[Dave Miller]

Dave Miller asked the Naked Scientists:
   
I was a policeman for many years; why is it in car accidents, murder scenes a horse riding accident, where a person is shot and many other situations the victim's shoe or shoe's come off there feet?

dave, south africa.

What do you think?

[RD]

This sounds plausible for shoeless pedestrians in road accidents …

If you're hit by a car when your foot is in contact with the ground then you get friction between the shoe and the road as the vehicle pushes your leg sideways, so the shoe tends to get more or less scraped off the foot by road.

You'll normally end up with a broken leg as well, and/or a shattered knee.

http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=20347.msg233181#msg233181

or alternatively a paramedic has removed the shoes.

[LeeE]

I believe that this phenomenon has also been seen in a few rail crashes too.

Unfortunately, none of the references I've seen ever mention the type of shoe, which makes it harder to formulate a plausible cause.  If the shoes are of the low-sided slip-on type then the phenomenon is quite understandable but iirc, at least one of the rail crashes where this happened occurred in the late 19th to early 20th century, when I believe this type of shoe wasn't around.

[Hadrian]

Yea yea but why is there heir a mess too………………..?

(If can’t beat a silly question so you might as well ask one too)
  []

[Mr. Scientist]

Dave Miller asked the Naked Scientists:
   
I was a policeman for many years; why is it in car accidents, murder scenes a horse riding accident, where a person is shot and many other situations the victim's shoe or shoe's come off there feet?

dave, south africa.

What do you think?

Well, on average, how many other personal belongings where not present on the murder victims? We could go into obscure things, even packets of cigerrettes.

How many of those killers used those shoes in hope to use them for footprints, and so tampering with evidence? They may have evaluated further to use them to make the crime scene look suspicious to cause confusion.

Then how many of these killed people are found accidently by homeless people? They can easily take items off a dead body, along with many other things.

Some killers might even remove certain clothing to reduce weight. In reducing weight, they may be able (in their heads) to actually manuveour a body in a much quicker time.

Perhaps even they where not wearing shoes at the time of the murder, and the last thing a murderer would usually want to do is cator to a dead bodies needs.

[Hadrian]

This is a ridiculous discussion. How can you come up with one answer to cover every case? It’s impossible every case is different.  You would need to know:  What were the shoe designs? How did they fit?  Was there impact on the victim etc etc etc….

There is no mystery just a failure to look at the facts, we have none!!!