21 replies to this topic

[Paul Taylor]

Abstract

The Crash Photos Database is an ongoing project intended to be the most complete (and as far as we know, only) catalogue of motorsport crash photos ever created. It is to provide racing historians, archivists and enthusiasts with photographs and information on accidents and incidents from the start of motor racing in 1894 up to the modern day. Currently it contains over 3000 images across 706 entries and it is growing weekly.

 

Background

Many of our contributors began collecting photographs of motor racing accidents in the early-2000s. Almost all images were internet-finds, provided freely through websites, forums and social media. Others were scanned from long out-of-date, or hard to come by publications, newspapers etc. A small number are sourced from private collections and have been donated to us and reproduced with permission. Collecting these images has been a near fifteen-year long process. Some photos took years to identify as research material has improved. We have taken the decision to host all images on our server because the internet is an ever-changing animal - URLs change, or websites may only survive for short periods before disappearing forever along with all the information. Therefore this is a collection of everything we have found, all in one place in a searchable format, archived together for the first time. One of our chief contributors works very closely with http://www.motorsportmemorial.org and this can be regarded as an unofficial companion project.

 

Disclaimers

We give credit to the original sources where known, offering users a chance to seek out and purchase the images themselves. However, locating the source of the original images is often impossible. Therefore, all images are posted as-is until the copyright holders can be found and either appropriately credited, or the images removed upon request. Appropriate efforts have been made to ensure users cannot reproduce the images, with image tags left in place where appropriate. All copyright claims are taken very seriously. This project does not and will not ever monetize itself. For now, many of the descriptions are copied or heavily based on those from other websites. These are placeholders until we have time to rewrite them in our own way, though the images themselves are the central feature of this project  We're very aware that this is a niche field of 'interest'. We are not interested in criticism over the subject matter. Some contributors have raced professionally and have been involved in racing accidents, so we are fully aware of what it is like and intend no disrespect. Of course if this project is to fail or be shut down we'd rather it happen now rather than when the project is complete, despite the hundreds of man hours that have already gone into it.

 

Link: http://www.the-fastlane.co.uk/cpdb/

Edited by Paul Taylor, 20 June 2016 - 23:44.

[retriever]

I think I will give this site a miss

[E1pix]

I find it part of racing and perfectly fine.

If I owned a vintage race car and had the chance to add even a crash photo to its documentation, I would. I suppose there could even be cases where a photo might show where crash repairs began and/or ended.

[56Lotus]

I am in the position where I'm looking for a photo of my car after it was crashed in 1956.  It would be good to confirm what was replaced when it was sent back to Lotus for a rebuild.

 

If anyone has a photo of the Lotus Eleven wrecked by Mike Hawthorn at Oulton Park in 1956 then I would be extremely grateful.

 

Thanks

 

Jon Adams 

[pete53]

I think I will give this site a miss

I see where you are coming from. Personally, though, I think it will be okay as long as the photos are not of crashes that involved fatalities, or, are graphic pictures of incidents resulting in very serious injuries. Paul Taylor has already posted a number of crash photos on this site. The only problem is that a photo may be included where the outcome for the driver is, at the time, unknown. I believe this was the case with one picture Paul posted of fatal accident at Mallory involving a Ginetta driver who had been ejected from his car.

[Paul Taylor]

We thought long and hard about what to do in terms of "What content should we include? What should we omit?" regarding injuries or fatalities. The conclusion was nothing should be omitted, even if that goes against my own feelings/better judgement.

 

However there are two layers of warning systems in place. The first one is the big button on the home page which categorically removes ALL fatal crashes from the list.

 

The second is a very tall warning image which will fill your screen (and then some), which surrounds any sensitive photos. Therefore, the chances of 'accidentally' seeing something you don't want to see are very, very small, even if you do accidentally scroll too far. I would like to implement another system eventually, but coding the site as it is has been an incredibly complicated process.

Edited by Paul Taylor, 20 June 2016 - 21:43.

[Allen Brown]

I can see the value of such a site, especially for what I do.  If a car's last known appearance ended with an accident, a picture will help me understand whether that car is likely to have been repaired and to survive today.  However, it is a subject that has to be handled exceedingly sensitively.

[Vitesse2]

I see where you are coming from. Personally, though, I think it will be okay as long as the photos are not of crashes that involved fatalities, or, are graphic pictures of incidents resulting in very serious injuries. Paul Taylor has already posted a number of crash photos on this site. The only problem is that a photo may be included where the outcome for the driver is, at the time, unknown. I believe this was the case with one picture Paul posted of fatal accident at Mallory involving a Ginetta driver who had been ejected from his car.

