Back to Topical Index of Issues
|
Date: 1997/09/03 Message-Id: <340cfffa.239b@idt.net> Newsgroups: misc.transport.road
Why has the media so ignored the issue of this roadway tunnel's exposed, sharp edged posts, focusing so much more or less only upon paparazzi, alcohol and speed.
Date: 1997/09/03 Maybe the media is looking harder at the cause of the wreck itself, and not so much at what the car hit. Not to beat a dead horse, but if all those factors that caused that driver to lose control wern't present ( excessive speed, DWI, papparazi negligence etc.) , it wouldn't matter if those columns had barriers in front of them or not. From what I've heard, everyone of the potential causes of the loss of control were of human origin and preventable. I reiterate folks, if someone is going to do several really stupid things, all at the same time, there isn't much that we can, or should, do to protect them from themselves. Now if someone can show me that the tunnel has been the site of frequent tragic wrecks involving drivers that were doing everything correctly, then I'll change my opinion. Til then, lay the blame on the people that caused it, not on those who couldn't prevent it.
Date: 1997/09/03
Leon James (leon@hawaii.edu) wrote: They were not fleeing from gunmen, killers, terrorists--only photographers. They were not secretely in that locale--it was known and public. What justifies taking these amazing risks? Nothing rational, predictable, justifiable. The driver obviously had a case of road rage to drive this aggressively to kill the Princess and her companion. How do you explain the chances he took?? Justified to escape the camera flashes???? The answer is simple. The driver was drunk, very drunk. Road rage had as much to do with this tragedy as it did with the loss of lives in TWA flight 800. Drunk driver + high speed = disaster regardless of where or not the driver was fleeing papparazi.
Date: 3 Sep 1997 21:18:00 -0700
Training by itself is useless, unless the skills learned can be used on a regular basis. It's not like calculus, where one has the time to leaf thru and find the right thing. Training must be followed by LOTS of practice in order for the behavior to become 'learned' and 'instictive'. I could take a snow driving course and move to Phoenix, would it do me any good two or three years later?
Alcohol does a good job of affecting sensory organs and perception. At .05 or so one does not necessarily know they're (partially) impaired, but things like peripheral vision, depth perception, and so on, things that don't really help us *see* but help us *perceive* properties like distance, speed, etc, are affected. Mistakes are more likely to occur because of invalid information. As far as making the wrong decision outright, that's possible as well. At lower BAC's, tho, I'd bet more on the loss of cues as the cause. An experienced driver would know that he/she is impaired because he/she is better able to judge him/herself for deviation over normal. Your typical driver would feel 'ok'...
Date: Thu, 04 Sep 1997 11:57:57 +0100
Two things I find odd: This car had lots of electronics, probably including a trip computer. It would not be too hard to put in a static memory that could survive any crash, even if it was not up to aircraft black box standards, so that speed, wheel direction (we are told the car had computer-assisted steering, whatever that means), braking force etc. could be looked at for 10 seconds leading up to the crash. Apart from anything else, the information would be of interest to the Mercedes designers. So why isn't this done? Secondly, one would expect tunnels on urban main roads to be covered by TV cameras linked to the police traffic control department, so there would be film of the accident from at least one direction. Yet there has been no mention of this, they seem to be relying on eyewitness accounts.
Date: 4 Sep 1997 02:45:10 GMT Net user said: So therefore, to prevent being cut in half and killed, you should not wear seatbelts in a crash? May I repeat other posts and point out that the one (of 4) people wearing a belt is probably going to survive. Not wearing belts, at any speed, is lunacy. There are also many Indy, NASCAR, F1, etc. drivers that will testify that belts, even at 100+ mph, give you a fighting chance to survive even the most horrific crashes. Regards,
From leon@hawaii.edu Thu Sep 4 10:50:02 1997 Yes, the driver' state of alcohol intoxication was mentioned many times.
There are two views on this: those who see DUI as an aggressive driving
phenomenon, and those who desire to separate the two.
A driver who insists on driving after drinking , and willing to have
passengers in that impaired state, is performing an aggressive, hostile
act! First against the passengers; second, against other drivers (even
when there are no passengers). Drunk driving is a form of hostility and
aggressiveness, hence, road rage.
