This shit needs to stop.

[Spamalot]

I'm a bit better now...

I don't understand why everyone always dies around me. I'm a young guy, and I've already seen so much more awful shit than most of those around me. It's no surprise I have such an addictive personality (I'm constantly struggling with pill-popping).

I need to go out. Cheerio.

 

[SpoiledPrincess]

They give kids lessons on sex and safe sex, why don't they give them lessons on driving long before it comes to the time they'll drive - I don't know the figures but I'd think the risk of a teen dying in a car accident is much higher than of them contracting hiv.

 

[D_Gallely Greenweeny]

kids need to learn to be responsible

 

[Rikter8]

kids need to learn to be responsible

Agreed. It's not the cars fault, its the drivers fault, and the parents fault.
Nobody like seeing young kids killed by car wrecks.
I blame Drivers Instruction.
Instead of getting upset, make it productive by saying, I'll teach my kids different.

Now those of you that were hit by a wreckless driver, refrain from Flaming this, and think about what i'm saying.

They always teach drivers to be "Conservative, safe drivers".... blah.
If they actually taught respect for the speed, and control of the automobile, you wouldn't have as many accidents. You'd have much better drivers. This is a long lost art due to lazy parents, and everyone wanting to be good little conservative drivers.

It's sad that they had to loose their lives, but It was by their own hands.
No seatbelts, driving by the seat of their pants, and I didn't catch if they were intoxicated or not.

Also, increasing the age to drive is working in the OPPOSITE direction.
I have known several 18 yr old young adults that jumped behind the wheel late in life, and they are HORRIBLE drivers... No experience, poor control, and eager to drive, but not the right way. People need EXPERIENCE.

Some learn by accidents, and some learn like I did.
Take the kids out in a snowy parking lot. Give them the wheel.
Sit with them, let them get the car out of control, then teach them how to get it back.
Summer time... Dirt roads... Rear wheel drive - Doughnuts.
What's it teach you? Control, and moderation of throttle.
Speed. Curvy Roads. Heavy Tire smoking handling - learning the limits of your automobile, and how to control what you drive to the maximum.

Govenors only serve the purpose of keeping the vehicle into the range limits of the tire speed/load ratiings. They were not designed to keep teens at a safe driving speed. ALso, keeping cars governed at lower speeds is deadly dangerous. If you try to pass, and the other car speeds up, guess what...Your now in much greater danger than if you were to able to quickly get around.

I'm very passionate about driving. It's one topic where people have sat back in their chairs as they see the life of it in my eyes.
To see that driver skills continue to degrade at a rapid rate, enrages me, and saddens me.

I know my kids (boy and girl when I have/adopt) get to the age of 14, they will be behind the wheel of a 4 door Rear wheel drive power wagon of some sorts. And when it brakes, They'll be under the hood fixing it.

It all goes back to the parents.

 

[chicagosam]

How awful. There is nothing we can do for those that are lost. What can we do for you? If you need an available ear, I will be glad to talk to you or just listen. Please take care of yourself and keep us all posted on how you are. You are in my thoughts. Sam

 

[D_Coyne Toss]

It is so sad only knowing that young lives might be swept away in a breath, I can only imagine how you feel after seeing that scene.

You have all my sympathy, Spamalot.

We are here talking about things that reveal all their relative importance when we face these sorrows, and we are always impotent in front of the death.

As a Christian, all I can say is we should pray for those young guys, and for all the ones they left in this world. May God assist the, and give them the strenght to survive this moment, and the much harder moments they will live when they'll realize their beloved sons, friends, are gone forever.

It is barely imaginable the pain that now torns their parents, all their relatives, friends, the girlfriends: death is more painful for the ones who stay, because in a second it shatters all our dreams and hopes.

I do not pretend to believe that religion might be the solution of their pain, nor a way to relieve it: some pains never go away, all we can do is learning to live on with them. In this religion might be helpful, as the certanity that now they are in a much better place, with no sorrow or sadness, and that one day they will join their beloved ones once again and forever.

 

[Wyldgusechaz]

Although not absolutely pertinent to the horrific tragedy at hand for the OP, lets set the national speed limit to 60 MPH, enforced by remote camera. $1000 dollar fine for exceeding 60 mph.

Saves lives absolutely, reduces independence on foreign oil, cuts carbon emissions significantly, a huge benefit then to global warming. Better for everyone. Likely reduces our carbon footprint by 20% as a nation and i think that would bring us into accord with the Kyoto protocols.

