Where Exactly Was Ryan Dunn's Accident?

It always sucks when someone succumbs to a horrific circumstance when it clearly could have been avoided, even if that person hadn’t made millions of people laugh in his or her lifetime. And regardless of my personal feelings about drunken driving, dangerous behavior, or anything else that may have been involved in Ryan Dunn’s fatal car wreck earlier this week, the idea of someone experiencing something as violent as what he endured is something I’d rather not think about.

If you don’t know, Ryan Dunn was part of the Jackass cast, a TV show notorious for dangerous, painful, ridiculous, and often outright stupid stunts. It was something the world was bound to see sooner or later, and it evolved out of the CKY home video footage Dunn and his friends shot in the 90s. Though they were basically extending the America’s Funniest Home Videos format into psychotic territory, the troupe was ahead of their time, producing the kind of content we’d all search for on Youtube years later.

Then, on June 20, 2011, at about 2:30 AM, Dunn and a passenger were riding in his 2007 Porsche 911 away from a bar where he had been partying, raising his blood-alcohol level to 0.19—significantly impairing his ability to drive a car, much less at the estimated 130 MPH the vehicle was traveling as it jumped a guard rail and slammed into a tree. Though it might seem appropriate to some that his ultimate fate would be in the manner of the lifestyle in which he lived, no one wanted this for him. However, many people want to know:

Where did Ryan Dunn crash?

Not to be morbid, but there don’t seem to be any highly accurate suggestions for the location where his car crashed. I don’t necessarily have an interest in his death, or visiting the site, but I’d like to take a few moments to do some research into the precise location of his accident using news reports, on-scene photographs, and video.

We know for certain that the accident happened near West Chester, PA. CBS Philadelphia reports that the wreck occurred on Route 322 near Pottstown Pike—the road which leads to Barnaby’s, the bar he had been drinking at. Here’s an aerial view of this area:

This view from a helicopter shows a police car, tire marks on the street, and a double-yellow gore in the middle of the road, which means that we can narrow the possible area down to everything near the overpass of Pottstown Pike:

The gore shown in the image only appears on Route 322 for a 1500 foot stretch near this overpass. Then there’s this image of a police car next to an overpass and a torn-out guard rail covered by a police line:

Comparing that image and the street signs in the area, we can clearly see in Google Street View that this is exactly where it happened:

So looking from above, we can see the guard rail his car struck:

You can take put these coordinates into Google Maps to go straight to the accident scene:

39° 58′ 24.38″ N, 75° 36′ 51.27″ W

  

Or simply click here.

[UPDATE 6.24]: There has been some discussion about whether the accident site is on the east or west side of the overpass. Though both sides have a guard rail, clearance height sign, and merge warning sign, we can see that he definitely crashed on the northeast side of the bridge. Take a look at this view looking east which indicates the merge warning sign in the distance:

A closer view of this sign shows that it says "LANE ENDS, MERGE RIGHT" instead of the "RIGHT LANE ENDS" shown in the image of the torn-out guard rail shown above:

Then there's this view of another police car with more skid marks showing the exit from 322 to S. Pottstown Pike:

This should clear up any confusion about where the accident occurred.

[UPDATE 12/23/11]: Google Earth updated their imagery of this section of highway since the accident occurred. You can now see that warning poles have been installed in exactly the location that Dunn skidded through (seen in the image above).

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