I’m perfectly ok with this, provided that you admit your ill-conceived attempt to prove me wrong out of hubris or for whatever strange reason was a failure.
You’re being nailed on a technicality, tdn, by the SDMB Perry Masons. Because you have said that, for example, in a 35 mph zone you may drift up to 37 or, heaven forbid, 40 mph before noticing and adjusting, you lied in your assertion that you’ve sped only once in your life.
Perhaps you should amend that statement to “I’ve driven over the speed limit once in my life purposefully”. Sure, it’s more backpedalling, but maybe the nit will finally be picked, and we can return to inventing assumptions as to why Brandy was distracted and crashed.
Not explicitly, no. But that was most certainly the implication.
I have to agree…my problem wasn’t with the “lying” so much as with the rather subjective view of what constitutes “speeding,” combined with the self-righteous denial of ever having done it.
Sure, but I think you’d have to be a pinhead to look at the words so hard that you deliberately miss their meaning. I’ve explained myself again and again, and yet people are still hell-bent on finding something on me.
I’m done explaining myself. It’s like talking to a brick wall. For those of you who wholeheartedly insist that I’m a liar – I admire you greatly. And I have no doubt that your parentage is above reproach.
In fact, if you drive at or below the legal speed limit on the 10 freeway during rush hour (in a free-moving eastbound lane, anyway) you’d be a traffic hazard.
We don’t know the particulars of the accident, other than a claim that she was driving at a speed “greater than is reasonable or prudent” according to the article. It doesn’t even mention whether a citation was issued on the scene or not. And although she was the proximate cause of the accident, she was actually struck by another vehicle. Was this other driver cited? What speed and/or level of attention was the deceased going? Are there other mitigating factors–was it raining, or foggy, or did traffic stop abruptly? Was the deceased wearing a seat belt at the time of impact, or did she die from what should have been nominally survivable injuries?
It’s unclear what purpose is served by extended incarceration for what amounts to an accident, even if due to inattention or a modest excess of speed. Beyond suiting a vengful desire for punitation, I can’t see that it would benefit society or the accused, much less the deceased. Community service and/or fines, perhaps, and if the incident is truely the fault of the accused then she’ll be liable for civil damages, but throwing someone in jail for what amounts to an accident that could, in a single moment of inattention, occur to anyone on the road, is absurd overkill. As Q.E.D. already noted before this pestiferous hijack over whether one poster has or has not ever exceeded the speed limit (as if accidents don’t ever occur within the boundries of velocity set by law), this could happen to anyone and when you get on the road, surrounded by blocks of steel and glass massing thousands of pounds, you accept a certain level of risk that something will get fucked up. It’s too bad, but it happens.
Stranger
Yes, exactly.
I’m not going to amend anything and I’m not going to backpedal. I stand by what I’ve said in the sum of my posts. If people want to wallow in technicalities to prove my honesty to be less than stellar, I won’t stand in their way anymore. Everyone needs a hobby, I guess.
It’s mildly aggravating to have YOU cause the confusion by using a definition of “speeding” that is neither correct nor generally understood, and then watch you accuse others of “wallowing in technicalities” if they are confused by your bizarre personal definition. Should they stop jumping up and down on you now that you’ve clarified what you meant? Yes. But that does not mean they were “wallowing in technicalities” or “looking at words so hard as to deliberately miss their meaning” when they called you on what you initially said. YOU said something that it ends up you didn’t actually mean, and YOU confused other people by doing so. So it would be nice if you’d stop implying that the misunderstanding was anyone’s fault other than your own.
Gentle suggestion - remember that it is always safest to use dictionary definitions of words in SDMB rather than your own personal definitions, to avoid what you have just experienced.
In all seriousness, when people use their own personal definitions, and don’t let people in on the specifics of what those definitions are, how in heck are we supposed to know what they mean?
Well, it does go well with his views of maintaining the flow of traffic. If he’s going ten miles slower than everyone else on the road, it’s not him that’s the traffic hazard, it’s everybody else. And if he claims that he never, ever speeds, even though (like everyone else) he occasionally goes as much as five miles over the speed limit, why, it’s because everyone else is using the wrong definition of speeding!
Well, back to the OP: there’s one thing that (surprisingly) hasn’t been mentioned yet, and that is that Brandy was driving a Land Rover, and hit a Honda. Here’s a case where it could be argued that Brandy’s choice of car to drive was fatal to the poor woman driving the Honda. Because obviously being hit by a a car that weighs maybe 6700 pounds is a different kettle of fish than being hit by a car that weighs half that and is much lower to the ground.
People who knowingly drive these huge cars have to take some responsibility for the fact that when they hit others, they are much, much more likely to kill them.
That’s an interesting point. I wonder if they should have different following-distance rules for very large cars.
Or people who knowingly drive light cars should take responsibility as they are much, much more likely to get killed in an accident.
It cuts both ways, and is a valueless argument.
Except that what you’re suggesting is a kind of arms race, where you’re considered blamable if you’re not driving a big enough car. Imagine what that would do to the planet, and not just to our roads.
Back in the day (shakes cane) it was one car length for every 10 miles of speed. If I was driving my dad’s land yacht, it was a longer distance between me and the next guy than if we were in my friend’s Pinto.
I always learned it as 2 full seconds of distance (when the car in front passes a landmark, such as a crack on the highway, you count 2, and if you pass the same crack before then, you are too close). I would imagine that truckers are taught a different rule, considering their longer stopping time. Maybe large SUVs should take that into consideration, as well.
I think I have to side just a little bit with tdn. There is something wrong about dismissing bad driving as “shit happens.” Clearly, if you drive badly - even a little bit badly - the possible death of someone else is a predictable outcome. This isn’t being sanctimonious, it’s just reality.
At least where I live, the vast majority of people on the highway do not leave anywhere near enough room to stop. That behavior, predictably can kill. Does the fact that everyone does it mitigate the moral responsibility of engaging in potentially lethal behavior? Is it sanctimonious of the few people who don’t to pass judgement on the behavior of the majority who do? Does the fact that they are in the minority make them somehow more sanctimonious?
Yeah, most of us drive a little carelessly now and then, but maybe we wouldn’t - as much - if it were universally recognized as antisocial, life-threatening misbehavior. Drunk driving used to be trivialized too.
Not so much as a case that the car owner gets to chose between cost, safety, milage, mpg, et al for any vehicle. A small car owner if they are well informed generally weighs crash safety against manouverability safety and all the other factors. No arms race could occur (other than the existant ‘arms race’ of producing more and more safe cars each year by all manufacturers. Since safety sells).
What I believe would be relivent is that the type of vehicle and its safety capabilities should be taken into account. Someone driving an old heavy vehicle with poor breaks should be expected to drive with greater inta-vehicle distance than someone with a light 4 wheel drive sports car with excellent breaks. Vehicle mass has very little direct effect on breaking distance .A heavier vehicle squashes its tyres flatter to the road creating a larger area of contact for frictional breaking to occur, as you can probably guess this gets as complex as a plane on a treadmill pretty darn soon when you take other factors into account. Suffice to say different vehicles have different stopping distances and they are not directly related to the vehicle’s weight.
Okay. So, let’s say I’m driving my '95 Saturn, and hit a guy riding a bike and kill him. Should I have to take some responsibility in the accident simply because I was driving a larger vehicle than the other guy? More responsibility than I should take if, under identical circumstances, I’d hit and killed someone in another '95 Saturn?