Advocacy & Safety - It wouldn't have happened if the cop used the bicycle.

Cop car runs over the tourists. (http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/South/02/23/sunbathers.run.over.ap/index.html)

A rather stupid "mistake"...

Just sad, there's no other way to describe what happened. No winners, only losers. One person is horrifically killed, another gravely injured, and another person's job and career-choice over.

I would not describe it as a mistake.

Such accident are in-built into the system. Every day in every city people are killed and injured by automobiles. No one can do anything about it. It is like the part of the system.

But what could be expected - such police SUV weighs about 2.5 - 3 tons. It is the weight of an adult elephant (2.5 tons). Imagine an elephant running on the streets with the speed of say 50 MPH. It would stamp people sooner or later for sure.

My point is that the vehicles are overweight and overpowered. There should be the limit on the vehicle weight and power.

This case, not the first on this beach by the way, illustrates it again.

So what an advantage this heavy SUV gave to the police? They have not caught a criminal, and they killed and mutilated innocent people.

I'm not quite sure why a beach needs Ford Explorers....

All the beaches that I have been to use ATVs to get around, much smaller and much harder to run over people.

There will probably be no penalties for this guy.

Why an SUV on the beach? Maybe there is a chase for some suspect, any suspect, which went from the beach to the road. Driving the SUV on the beach would make for a good transition form off road to on road. It's not a good point but something to consider.
Also, the police officer driving might have been looking very hard for the suspects, that is scanning all around him. Now think about how you drive when you're looking for a house number while trying to get to a destination. Are YOU paying attention to the road? Now, seeing how this driver was a police officer one would hope that HE would keep an eye on his path. However, he did not for whatever reason. Perhaps he was too close to beach goers. He may have been too eager to apprehend these suspects and not been focusing on his surroundings. There are numerous reasons as to why this occured, but we may never know what was going through the officer's head at the time.
Going on information supplied in the article, and only that information, it seems as if the officer is at fault. He was not using a siren nor the strobe lights on the vehicle. As such, he should have maintained a usual patrol pattern of merely driving along the beach. I am sure that the Internal Affairs division of the Miami Beach Police Department will investigate and appropriate punishments will be handed down and refinements to beach patrol will be made (hopefully) as a result of the investigation.
Most likely, the officer in question will lose his job and may face charges of involuntary manslaughter. I will feel bad for him but not as bad as I feel for the young lady in the hospital and her family. She has lost a sister, her parents lost a daughter, and tourism in Florida has suffered another blow.

I think that the fact that the skin color is similar to the color of the sand contributed to this tragedy.

Besides, French women should be slim normally.

It would make these women almost invisible on the sand. The beach is definitely not the place for the cars.

Or the sunbathers should wear high-visibility vests and put the orange flags near the place where they stay. But it would be easier to ban the motorized vehicles from the beach. And instead - develop some sort of beach bicycle, which is not afraid of the sand on the chain and has wide enough tires. If it is possible at all. I mean taking into account the characteristics of the sand dunes.

Originally posted by Max
I would not describe it as a mistake.
But what could be expected - such police SUV weighs about 2.5 - 3 tons. It is the weight of an adult elephant (2.5 tons). Imagine an elephant running on the streets with the speed of say 50 MPH. It would stamp people sooner or later for sure.

Are you saying the officer intentionally ran over the victim? Or are you blaming the SUV? Last time I checked, SUVs without drivers are just as harmless of harmful as any other vehicle without a driver.



Originally posted by Max

My point is that the vehicles are overweight and overpowered. There should be the limit on the vehicle weight and power.


Cop tyres, cop engine, cop hubcap, cop mirrors, cop steering wheels...

All police vehicles are generally heavier than normal vehicles. They have to be pretty powerful if you expect them to catch criminals who may be making a getaway in a high-powered vehicle. When the cops give chase, they don't have the luxury of on-the-fly picking and chosing the most appropriate vehicle for that moment. The officer driving the SUV probably was assigned other terrain duty as well. As someone else pointed out, the SUV is a multirole vehicle and patrols/searches/chases in that area may involve a variety of terrain. The SUV also has greater carrying capacity over off-pavement surfaces and thus can act as a field support vehicle in an area where there's more ground to cover than just the street. It might have been used for carrying rescue equipment, assault equipment and possibly even gear for bike-cops.

Either way, do you really think the victim would be less injured/dead if they had been struck by a Crown Vic/Interceptor equipped with a "pursuit package"? IMHO, this was an unfortunate accident and the blame goes to the officer driving the vehicle.

Originally posted by khuon
Are you saying the officer intentionally ran over the victim? Or are you blaming the SUV?

No. What I am saying is that the whole current transportation system is to blame.

This accident is just the part of the current system. Every day a lot of people killed in the similar way in every city. This case is just freakier than million of others.

This cop may be saw countless chases on TV and maybe even was inspired by those TV car-riding heros.

But what he was after - a shop lifter, a petty thief. We do not know.

But the result - he brought the hell on earth to nice people.

What I am saying is that the cops who patrol on bikes make more arrests and find their job more interesting than cops driving cars.

Certainly, one has to be in good shape to chase on a bike. But this is another story.

Maybe there will be less criminals, after all, if the current car-cult calms down and people lead more balanced and healthier life, without endless chase for more and more lazy luxury.

Cop should have had an ATV -still fast enough to respond quickly + better visability. Bikes suck in sand.

Originally posted by Spire
I'm not quite sure why a beach needs Ford Explorers....

All the beaches that I have been to use ATVs to get around, much smaller and much harder to run over people.

There will probably be no penalties for this guy.
Here in N/Z they use those 4wheel- 4wheel drive motor bikes to patrol the beach but they ,re usualy the domain of the life guards, they have good all round visability & manuvarability.

This was NOT a "beach patrol" vehicle. It was a regular City of Miami Beach police vehicle. They use 4-wheel drive SUV's because of the occasional need to drive onto the beach, for whatever reason. These girls were run over simply because the driver was most likely looking around for these suspects that were reported to be in the area, and not paying enough attention to where he was driving. It's a VERY common cause of vehicle accidents, this one had tragic results. I understand that the police officer who was involved is particularly torn-up over the incident. Hopefully there will be some benefit to society, in the long run. An actual "beach patrol" vehicle ran over someone a few years ago in the same area. They changed thier policy as to where thier vehicles can and cannot drive on the beach. The Miami Beach Police department are already discussing how to re-write thier "beach driving" policy.

It's also another good argument that every police vehicle in the world ought to be equipped with at least 2 officers, one to drive and one to look.

The vehicle in question was inappropriate for the task at hand, and the driver was careless and deserves license suspension among other penalties.

They also make dual-role motorcycles that would be very well suited to on/off road use. The benefit of a MC is of course that you MUST pay attention to where you're going because it hurts when you fall. If the perps were on the beach it is very unlikely that they were in a vehicle, nullifying the need for an SUV. An ATV or a motorcycle should have been used in this case. If they found the bad guys and they made their way to a car they could have easily called for another car to assist. Operating that SUV on the beach is just asking for trouble.