What a huge win/win. If you believe in global warming and the risk it presents to the world and can't support this, hmmmm? I'd do it in a heartbeat, its that important.

 

[Rikter8]

lets set the national speed limit to 60 MPH, enforced by remote camera. $1000 dollar fine for exceeding 60 mph.

1. Lets include all the police on this rule. That way theres no special rights to them.
(Boy won't that be funny to see all the cops getting fined)

2. That's being a "Big Brother" and its spying on people, and most definitely would be used for non-legal purposes.

3. 60??!?! I can pedal my bike faster than that.

4. An accident by a poor driver can be just as deadly at 60 as it is at slower speeds.
Speed doesnt kill, poor drivers do.

5. You need to start pollution control with Big Industry, not autos. They're pumping more crap in the sky and in the lakes and streams than in the air.

 

[madame_zora]

Yes, this is incorrect. While we do lose something to the tune of tens of thousands of people every year to traffic fatalities, that number is dwarfed by the number of Americans that died while serving during the Civil War (over 500,000 Union and Confederate soldiers died) or World War II (over 400,000). and we'd have to have a spectacularly bad year for traffic fatalities to match Vietnam (50,000) or World War I (100,000).

Eek, yes- Big Dirge did find an error of mine, I misspoke. What I should have said was that since we've had cars, we've lost more lives by them than wars, not that we've lost more than any war, each year. My bad.

The death tolls have been around 40,000 to 50,000 anually for the last two decades, and I don't know about before that- I assume less because there were less cars.

 

[Wyldgusechaz]

1. Lets include all the police on this rule. That way theres no special rights to them.
(Boy won't that be funny to see all the cops getting fined)

2. That's being a "Big Brother" and its spying on people, and most definitely would be used for non-legal purposes.

3. 60??!?! I can pedal my bike faster than that.

4. An accident by a poor driver can be just as deadly at 60 as it is at slower speeds.
Speed doesnt kill, poor drivers do.

5. You need to start pollution control with Big Industry, not autos. They're pumping more crap in the sky and in the lakes and streams than in the air.

How do you square that with this?

From Rikter
I have not read or seen an Inconvenient truth by Al Gore.

What I do know is from observations that I have seen on the news, read in magazines on how billions of tons of ice are continually breaking off, in record sizes, and depths...and drifting out to sea.

Taking with it animals and leaving them stranded only to die.

What do ice cubes do? They Cool the surrounding Liquid.
So...if you've got a gazillion ton iceberg drifting into a warm ocean current....what happens to that current? It slows or stops.

Oops...now you have slowed ocean current.... now sea life doesnt move as fast.
Creatures migrate elsewhere until the cool passes, or they die off.
The Eco system is changed.. Now you have system imbalance.
Another iceberg follows the same pattern and result.... over and over..

On the coasts, the water level continues to rise, and Louisiana (being the bowl that it is), will be swamped again. Including florida, etc

It really is sickening how the republican party has absolutely no regard to the world they are occupying, other than the bank they get their cash from.
It is true that this world goes in cycles, and we may be seeing one now.
But don'cha think we should be taking better care of the world we live in so that we, and our children can live a half way decent life??

Seems contradictory. Shouldn't we all do our best?

 

[KinG916]

not only kids, dumb people altogether should never be able to get in the driver's seat. there should be a driving test and an IQ test to be able to have a license

 

[B_big dirigible]

$1000 dollar fine for exceeding 60 mph.

What a great idea. Rich people can still speed all they want. Many would never notice a mere $1000 fine. Or maybe they can buy "offsets" from those who don't even have cars.

Autos are hardly indispensable to civilization. One could make a very decent argument that Western civilization reached a peak before the first car was made. If we're all that certain that they're really nothing but the Devil's chariots, we could dump them entirely.

Not, of course, that the world was accident-free in the days of horses, real or iron.

The last dead body I saw by the side of the road was indeed the fault of some dumb kid, but it had nothing to do with speed. A guy had stopped on a two-lane highway to change a tire for a bunch of nuns, and was hit while doing it. I didn't investigate; a glance showed that he was far beyond my feeble skills as a miracle worker, so I went to the next exit as fast as my car's raging 1100cc's could take me, and dispatched the gendarmerie and an ambulance. The accident was grossly misreported by the press, as usual.

