*Forensic experts are giving the side-eye to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department official report about the main cause of Tiger Woods’ car crash in February.
We previously reported… Woods was driving 84-87 mph in a 45-mph zone when he crashed his SUV in Rolling Hills Estates, Calif., on Feb. 23. Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva said Woods failed to maintain the curvature of the road. He likely accidentally pressed the gas pedal instead of the brake pedal before the crash, according to LASD Lomita Station Captain James Powers, per Insider.
Woods never hit the brakes as he careened off the road, and there’s no evidence he took his foot off the gas either. Word on the curb is that Woods was under the influence of Ambien and/or Vicodin and his handlers are scrambling to keep the truth quiet for as long as possible — allegedly. His PR team is said to be paying off the officers, EMT/firefighters, hospitals and anyone with direct knowledge about what really caused Woods to crash — allegedly.
Woods may have passed out right at the moment he would have tapped the brake at the start of the vehicle’s downhill descent. Investigators retrieved data from the SUV’s black box and determined that he didn’t even try to prevent the crash once he lost control of the vehicle.
Meanwhile, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department barely mentioned the possibility of Woods being passed out behind the wheel.
READ MORE: Tiger Woods Was Driving Nearly 90 mph When He Crashed SUV in February
“Their conclusions are misguided, and the investigation obviously wasn’t thorough,” said former police detective Jonathan Cherney, who now works as a car crash reconstruction expert. Cherney suspects that due to Woods’ celebrity status, responding officers were not “as critical of this case as they would have been if Tiger had slammed into an opposing vehicle coming the other direction with multiple passengers.”
According to Powers, a sobriety test was not taken at the scene of the crash, and there was no evidence of intoxication. The 45-year-old golf champ sustained serious injuries in the rollover crash. Per UPI.com, “Woods had multiple “open fractures” in his lower right leg and had a rod inserted into his tibia. He also had screws and pins put in his foot and ankle,” the outlet writes.
“We have contents of the black box,” Villanueva said. “Everything is completed, signed, sealed and delivered, but we can’t release it without the permission of the people involved in the collision.”
Per USA Today, the sheriff’s collision report on the crash appears to contradict the cause Villanueva gave for the crash – “inability to negotiate the curve.” The report notes that Woods did not “make any attempt to steer away from the center median.”
Sergeant Michael Downing concluded in a data report, “Had (Woods) applied his brakes to reduce his speed or steered to correct the direction of travel, he would not have collided with the center median and the collision would not have occurred.”
“If he was speeding and attempting to negotiate the curve and lost traction, there would be evidence of that loss of control,” said Cherney, who reportedly walked the scene of the crash the day after. “The vehicle would rotate. There would be tire friction marks on the roadway. The vehicle would not be rolling straight. Clearly, this is not a case of him losing control because he couldn’t negotiate the curve. They are using the speed to justify their causation of unsafe speed.”
Felix Lee, a forensic accident reconstruction expert said “the evidence is consistent with him not responding to the change in roadway geometry.”
“All together – and using deductive reasoning – the data further points to the potential for sleep, or general unaware driving,” said Rami Hashish of the National Biomechanics Institute, which analyzes the cause of accidents.
Cherney said the evidence provided by the sheriff’s department and the traffic collision report are “not indicative of somebody who is awake trying to prevent their vehicle from crashing.”
“The report doesn’t deal with the underlying cause of the crash,” said Charles Schack, president of Crash Experts. “It addresses the data superficially with no apparent curiosity as to why Tiger drove for hundreds of feet without adjusting his steering, braking, or speed. Taking away the high-profile aspect of this crash and looking at the data and roadway, it appears that the driver made no attempt to follow the roadway during the moments leading to the crash. This is typical of a driver who was incapacitated due to a medical issue, falling asleep or being impaired.”
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