I'm wondering: can those of you who have an obvious distaste for
including DUI and speeding dangerously (repeat: dangerously and
incompetently) as part of a driver's hostility towards other drivers and
passengers: can you specify exactly what about this view or definition
you object to so vehemently??
Leon James (visit "Dr. Driving" at
DrDriving.org)
Date: Thu, 04 Sep 1997 09:34:36 +0100
BKL wrote:
That is the job of the police, not motorists.
Such behaviour would be as inexcusable as the behaviour of the driver,
and that sort of behaviour *is* the cause of road rage incidents.
All the best,
Date: Thu, 04 Sep 1997 11:51:48 -0400
You know, five months from now, when all or most of the sordid details
will be available to us, I might form an opinion of who was at
fault/what caused the accident/etc. Right now, I'm hearing way too much
conflicting information. "No, the driver wasn't drunk" "Yes, he was
blind drunk" "The speed was 124mph" "No, the speed was 124kph, which
is different" "No one knows what the speed was"... and on and on ad
nauseum.
The truth is that we only know what the media has told us about the
accident, and the media tends to get things wrong in incidents like this
because they report the first thing that sounds like a fact instead of
checking. Ratings, you know. Can't have someone beat them to the
punch. And the French police haven't been exactly forthcoming with the
details. So, in other words, we don't really know if it was "road
rage", drunkeness, stupidity, the photovultures, or a sad combination of
them all.
I admit to being curious as to what, exactly, did happen. My morbid
curiousity would have been engaged had this accident not involved
Diana. But I only know about it because of the high profile of the
victims. I want to hear what happened, but I'm willing to wait until
the police, not the media, have come to some conclusion.
Date: Wed, 3 Sep 1997 00:31:33 -0400
What the heck guys! Don't be blind! All this shit you hear about
speed, being drunk, chased by reporters, etc. is all bull! It's a
cover-up. I'll bet all of you that in the near future it'll show up to be
an assasination attempt, either on her or the egyptian billionaire that
was with her. Hell, supposedly the first reporter that got to the site
got the shit beaten out of him. Come on, you really think the chauffeur
of princess Diana of Great Britain (along side of the son of one of the
richest arab billionaires) is gonna be drunk?! Or be lame enough to drive
through a narrow tunnel at night at 200 kph?!
I know it's tough, especially in the US, but the truth behind the
media coverage is very different and shocking to most of you. And let me
also add that there is gonna be a metric SHITLOAD of hell to be raised if
the boyfriend's dad finds out it was truly his son that was the target.
Expect LOTSA bombs and peoples' heads going off.
Date: Wed, 03 Sep 1997 08:50:55 GMT
Oh no! Now that the assassination plot has been exposed, the
assassins are going to feel obliged to come after the person who
exposed them. IOW, Nizar, they're gonna come after YOU. I think
you should keep a low profile for the next several years, until all
the assassins are brought to justice. Needless to say, if you post
to Usenet, they'll find you that much sooner. So for your own
benefit, keep away from that computer. Good luck; hope to hear from
you in a few years...
|
| Bad driving for movie ratings |
|---|
|
Date: Sun, 31 Aug 1997 18:17:41 -0500 Newsgroups: phl.transportation, rec.autos.driving, uk.transport, dc.driving My favorite bad driving commercial was the Nissan (Maxima?) ad where the 18 wheeler "appears out of nowhere" while the guy is passing an RV. But he's OK, because he's got that V6 power... and of course you can't just back off and pull back in...you have to balls it out...and they show the truck LITERALLY appear out of nowhere! The message...unsafe passing is OK, if you get in a jam by being an idiot it's not your fault, as long as you've got this car...I looked for a Nissan e-mail address to flame them for that ad when it came out, but couldn't find one...I think they've pulled it now.
