Unbelievable
 

A motorist in the UK had 3 defective tyres on his car. He skidded on ice and KILLED 4 cyclists.
His punishment, £180 fine ($340), 6 points on his licence (you are allowed 12 before being banned).
And he pleaded guilty by POST. Didn't even have to attend court.
Unbelievable.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/5241798.stm

Well he was probably "doing the best he could" as a driver... /sarcasm off

Jeeze!

While this is a tragedy I'm going to play devil's advocate here. I'd bet that even with 4 brand new tires that this probably couldn't have been prevented.

Based on the finding of black ice... you are probably correct. This was truely an accident.

i remember hearing about this over the winter. horrible. worst is a 14 year old was one of the 4 who died.

Why is that worst?

only because, all other things being equal, i think a younger person's death is more tragic.

Contrary to nearly every post in the A & S forum, most drivers do not have it in for cyclists. There is a reason why they call them accidents. This is horrible and tragic that four people died, but cars skid on ice all of the time.

It sounds like one of those days when everyone should have been off the roads. Though I don't understand how the driver is not negligent when he could not control his car. It sounds like he was going too fast for the conditions, regardless of the state of his tires.

That's B.S. if it he can't control his car then he should be held accountable for the deaths, not just for having old tires.This accident was NOT beyond his control. He COULD have controlled himself, and stayed at home during icy weather.

True. The same kind of thing usually applies in the US with accidents where someone gets hit from behind. No matter how stupid the guy in front was driving, if you rear-end him then you are almost guaranteed a ticket for failure to reduce speed to avoid an accident.

I disagree, cars driven badly skid on ice. It's not an accident, it is a series of bad decisions leading to death. Murder not an accident. An accident is when a meteor hits someone or when a tree falls onto someone.

You have to be careful using the word "accident" with vehicle collisions. There are several meanings to the word, see below. One meaning of "accident" is an unplanned event; well, all collisions are unplanned, right? Another meaning attaches the concept of negligence, which is the key. Was the driver negligent or not? Was there anything he/she could reasonably have done that would have prevented the event? The word "reasonable" is the key. Is it reasonable not to drive on a certain bad weather day and take mass transit? Is it reasonable to slow WAY down to lower the risk of a collision? My suspicion is there is a vast range of what is considered reasonable behavior for driving in response to various conditions. Given the ambiguities of the word, I'd rather just outlaw the use of "accident" to describe any vehicle collision. Call it an "incident" and then discuss negligence and the circumstances and the reasonableness of the behavior.



http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/accident

What are people doing riding bikes on the road when it's icy out?

The official finding was that the state of tires had nothing to do with the collision.

Or, more to the point, what are people doing riding bikes on the road where they are vulnerable to out-of-control-sliding-on-ice cars when it's icy?

Now, if it's icy all over, then, yeah, it's crazy to be out there. But if there are just patches here and there where it's more shady (like under bridges), then that's a much more controllable situation.

Most accidents are a series of bad decisions... in which case they are not really accidents.

Apparently this was a case of invisible black ice which no one was aware of... hitting that black ice put the vehicle into a slide.

While I generally think that most drivers can do a better job... running into a patch of road with unpredictable charateristics is an accident... much like a meteor falling from the sky.

Can you say too fast for conditions? I can't believe our society somehow rationalizes and accepts these kinds of deaths.

How are you so sure? Have you ever driven on a perfectly dry and clear road when the temp was 30 degrees and skidded anyway? Black ice is called black ice because it is undetectable. I know it is disconcerting to think that events are beyond our control. That no one is guilty. We would all like to believe that all scary events could be prevented. It just isn't so.

Maybe we should require AWD in all cars, or blizzak tires, or studded tires. How about traction control? How about yearly snow driving classes? ABS?

I am guessing by the fact that there were 4 cyclists on the side of the road that the conditions were not that bad. Maybe the cyclists shoud have stayed home during icy weather.

I work in PA. We get ice quite often during the winter. I simply cannot stay home any time there happens to be ice in PA. I would be fired, as would most everyone else, if they stayed home for a month every year. Try to be realistic. What about North Dakota, or New England, or Canada? How many months would they have to be shut it to meet your standards.

And unfortunately, public transportation is not always an option, especially in the US. I literally, have NO public transporation where I live. My nearest food store is 15 miles. That's a long walk in the snow.

Exactly black ice is scary stuff. You cannot see it and the rest of the road can be dry. For all intensive purposes, you can be driving at a safe speed. I don't see what punishing this guy would do besides cause more hurt. This could change if there was evidence that he was going over the limit, or the road was snowy or wet at a low temperature and he was stiull going like it was dry.
However, I do think that in areas where ice and snow is a problem, snow tires should be required. All-season tires suck.

That's correct. Murder is a premeditated act. People need to be careful when they use the word "murder". This was a tragic accident. Yes, the driver could have chosen to not drive under such conditions. So could the cyclists. This was an accident.

Not to be a grammar Nazi, but this is a pet peeve of mine. FYI...



http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/donkey.gifFOR ALL INTENSIVE PURPOSES

http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/owl.gifFOR ALL INTENTS AND PURPOSES

Another example of the oral transformation of language by people who don’t read much. “For all intents and purposes” is an old cliché which won’t thrill anyone, but using the mistaken alternative is likely to elicit guffaws.

http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/intensive.html

That seems to settle the criminal case. I wonder if there will be a civil action as well.

If the driver knew there was black ice around, and drove in a way that he encountred black ice and ran over perople because he couldn't stop , then I think he should be held criminally negligent.

If it was sudden black ice, where its raining or drizzling and then it suddenly freezes over (this happened to me and it is not fun at 70mph on the freeway) with no warning, then you can truly say it was an act of god and there was no criminal negligence.

Its not under the bridge you need to watch out for its on the bridge. A bridges surface can be up to 25 deg lower than the road surface. 2 reasons 1 heat mass theres just not as much mass there to hold heat and 2 wind chill cooling. Because the wind can get under the bridge it can cool it faster than the surface of the road. so less heat retention and faster cooling. You don't need to worry so much about this in cali though im sure there has been days there where you have had ice on the bridges at night.

Black ice is evil stuff. Its not black btw its crystal clear. Its also rock hard it forms from fast freezing. Unlike snow pack ice that will look white on the road surface you wont see black ice or it may simply look like a wet road.

Black ice takes control away from the driver and theres not alot you can do to get control back. I say if the judge said not the drivers fault it wasn't Don't matter if your using brand new tires or bald ones.

Winter tires are made to cut down in to hard pack snow ice and break it. With black ice even metal studs will have trouble digging in.

I don't know of a way to have you do a home experiment so you can see just how hard this stuff really is. If you want a idea of how slick it is think baby oil on glass.