[Paine in the Neck]

The news report I saw last night said they weren’t going over 45 mph ...

This didn't happen at 45 MPH.

[Lurkina.n.Learnin]

I agree completely. I couldn’t believe they said that.

[Yossarian]

This didn't happen at 45 MPH.

This site has some interesting crash pictures at this speed (or thereabouts) for accident reconstruction analysis. The crashes are created on purpose with remote guided cars with full instrumentation.

Here is a picture of a 45-MPH crash directly into the narrow end of a highway divider:

Based on this, if you add a car fire, perhaps 45 MPH was all that was needed for the Walker crash to do the damage seen.

45 to 0 MPH in a tenth or twentieth of a second is still a hell of a lot of kinetic energy….

[Red in Blue PA]

Maybe 145