 

[transformer_99]

My day today went as follows: woke up, ate, went on the internet, posted something on here and checked my messages on another website, got ready to go out, went out, and came home. On my way home, these kids in some dump of a car went flying past and nearly had a head on collision with a truck because they passed me on a curve on a narrow, semi-rural road. Maybe two miles later, skid marks and smoke. I turn the corner and see the same car, except now it's half the size and up against a concrete barrier. I was the first one on the scene, and I called it in. There were three kids in the car, all under 18. The two in the front didn't have seat belts on and were dead already. The one in the back had a seat belt on and was unconscious and bleeding terribly. I got him out of the car, and soon people started to show up and try to help. By the time the ambulance got there, he was extremely critical and had lost a lot of blood. I don't know if he's going to survive, or if he's dead already. It's been a couple of hours now. My clothes are blood stained, and my mind may as well be.

I'm such a fucking mess right now. This is the second time I've been the first person to encounter a deadly car wreck. I was every single one of those kids only a few years ago. That thought is the most scary to me.

I'm so sick of this shit, I don't even have powerful enough words to describe it. I'm sick of beaurocratic bullshit about driving ages. I'm sick of kids getting drunk or trying to impress their friends and killing themselves in the process. I'm sick of giving kids tickets and endless warnings for endangering themselves and others. I'm sick of the bullshit.

Stick a governor of the engines of every single fucking teenager. They won't be able to top 50 miles an hour, ever.

Fuck.

This is the part of "survival of the fittest" that we as humans have eliminated from what we see with wild animals. You did the right thing, try not to over-analyze it, figure out ways to prevent it and accept it for what it is. That was a "thinning of the herd" that occurred, those that died weren't supposed to make it, it was their destiny. The rest of us can only try to get/stay out of their way when they are that suicidal.

 

[Rikter8]

How do you square that with this?

Seems contradictory. Shouldn't we all do our best?

It's not contradictory.
I stated that pollution control needs to start with big industry, not the auto industry.

True, we need to make cars more gasoline efficient, but the amount of noxious fumes that are pumped out of the stacks of these factories are directly pumped into the sky (sometimes forced with power stacks), and dumped into rivers and streams.

Why is it that foundries, and big companines offer free complementary ash removal from vehicles in the employee parking lot??
(Yes...its true. Called "Foundry ash", and its black, ash like soot that settles down to the ground, and covers your car. Wipes off like grease).

I don't want to drift too far off the course with this thread.

My point of my comments was to try to make a bad situation better by doing something positive with our lives, and teaching people to be more responsable behind the wheel.

Big has the right idea. I can't count the times where construction workers have been hit by drivers going the speed limit or below.
In fact, Michigan now imposes a $7500 fine, and 15 years in prison if you hit a construction worker, or someone working on the highways of any sort. (SUrvey crews etc).
It was happening So often...that something HAD to be done.

On thursday night (29MR07), a truck got himself wedged in the back of a semi-trailer in the RIGHT lane. He wasn't watching where he was going, and ended up having himself CUT out of the truck.

On Wednesday night, 2 young men lost their lives. They ran the stop sign in a brand new mustang... Were T-Boned by a car coming off of the expressway at 70mph.

People Just don't pay attention while driving. Period.
The only thing you can do, is take this thread, take the frustration we all share, and try to make it better by incorporating it in our own lives.
Example: If your going to use a Cell phone, mabee use speaker/hands free mode... Or if you have to have it pressed to your ear, get in the right lane, OR at least make an extra effort to pay CLOSE attention to the road, rather than the conversation.

If your going to fiddle with the stereo, then make damned sure you can multi-task, and keep your eyes on the road.

Stopsigns are for a reason. Even if i'm doing 140mph, I obey the stopsigns. You never know what the OTHER driver is going to do, or be stupid and blow through it.

I know its frustrating, and I sympathize. But responsability has to come into play somewhere, and it starts with the driver behind the wheel.

 

[dong20]

Example: If your going to use a Cell phone, mabee use speaker/hands free mode... Or if you have to have it pressed to your ear, get in the right lane, OR at least make an extra effort to pay CLOSE attention to the road, rather than the conversation.

Better worded as Example: If you're thinking of using your cellphone; DON'T! I know it still happens but let's at least start with the right sentiment.

I've never yet had a conversation on which my (or another's) life depended to such a degree it couldn't wait for as long as it may take to park up and call.

It's an offence in the UK to use a cellphone without 'hands free', well actually according to some forces even then:

Inspector Douglas Kirkham, from Lothian and Borders Road Policing Branch, warned drivers could be prosecuted if they were using a hands-free or Bluetooth kit. He said: "If while making or having a conversation, even if you're using a Bluetooth, you are not in proper control of your vehicle, then an offence has still been committed."

