News A friend died in a car accident

[ar81]

Last friday a friend died in a car accident.
A man who was racing in the highway against another car, took a curve poorly, drifted, jumped and crashed against the cockpit of the car of my friend.

Yesterday a video of the accident was broadcasted and it looks like a demolition accident for a Hollywood movie. Not even the crashes in Matrix highway can match the impression that video left me.

She was 30, and married 6 months ago.

What do people do in other countries to prevent or stop such drivers from causing accidents?

 

[simonpro]

I believe the solution in Boston, USA was to fill the roads up with so many cars that no-one ever went fast enough to have a fatal crash.

 

[n72.75]

Not realy much you can do, poleice can only do so much.

 

[tofitouf]

So sad. a friend of mine died quite the same way years ago. roads are dangerous.

 

[Urwumpe]

What can you do against stupidity? Nothing at all. If you develop idiot-proof laws for regulating car traffic, nature will counter with better idiots.

The Boston solution does not work here, when the next shift takes over in Volkswagen Wolfsburg, the Boston solution got changed by making the roads one-way tracks by popular vote. If you drive into the wrong direction, well, you only need to learn this once in your life.

I lost a friend to when a tractor violated his priority and collided with his motorbike. Not only did the farmer drive too fast again with a heavy trailer behind him, he also had the shovel of his tractor lowered, cutting my friend nearly in half (impact velocity was about 60 km/h). I was talking to my friend just two hours before the crash, 2 hours after the crash I heard he was dead.

The farmer got away fined for some regulation violations (overloaded trailer, lowered shovel), but otherwise got away with his errors, because my friend was also listening to music under his helmet, so he "was not able to hear the tractor advancing behind the vegetation" (As if you could hear much under such a helmet anyway). It was not possible to prove by the long braking trails that the tractor was much too fast.

One month later the same farmer was again seen driving much too fast with his tractor...

Again, it shows that it does not matter what you do, things can go wrong. You can have the laws dealing with such cases, have speed and loading limits, require the vehicles to be controlled by engineers every year - it will only reduce the chances, but never make it impossible.

 

[Pilot7893]

The "Boston solution" doesn't do much. Essex county drivers are some of the worst I've ever seen. At one turnout point on to 128, even though there's a special merge lane for people to use, everyone stops to make sure no idiot is driving down it to avoid traffic. One time I actually saw some guy cut in front of an ambulance when everyone else was pulled over. Further up the road, the same ambulance was at a car crash site.

 

[RisingFury]

Sorry to hear that...


Nothing will prevent people from driving fast. Not even insanely high fines... Slovenia recently introduces huge fines, up to 1000€. You get 1000€ if you're caught driving 80 km/h in a populated area instead of the allowed 50, but as long as there aren't many police on the roads actually pulling people over, nothing will change.

 

[SiberianTiger]

Nothing will prevent people from driving fast. Not even insanely high fines... Slovenia recently introduces huge fines, up to 1000€. You get 1000€ if you're caught driving 80 km/h in a populated area instead of the allowed 50, but as long as there aren't many police on the roads actually pulling people over, nothing will change.

It's the inevitability of a punishment that makes it effective, not the severity.

 

[RisingFury]

It's the inevitability of a punishment that makes it effective, not the severity.

Exactly... sending a few police out to do their job instead of sitting on their lazy asses all the time would help a lot.

 

[EJ316]

Exactly... sending a few police out to do their job instead of sitting on their lazy asses all the time would help a lot.

Nothing like a bit of stereotypical generalisation eh?

 

[Ghostrider]

That's sad. My sympathies to you and your friend's family, for all it's worth. I've known some victims of car accidents and it always feels a terrible waste.

 

[Moonwalker]

That's bad. Recently, on April 3rd, we have lost a Project Apollo - NASSP team member due to a car accident. He has left a daughter.

It is frustrating when I have to realize that this is not the first time somebody I knew via internet has died due to a car accident. It is actually terrifying how many die in cars...

 

[Donamy]

The only way to be safer would be to mandate form fitting seats, Hans devices and roll cages like NASCAR does.

 

[Quick_Nick]

In NASCAR, there are a number of precautions. Many of them have the intention of forcing cars to slow down, particularly at turns. Some tracks are very flat (no 'tilt' at turns) to make the driver slow down. NASCAR cars have fuel restrictors to limit speed as well. Of course, accidents still happen so there are many ways to protect the driver in the event of a crash. The roll-cage and the head and neck restraint are responsible for the survival of many drivers. NASCAR also requires(I think) that seats are towards the middle of the car.

 

[Andy44]

I once lost a friend from college who fell asleep one night driving home. They found his car in the trees off the side of a curve on a hill. He was about 25 years old or so.

There is no point in trying to find someone to blame or launching some sort of moral crusade when things like this happen, nor does it do you much good to dwell on it excessively; the fact is that bad things happen to everyone, some sooner than others. Just mourn their loss, pay them the proper respect, remember what was best about them and move on.

 

[Omhra]

I wrapped a motorcycle for this one kid ,cool guy... I told him to be careful and not damage the fire design on his bike... he died 5 weeks after. Collision with some guy turning left. about 30 kph impact; no helmet.
2 completely different and erroneous decisions made this happen. His girlfriend on his back seat had his helmet on. She had minor bruises.
I am sorry for your loss...

 

[simonpro]

The only way to be safer would be to mandate form fitting seats, Hans devices and roll cages like NASCAR does.

Well a lot of performance road cars already include a roll cage built in to the chassis. A number of more pedestrian cars are also beginning to include a roll cage. I guess the HANS device is less needed in a road car, though, as we can use airbags. Not as good but they're not bad.

 

[Pilot7893]

I got involved in a minor car crash once. We were driving past a gas station when some impatient driver decided to floor it out without checking for cars on the street. Dad was NOT happy with her.

 

[ar81]

I once lost a friend from college who fell asleep one night driving home. They found his car in the trees off the side of a curve on a hill. He was about 25 years old or so.

There is no point in trying to find someone to blame or launching some sort of moral crusade when things like this happen, nor does it do you much good to dwell on it excessively; the fact is that bad things happen to everyone, some sooner than others. Just mourn their loss, pay them the proper respect, remember what was best about them and move on.

This is the third friend I loss in a car accident.

First one crashed head on against a bus and ended up with his pickup under the bus.

Second one was a contributor for Space Orbinomics who died because a bad maneuver. He was about to take a different road but he changed his mind and as he tried to manuver and hit the division of secondady and highway road, had a flat tire and his car flipped over and rolled, crossed the main central division of the highway and hit a car that came head on. It was a 4x4 so they had only minor injuries and my friend died.

In both accidents lack of good driving was involved.

But in this one, victims made no mistake. The guy who did it was not injured.
I have the taste that if I do nothing it might not make a difference and I will have to continue regretting losses.