But to be fair, Pete, there was very little known about that Ginetta crash, with even a tentative date offered for it being a year out and the driver's death possibly never having been reported in the specialist press, given that he succumbed to his injuries a fortnight later. It had certainly eluded Motorsport Memorial.

[Jack-the-Lad]

I find it part of racing and perfectly fine.
If I owned a vintage race car and had the chance to add even a crash photo to its documentation, I would. I suppose there could even be cases where a photo might show where crash repairs began and/or ended.

I agree. I have never understood the knee-jerk recoil from anything having to do with a motor racing crash, photos of same in particular. It happens. It's part of the sport and part of history. I support Paul's project.

[Michael Ferner]

I, too, applaud the initiative. I have little time for the see-no-evil faction that always pretends to argue from a higher moral ground - do as you please if you must, but leave those of us who are hungry for information alone!!

Having said that, I think the data base could do with a better interface. I understand that it is still very much under construction, so I hope you will improve the site as time passes. Also, why the blocking of right-click-copy? It is as useless as it is annoying, and I can't see why pictures you yourself have merely "borrowed" need to be "protected" that way.

[ensign14]

Two images that stick with me, and show how motor sport has changed, is the image of Kevin Cogan climbing from some folded bits of material that about ten seconds before was an Indycar, and the bump in the nose on Chet Miller's Novi that looks like all it needs is a quick buff-up and she's ready to go.  There's no damage from the bonnet back.  But the entire impact ran through the car - and its driver...

 

Perhaps the best illustration of how safety has evolved.

[Paul Taylor]

Thanks for all the positive feedback so far!

 

I, too, applaud the initiative. I have little time for the see-no-evil faction that always pretends to argue from a higher moral ground - do as you please if you must, but leave those of us who are hungry for information alone!!

Having said that, I think the data base could do with a better interface. I understand that it is still very much under construction, so I hope you will improve the site as time passes. Also, why the blocking of right-click-copy? It is as useless as it is annoying, and I can't see why pictures you yourself have merely "borrowed" need to be "protected" that way.

 

 

What do you not like about the interface? True, it's not in its final version, but it won't evolve much from where it is now. Eventually, the more "clumsy" aspects like the long lists of circuits will be improved and divided up into smaller, more easily searchable categories. Then people will be able to use the site a little more like www.motorsportmemorial.org, where you can click on sub-headings and so on.

 

The problem is, we only have 3 or 4 people directly contributing to it at the moment. I'm personally doing all of the website design/coding, I'm coordinating all of the projects while trying to get more contributors on board and I've researched/entered more than half the data myself. Two others, an Italian and an American, have researched/entered the other half and give valuable advice, feedback and suggestions. A fourth is nearing the end of his big research project on Legion Ascot and when time permits will be entering the several hundred crash photos he's found/identified. If we had another half dozen people helping with data entry I could probably concentrate on more important aspects of the site like its design and the project would be completed within a month or two.

 

Right-click copying is blocked because DocumentingReality.com (a gore site which no one ever need concern themselves with) have been stealing the images and making people pay a subscription fee to view them. I didn't want to restrict the content in this way, but I'm not having people selling off other people's work for a price.

Edited by Paul Taylor, 21 June 2016 - 15:59.

[F1matt]

Hi Paul, I have had a look at your site with some trepidation. Purely on a personal level I find watching somebody dying or sustaining serious/grave injuries in public hard to watch, I feel sympathy for the individuals family, friends, and fans but I do realise that people have a genuine interest as to what happened and why, and as someone above mentioned for their own research on cars they own or have an interest in. so i still had a good luck round your site, I looked at fatal and non fatal photo's and I appreciated the warnings you put on as you scroll through the photo's so I didn't bother scrolling down any further. I also like the large icon to opt out of the fatal entries, having had a good look round it is easy to use, easy to search for an incident and I realised how far we have come in terms of safety and this is something the sport should be proud of, however i would prefer if you had to opt in to see the fatal photo's instead of opting out, and maybe having to put your date of birth in to make sure that young children dont accidentally see some of the pictures? 

Well done on taking the time to create the site and making it easy to use and navigate around, and more than anything else thanks for the warnings so I can avoid the nasty bits.

[Cirrus]

A couple of observations. I really think there should be more of a warning as to the content of the later photos of the Gordon Smiley crash and there are currently 3 fatal accidents on the index page. If the "Fatals Off" button is selected, returning to the index page turns it back on.

 

Other than that, I think the site will be a very useful resource if it is continued to be managed sensitively.

[bartez1000]

documentingreality.com/forum/f10/indy-formula-one-fatal-non-fatal-crash-photos-stop-motion-color-b-w-frames-109345/ 

Gore photos forum, but has exceptonally good thread about motorsport crashes (usually not explicit). Worth taking a look (and maybe even paying registration fee).

Many of these photos are  certainly worth indexing on Your website.

