70 RPM’s isn’t much, but my calculations weren’t correct.
+250K RPM’s is a shit ton. I’d be amazed if the bearings survived that.

It's cool. You were absolutely right.

That doesn't mean crap. I've met plenty of people who spend their whole lives in wheel chairs....and they wear shoes.

I'm envisioning a brand new marketing opportunity and offshoot from NASCAR...

The Wheelchair Push 500!

Now THAT's an extreme sport!

all the more reason to think that if this is true then the semi truck lifted the wheel chair off the ground as it gained speed.

wheels on the chair would of simply melted off if it was really being 'pushed' at that high of speed.

Which is true if we're talking about the $99 wheelchair most of us have seen in our lives. But this is a pretty high end wheelchair with bearings and durability engineered. Naturally, it's not engineered to travel at high speeds on the highway, but those wheels can turn for a while.

Now, it really would take a mathematician to determine how long those wheels would last under the drag conditions, road conditions, chair specs, etc. The guy is incredibly lucky to be alive. Had he been pushed sideways I'm guessing the chair tips and he's roadkill.

It's been annoying the heck out of me why our numbers dont' match, and I finally found it. Your reference actually say that 1 MPH = 88 ft/min, not 88 ft/sec, so your figure is 60 times too high. The answer is 4203.8 RPMs.

Yeah, but that's just because they're show horses.

How did my thread get turned into a RadarChief/Rainman/Laz/Phobia Physics class?

I'm not so sure the guy in the wheelchair is wearing shoes. From the pic he could be wearing just socks with little designs on them. I need a higher quality pic of his feet.

Then again, maybe they took his shoes off because the poop ran down his leg and into them. Seems like his socks would have stains though.

This is not just about laughing about unfortunate people in wheelchairs stuck to the front of semis. It's also about learning.

Though it's still mostly about laughing about unfortunate people in wheelchairs stuck to the front of semis

That looks to be about a $15K-20K wheelchair. It could probably handle it.

I see, you’re correct.