That's a reasonably nice car, looks like a new-ish Jaguar XJ. Not cheap necessarily.
The video where the goons catch up to the car is interesting, I hear noises that sound like they could be gunshots but the cameraman and people trying to extricate the driver aren't reacting to them like it's coming from inside the car.
Could be nearby fireworks? E: Yes, firecrackers,
@SpookNuker with the good catch. There are some additional cracking noises towards the end which seem to correspond with the car moving, which sound remarkably like mangled bodywork slapping around or some of the goons hitting the car with something (E: possibly additional firecrackers).
E: Rewatching the high-angle of the collision I hear 2 cracks which are definitely bodies impacting bodywork and cracking it/impact noise. I see zero evidence of gunshots in that footage though.
I'm very curious, because the driver's behavior is not that of either a car of peace or criminals attempting to flee the cops in a traditional sense. The car brakes as it makes for the obvious gap on the driver's right side of the barricade and seems to attempt to swerve when the people hit become visible (note the car going a bit sideways corresponding to a hard to notice decrease in speed + attempt to swerve just past the van and finally the subtle but noticeable increase in red taillight glow during this time which would correspond with braking), and after impact the car slows almost to a stop, then speeds away only to stop a bit down the road, and then repeating the same thing again when some goons catch up.
The crux of the problem is that the crowd went drivers side right. The people who were hit were reacting to the crowd, not necessarily the car. They start to the drivers left, probably in the blindspot created by the van. As the car gets about to the van, most people run right, and the people who were hit run right as well, taking them from the blindspot which likely was out of the killzone to directly in front of the car and thus in the killzone as the car appeared to just be planning to keep going and, takes evasive action too late for the 2, but just in time for the 3rd who is in the path and thus gets extremely lucky (see also, swerve, brake lights).
That car was going at least
60 E: 50 (I suspect 70 if not faster prior to the initial braking) and the distance between when the people to the left became visible and the stopping distance from that speed became a physics problem which did not bode well for anyone in the path of the gap. And based on the reaction of those who did get hit prior to impact, I don't think they knew where the car was going and probably couldn't see it in the couple seconds of leadup, and made the wrong assessment about what to do half a second too late.
If this were a car of peace, there was a shitload of people on the driver's right which were easily visible but were not hit, and they appeared to be aiming to miss by going left.
The thing I'm a little unclear on is criminal liability. When I had traffic school up there the cops made it pretty clear that the "drunk staggers into the highway at night, struck by car going highway speeds" scenario is a case where criminal liability is unlikely for the driver, though obviously that differs from this scenario as the car was likely breaking the law by making its way onto the highway in the first place.
Edit again:
Going through the end of her stream on .25 speed, I think I can get a screenshot of her rough sightline:
View attachment 1427085
I'm 99% sure this is the van I'm pointing to in the image, video quality is bad but this is a couple seconds prior to impact and we're getting a lot of streaking in the image. If that is indeed the van, she can't see shit, and is currently NOT in the killzone, but has no way of knowing this. She runs to the image's left (driver's right) almost immediately after this frame, putting her in the killzone a second or so after.
Also am I the only one that hears what sounds like a horn being honked at 1:44:30? It's extremely faint and may require a couple seconds run-up to notice it.
