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In road accidents involving pedestrians, the speed of a vehicle is determined from the distance covered by the thrown body. The distance under consideration includes both flight and sliding and is known as a throw length. This paper describes an attempt to develop an improved model of a sliding phase. The pedestrian is treated as a moving mass supported by a spring and a dashpot. The friction present between the body and the ground depends on the sliding velocity of the mass. The use of the spring and non-linear dashpot allows for better modeling of the force between the body and the ground, and more accurate computation of the length of the sliding phase. The developed model and a procedure for computing the length of the airborne trajectory were incorporated in a computer program to predict the throw distances for simulated accidents. The results of computations for a new model are in good agreement with the data obtained from the real accidents.