources. These young engineers are really passionate about these projects and our thoughts are with them at what must be a really tough time.
In all matters of opinion, our adversaries are insane. -Oscar Wilde
This is exactly what I was going to say. In certain classes of racing (NASCAR in the post-earnhardt-sr. era, I believe) you are required to use a specified carbon fiber crash bumper which is multicellular and will dissipate truly insane amounts of energy. Of course, they're intensely expensive, but I'd say they're well worth it. When it becomes reasonably inexpensive to build such structures I think it will be both reasonable and expected for many light vehicles to be built of such things in perhaps three or four pieces, and when a piece is damaged to any degree it will have to be replaced. It might even be cheaper to give the car one big body and replace the whole thing if the car is in a collision, swapping the entire contents into a new car with a preinstalled wiring harness and fuel lines.
Such a vehicle will likely have plastic body panels on the outside, to protect from damage by rocks and such.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Frankly that car was not street legal, it shouldn't have been allowed on the highway
"solar cars have to get a special permit from the Ministry of Transportation to drive on roads and highways, and must travel with a regular vehicle in front and behind. Those vehicles must have flashing yellow lights on their roofs.
The U of T car was following these regulations."
Quoted from a copy-paste post above...
You can't take the sky from me...
At one point in my past I built and roadraced GT cars. The combination of slick race-compound tires (9" wide on a 2000 pound car), and the steering axis offset required to allow their use, meant that the steering effort was OK when the front tires weren't sliding, and the caster would re-center the steering. But under conditions where the car was going sideways beyond a certain limit, the steering would drive itself to lock unless you manually wrestled it back to center. Not for the faint of heart or puny forearm development.
Less is more.
And just how is this a big setback for solar power advocates? Is every automobile accident with a regular car a setback for gasoline advocates? Are solar cars supposed to be accident free? Or all 21-year-olds excellent drivers (I know they think they are)?
This is just an example of muddy thinking that doesn't belong on Slashdot.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
1) US car companies DO get funding for research into fule effeciency. (Read a news paper once and a while)
2) Big Oil DOES NOT fund car companines, they fund their own lobbyist in Washington.
Not really...note from the story that there was a support minivan in front of him, and another behind him. That's pretty good protection.
He lost control, and crossed the lane into oncoming traffic. That would likely have been fatal on a motorcycle, or even many smaller regular cars.
As a builder of 2 solar racers and having competed against Toronto twice I can say that no matter what sort of solar car you build, an accident such as this one is almost impossible to design around. The Toronto car I remember (maybe a previous generation) was an aluminum space frame, as are many solar cars. These frames are designed well, and even though they weigh less than 30 lbs they can take quite an impact. What injurs drivers is not so much a weak structure but a strong structure- no crush space and a rigid frame can transfer most of the crash's energy to the driver's body. Without airbags and a specified crush space, there is no way a 600lb car can survive a head-on at highway speeds. No way. That said, these are experimental vehicles that are built to strict safety guidelines. See the actual rules this car was built by at http://www.americansolarchallenge.org/event/asc200 5/tech/asc2005Nov03.pdf
Event organizers go to every length to keep the cars out of accidents, requiring chase and lead vehicles (already mentioned), crash tests, rollbars, body crush space, helmets, minimum visibility, and safety training.
My heart goes out to the Toronto team, and I hope that a tragedy like this one does not destroy their team or its message.
Please note that at this point, a detailed investigation into the causes of the crash has not been completed yet. To say that "the design of the car was bad..." is out of line. Many, or one, different cause(s) may have contributed to the crash. As with all solar car teams, the University of Toronto engineering students involved in the building of their solar car did their best to design the car and protect the driver from as many situations as possible. Unfortunately, as many engineers realize, despite the fact that you put all your effort into ensuring the safety of your design, something may invevitably go wrong. My sympathy goes out to the U of T team, families, and all those involved in the crash. -- Ron Yeung (Queen's University Solar Vehicle Team Alumni)