The offence is "not being in proper control of the vehicle. Legislation was just tightened here and is enforced by fines (up to £2500), penalty points which can result in a ban and, if an accident results by possible prosecution for causing [death/injury] by dangerous driving. Employers are also liable to prosecution if they require or cause their employees to take calls when driving.

Not all agree with this approach:

BBC NEWS | UK | Drivers face new phone penalties

"Nigel Humphries, from the Association of British Drivers, argued those who could use a phone in a responsible way should be free to do so.
He said: "There are quite a lot of people out there who are perfectly capable of holding a conversation on a mobile phone while the driving comes first."

That may be true, as there are no doubt some who can drive (and hold a conversation) while under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs, does that mean we should let them...

I know its frustrating, and I sympathize. But responsability has to come into play somewhere, and it starts with the driver behind the wheel.

It is, but it's true.

 

[dong20]

Eek, yes- Big Dirge did find an error of mine, I misspoke. What I should have said was that since we've had cars, we've lost more lives by them than wars, not that we've lost more than any war, each year. My bad.

The death tolls have been around 40,000 to 50,000 anually for the last two decades, and I don't know about before that- I assume less because there were less cars.

Don't look at the raw numbers, bad though they are, a better measure may be deaths per 100,000,000 driven miles. On that subject you may find this interesting, (or depressing). And, possibly this. The rates for motorcycles are according to another source 35 times higher than for cars.

I read just now that the rate for a 16 yo is twice that for a 18-19 yo. Also that approx 38 percent of all deaths among 16-19 year-olds from all causes were related to motor vehicles!!!

Before the 1970s the US was among the safest in terms of road deaths, but it's now among the most deadly. I read an estimate that 200,000 more Americans have died on the roads between then and 2002 than would have done had the US improved road safety in line with say Australia, the UK and Canada for example.

There are plenty of sources with opposing viewpoints (and stats) of course but now I gotta run, waiting for flight home and battery about to peg out!

 

[jfrsndvs]

I used to drive a truck, I have seen so much shit that could have easily been prevented.

I think one of the biggest problems with younger drivers right now is cell phones, not just talking on them but text messaging, they are way too focused on their cell phones it's unreal, personally, cell phones should be banned while driving, I have seen too many accidents caused by those damn cell phones, a couple of years ago, there was this lady who ran a stop light and hit a police car while she was on her cell phone, and if that isn't bad enough, when she got out of her car, she was still chatting away on it, the cop told her to hang that phone up now or face more action.

I never thought that I would ever see the day that I would say this, but we need more cops to patrol the streets and highways, more speed traps, more safety check points, stiffer penalties, and maybe just maybe people might get the message.

parents play a huge roll in this, kids do learn more from their parents than people realize, people in general need to slow their asses down a bit, life goes by fast enough as it is.

 

[technopeasant]

Some folks need to check the facts. According to Fars Web-based encyclopedia, The 2005 Traffic fatalities totaled 43,446 this only takes a couple of years to surpass Vietnam. The rate also climbs every year. Also of the dead totaled 7,898 teenage drivers (Between 15-20) in 2004.

 

[Lucerie]

Spamalot,

I am so very sorry that you had to go through this horrible day, I have come on to wrecks before but fortunately no fatalities.

My ex and my two sons were on the road to her parents home in the mountains when an uninsured drunk in a BMW came across the center line and hit her head-on, they were at the same moment hit from the rear by a tractor trailor. She broke two bones in her foot, the boy had a few nicks and bruses. They were very lucky. My sons are 18 and 20 now and two of the best, most cautious drivers on the road. It was a horrible lesson but one they have learned well.

I hope you sleep well and that your mind will take you to a more pleasent memory for the night....

Bill

 

[B_big dirigible]

Some folks need to check the facts. According to Fars Web-based encyclopedia, The 2005 Traffic fatalities totaled 43,446 this only takes a couple of years to surpass Vietnam.

It only takes a little over one year. 58k Americans died in Vietnam, in the period '54-'75 - 47k in combat or of wounds sustained in combat, 11k from "other causes".

The rate also climbs every year.

Not so. As the FARS database shows, US traffic fatalities dropped from 51k in 1979 to 44k in 1982. From there they went back up to a high of 47k in 1988, then down to a low of 39k in 1992. They drifted slowly up to a peak of 42k in 1997, dropped to 41k the next year, and have been drifting back up ever since. The current rate is nowhere near the levels sustained throughout the 70s and earlier, or even the levels of the late 1980s.