Edited by bartez1000, 22 June 2016 - 16:35.

[Paul Taylor]

The recent feedback has been taken into account and fatal crashes are now disabled by default, EXCEPT on the Index page. If you only want to browse the safe version, I'd advise adding that to your favourites rather than the index page itself.

 

I'll also speak to those contributing and make sure they are more strict with adding warnings, although in cases like Smiley it'd probably be more appropriate to put warnings around them all...

[Paul Taylor]

1933 to 1939 Grand Prix crashes are now complete:

http://www.the-fastl...)&orderby=dYear

[austinharris]

It might be nice to allow contributors to say where the image came from AND link back to it.

 

For instance I noticed a photo taken from my site, (ironically if I had disabled right click you would have been able to use it easily).

http://www.the-fastl...php?editid1=440

 

Taken from here:

http://austinharris....1930-ards-tt/28

 

There is more information about the image on my site than has been copied across, and as mine is updated constantly it allows people to find out more.

 

Also the thing I learnt from doing my site over the last 10 years is that user comments are invaluable. The amount of info. I have got from them is huge, a lot of it from outside the motorsport world. The majority has come from children and grandchildren of the people in the photos.

[Paul Taylor]

Thanks for your feedback austinharris. Only four photos from your site appear in the database, I will ensure back links are added. These are the images in question:

http://www.the-fastl...ris~PhotoCredit

 

The information in our database is not meant to be complete, but complimentary to information on other sites, so people are encouraged to search for the original sources and further information.

Edited by Paul Taylor, 29 July 2016 - 19:20.

[Paul Taylor]

The database has reached a major milestone. We now have 1000 entries!

 

Here are direct links to some of the completed and WIP projects:

 

Fatal Formula 1 Crashes (37 crashes): http://the-fastlane....)&orderby=aYear

Fatal Indianapolis Crashes (52 crashes): http://the-fastlane....)&orderby=aYear

Fatal Le Mans Crashes (20 crashes): http://the-fastlane....)&orderby=aYear

 

NASCAR/ARCA/Stockcars (170 crashes, WIP): http://the-fastlane....)&orderby=aYear

 

Monza Project (106 crashes): http://the-fastlane....)&orderby=aYear

German Race Tracks Project (171 crashes, WIP): http://the-fastlane....n&orderby=aYear

UK Crashes Project (417 crashes)

- England: http://the-fastlane....d&orderby=aYear

- Scotland http://the-fastlane....d&orderby=aYear

- Ireland: http://the-fastlane....d&orderby=aYear

- Wales: http://the-fastlane....s&orderby=aYear

 

1930 to 1939 Grand Prix (105 crashes, 1930-32 WIP): http://www.the-fastl...)&orderby=aYear

 

The Nürburgring project is halfway complete, all Formula 1 crashes on the Nordschleife and all sportscar crashes up until 1967 are included. The German crashes project is likely to double in size once that is complete.

 

A further project which is not searchable (collectively) is the Fatal crashes of drivers who started or practiced in at least one WDC F1 event. So for that, we have everything from Louis Rosier's crash at the 1956 Coupe du Salon, to Guilio Cabianca's fatal collision with a taxi during testing at Modena in 1961 to Nasif Estefano's TC wreck in 1973. 

Edited by Paul Taylor, 29 October 2016 - 19:32.

[johnhelmets]

Its a very interesting project, some of the pictures are really amazing! 

[doc knutsen]

 

The database has reached a major milestone. We now have 1000 entries!

 

Here are direct links to some of the completed and WIP projects:

 

Fatal Formula 1 Crashes (37 crashes): http://the-fastlane....)&orderby=aYear

Fatal Indianapolis Crashes (52 crashes): http://the-fastlane....)&orderby=aYear

Fatal Le Mans Crashes (20 crashes): http://the-fastlane....)&orderby=aYear

 

NASCAR/ARCA/Stockcars (170 crashes, WIP): http://the-fastlane....)&orderby=aYear

 

 

The Nürburgring project is halfway complete, all Formula 1 crashes on the Nordschleife and all sportscar crashes up until 1967 are included. The German crashes project is likely to double in size once that is complete.

 

A further project which is not searchable (collectively) is the Fatal crashes of drivers who started or practiced in at least one WDC F1 event. So for that, we have everything from Louis Rosier's crash at the 1956 Coupe du Salon, to Guilio Cabianca's fatal collision with a taxi during testing at Modena in 1961 to Nasif Estefano's TC wreck in 1973. 

 

 

You might want to correct the description of the 1955 Levegh tragedy, where you state that at the time of the accident, Fangio was "leading Hawthorn by almost a lap". They were, of course, duelling for the lead at the time, with Hawthorn ahead of Fangio as he was heading for his first planned pit stop.