From Leon James: Let's be specific: what I mean by "bad driving" or "aggressive driving" is the portrayal of stunts and dangerous situations that aren't real, but to children, it looks real and weakens their resolve to be good drivers. Don't you think that's really important? Some examples I saw recently:
Subaru: strange looking stuntmen jump on the speeding vehicle driven by
a cowboy, and the men look inside and say something inane like, "Is this
a leather seat?" etc. Another shows a kid driving a car in circles with
a fiendish look on his face. These are BDs. Another common one in
movies where the car is actually pulled and the driver is pretending to
drive, meanwhile taking the eyes off the road for up to 20 secs.!!
|
| Idiot Driver Alert In Mourning |
|---|
|
Date: Tue, 2 Sep 1997 04:59:49 GMT Newsgroups: van.general, bc.general, can.general, ca.driving, dc.driving, rec.autos.driving
Oh, but wait, there's more... One "photographer's" lawyer says that earlier in the day, the driver was boasting that the papparazzi would never catch him...
Of course, I have often heard judges use a formula in determining
partial liability... in this case, it would be something like:
Date: Wed, 03 Sep 1997 01:21:40 GMT
In my opinion, this is absolutely true. Moreover, I found the streets in Germany designed in such a way as to accomodate intelligently the needs of pedestrians, *cyclists*, and automobiles, in a way that North American designers have apparently never thought of.
Date: Wed, 03 Sep 1997 04:38:42 GMT
Presumably, piloting a Mercedes 600 at 120KPH in a 50KPH zone qualifies one as an idiot driver.....? Europe has no speed limits. There aren't even lines/lanes on the streets except for the centre line. The driver was drunk. That last bit from my penpal in Paris. Europe has suggested speed limits in Germany (85 mph) on autobahns. Most other countries have either high limits or suggested limits. The road Diana was killed on had a 70 kph limit on it or 42 mph.
Some countries fair better than others and worse than others with
respect to markings. However, on average, most of Europe's road
markings are highly superior to the United States. This includes, but
not limited to: - reflective posts every 30 feet or so along all secondary roads considered to be one level below autobahns (Germany) and autoroutes (France) the same as U.S. Interstates. These secondary roads are about equivalent to U.S. highways called "state roads". Very few "state roads" have reflective posts in the U.S. except on very sharp curves. Also, most roads that would be the equivalent of U.S. primary country roads are marked equally as well. - long before the U.S. started putting reflectors in the center lines (like 30 years ago or more) Europe was putting them in the center lines - all autobahns and autoroutes are have reflectors in the road and on the guard rails both inner and outer. - very wide solid lines at virtually all stop signs. We are not talking 6 inches wide, like in the USA, but around 18 inches, though they are often broken into squares about this size with smaller gaps in between. I was there 30 years ago for 2-1/2 yrs and also just 5 years ago for a month. Europe is so far ahead of the USA in reflectors and road markers it is not funny. And by the way, all this highway markings in Europe conforms to very high international standards. Your French friend is pulling your leg.
Date: Tue, 02 Sep 1997 21:28:39 GMT
Europe has speed limits. People ignore them. Driving in Paris is worst than any city I've been in. I was driving there in the beginning of the month, and I think I did OK for a foreigner. Although I nearly ended up going up a one way street when a person yelled "Hey, Ein Bahn Strasse!" (My car had German plates.)
These are my observations: Although every guide book says don't drive in Paris, I found it fun, if not a bit dangerous. I think people who live there get used to the craziness. There is a bit of tolerance for the law breakers. Maybe things will change, probably not.
Date: Mon, 01 Sep 1997 18:48:54 -0700
Additionally, the French highway traffic act has a simple clause that states 'You must remain master of your vehicle at all time', which covers situations where there is no speed limit. A single-car crash is de-facto proof that the driver did not remain master of his vehicle, and is thus, in violation of the law.
Even if he was not drunk, he was acting in a manner that was totally irresponsible. As Jim Pattison said the other night (well before any more information came out about the driver) "Someone in that car exercised incredibly poor judgment."
Date: Wed, 03 Sep 1997 11:10:17 -0500
Take a look at the pictures people!! When EMS arrived they opened the doors. The car did not roll, the roof did not cave in. The damage to the roof was from the rescue crew cutting it off. They completely removed it, extricated the occupants and then threw it back up on top. The dash did not move back into the passenger compartment. The front end crumpled like it should and the passenger compartment remained intact. Had they been belted the occupants would all have had a pretty good chance of surviving.
|
Back to Topical Index of Issues