Talk:Death of James Dean

Differences with the James Dean article
I notice some significant differences between what this article says and what the James Dean article says. The account of his death in that article should just be a summary of what is described in more detail in this article, but that doesn't seem to be the case. (There may also be other differences that I didn't notice.) —BarrelProof (talk) 20:38, 7 January 2016 (UTC)
 * This article says "The deceased Dean was also found not guilty of any criminal intent or contributory wrongdoing for the accident", whereas the James Dean article says the jury "delivered a verdict that he was entirely at fault due to speeding". Those statements seem to conflict with each other.
 * The James Dean article reports that one of the police officers later said "his speed at the time of the accident was more like 55 mph", thus calling into question the idea that Dean's speed was a major factor in causing the accident. That information is not included in this article, which only says he "was driving at a reported speed of 85 mph".
 * The James Dean article quotes someone as saying his "death appeared to have been instantaneous". This article doesn't say that.


 * I took care of the second and third points, but was unable to reconcile the difference in the coroner's inquest results. The Dean article says that the inquest took place at Paso Robles City Hall, but this one says it was done at the San Luis Obispo courthouse. The sources in each article are offline, so I can't even look them up. — howcheng  {chat} 16:48, 28 September 2017 (UTC)
 * A year later, I decided to just remove the location from both articles, since it's not particularly important anyway. — howcheng  {chat} 05:46, 29 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I've restored the info, corrected, about the location of the inquest to both articles, with corrected cites. Carlstak (talk) 21:12, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

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Safety belt
Were any of the involved cars equipped with seat belts, and were they being used?

As a side note, the modern three-point seat belt was only invented in 1958 in Sweden.

Here is some info on seat belts: https://www.defensivedriving.com/blog/a-history-of-seat-belts/ Maikel (talk) 12:05, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

The Porsche was a racecar, so a discussion of seatbelts should go beyond what was factory equipped. Mcsew2k (talk) 15:53, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Location of crash site
Under the section "Funeral and memorial" it is stated that "The original Highway 41 and 46 junction where the collision occurred is now a pasture, and the two roadways were realigned over the decades to make them safer." I do not believe the first part of this sentence is correct. If you input the coordinates of the intersection (35.73472°N, -120.28444°W) into the viewer on the website historicaerials.com and use the compare function to compare aerial photographs of the junction between 1956 and 2018 (or even 1981) you can see that the junction is still in roughly the same location. The only differences are that the alignment of SR46 (formerly US466) shifted south very slightly when it was widened; and turn lanes were added to the junction, notably to make turning left from 46E to 41N safer (the turn Turnupseed made). The addition of these turn lanes shifted this portion of the junction ever so slightly eastward, but it does not appear that the original intersection was located in a pasture as this section states.

This confusion appears to extend to the page California State Route 46 (see citation needed under History section), the Death section on the main James Dean page (see the caption under the memorial junction photo) and possibly others, where it is stated that the actual accident location is approximately 100ft south of the modern junction. This does not appear to be correct either. If you follow the 1956/2018 aerial comparison eastward along US466/SR46 ~1000ft past the SR41 junction you can see the historic and modern roads diverge, with the old road following a more winding path south of the modern road, so it is possible this divergence was assumed to continue through and include the junction (if you are moving along 46W from Polonio Pass). Additionally, there are now service roads on either side of the highways so I believe it is being assumed that the southern service road was the historic location of US466 and therefore that the junction itself was historically located 100ft south of its modern location when this does to appear to have been the case. Of course this does assume that the alignment of the aerial photographs on the above website is very precise.

Corrections are welcome! —Wildnfree84 (talk) 02:59, 14 June 2022 (UTC)


 * What you say may be true, but we would need a published reliable source that states this before it could be added to the article. Otherwise, it's your original research, which we cannot use. Carlstak (talk) 03:51, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
 * The pasture idea itself seems to be unsourced. And I couldn't access the reference at the end of the paragraph. But I think what the writer was trying to say is that Dean's car came to rest at the edge of a field, which today might be located in the grassy median of the intersection, which itself has since been widened. However, the actual point of impact seems not to have changed much since 1956&mdash;a car turning left today does so almost at the same spot. There is a YouTube clip which explains it rather well in my opinion (start watching at 7:00). As an aside, Wildnfree84 is exactly correct that while the original US466 ran somewhat to the south of the current alignment of SR46, the intersection itself is still in the same place (in the embedded video at this link, you can see the old alignment clearly). I am offering all this as explanatory information only, since I don't have time right now to deal with the reliable sourcing task.  Stony Brook  babble 03:46, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
 * You must be Deaners to care so much. James Dean got under my skin the first time I saw Roy Schatt's photo "James Dean walking, West 68th street NYC, 1954" on a poster many years ago. He will always be modern.


 * Using the Historic Aerials viewer for those geo coordinates with the side-by-side "compare" function set to the years 2018 and 1956 and the slider, it looks to me like there was room for a cow pasture in the triangle of land where the intersection was located in 1955, not so much in 2018, but it still looks like the intersection has been shifted a few hundred feet. The Historic Aerials viewer is a very cool tool—not sure we can use it as a reference, though. The images are copyrighted so we couldn't use a purchased image of the compared view under the WP license, and it's not possible to link to a static image of the view either. I don't believe we can use the videos as references per the terms of WP:VIDEOLINK. The reflink and the web citation archive page for the "junction where the collision occurred is now a pasture" bit are dead, so I will remove that ref, amend the text of the article slightly, and replace the generic maps link with a link to the Google satellite image with a maps overlay showing the James Dean Memorial Junction. Carlstak (talk) 20:35, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
 * PS: Thanks to both of you for your input. Carlstak (talk) 20:54, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

I drove through this area yesterday (6 DEC 2022) and noticed extensive road construction in progress in the area of the James Dean Memorial and that the cafe appears permanently closed. Does anyone know what the fate of the James Dean Memorial will be as a result? Mcsew2k (talk) 15:50, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

James Dean
Winton was his uncle, not his dad 47.157.117.96 (talk) 08:08, 8 June 2023 (UTC)
 * You are confused. Winton was his father, and Marcus Winslow was his uncle. Carlstak (talk) 11:37, 8 June 2023 (UTC)