If that’s true, then whoever in the IDF came up with this little maneuver must have graduated from the George W. Bush Academy of Swaying International Opinion.
I was reading an earlier BBC article, and witnesses say that one of the tactics that the protesters were using was to kneel down in front of the bulldozers. Can’t find the BBC one, but the Toronto Star report contains the following:
If she knelt in front of the bulldozer, she would have disappeared from sight.
The other protesters also complained that they had been yelling and waving at the driver to stop and that they even had a bullhorn to yell at him, but that wouldn’t have been anything new. Considering that for most of the demolition they had been yelling and waving at the bulldozers to stop and even had been using bullhorns to berate them, one can expect that the driver had been trying to ignore them all day in order to get his job done. Unfortunately, he didn’t realise that this time they were yelling for a different reason.
It’s terribly sad that a young, passionate woman died so tragically. But you have to be very careful in assessing the dangers of such an intervention.
As for the photos on CNN, you can see by the debris the bulldozer is pushing that the photos are a fair bit apart in the timeline (“pushing trees” vs. “no trees”). So the photos are set up as if the top photo immediateley preceded the second one, but have a feeling that there are several seconds missing.
I believe that is a D-7 dozer. I’ve driven them as part of my job. You have very good visibility in them, exept for a couple of feet in front of the blade.
I’m not sure about the news sources being cited. They seem to have an anti Israeli bias. However, if she stupidly refused to move, and the driver stupidly refused to stop, I would probably ultimatly blame the driver.
I’m not going to get into the rightness/wrongness of what these activists are doing…
… but I think at least some of the folks getting involved with these demonstrations and activities do not have a full understanding of the risks involved with what they are doing. If you stand in front of heavy machinery you run the risk of severe injury or death. If you place yourself between warring combatants you run the risk of severe injury or death.
I think some of the white-bread suburban kids are too used to confrontations and demonstrations in the US, where the police and other authorities go to great lengths to allow freedom of expression with no risk to the involved parties. It’s not like that everywhere in the world. And while these same kids idealize the peace protests and demonstrations of the 1960’s, they forget that people died or were maimed during those, too.
Okay, so what I’m getting is that the consensus of people who have actually driven a bulldozer is that he probably did know she was there in front of the 'dozer, but probably ignored her since he’d been ignoring demonstrators all day, and then, busy and tired at the end of a long day, possibly lost sight of her for a crucial few seconds when she possibly on the ground directly in front of his blade?
DDG yeah that sounds about right. From what I read, and the description of her protester buddy, I think the general gyst of it is as follows:
She knelt in front of the 'dozer (not smart).
Driver continued to advanced assuming she would run away (not smart).
Neither really considered the fact that all the moving, loose dirt would make it nigh impossible to get up and get out of the way.
On a nicely paved road, she could have waited until the last minute to move out of the way. Not the case when several pounds of damp earth are sliding towards you (I’d expect would be sort of like a slow, horizontal, mud slide effect.)
Duck Duck Goose
To answer the original post: It depends on what size cat you are operating as well as the size of the blade. The bulldozer in question appears to be a Cat D9 with a standard sized blade w/a brush catcher. With the blade down, the operator should be able to see at least the head of a 5’ 6" person that is standing 10’ in front of the blade. D10s and D11s are configured differently and the operator’s seat is actually placed at an angle to allow the operator to see the outside edge of the blade. As such, the operator generally is not looking ‘straight’ forward while operating.
But again, as this is a D9, we can rule out the ‘offset’ viewpoint.
Unfortunately, we will probably never know the complete story in regards the tragic death of Ms Corrie as the Cat that she is standing in front of is not the same Cat that is shown after she was run over. Nor are the pictures taken at the same location.
To see somewhat higher resolution pictures of this, click here
Note:
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The first 2 pictures of the Cat were taken from a camera that date-stamped the photo; the 3rd was taken with a different camera (or somebody thought to turn off the date-stamp feature).
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The brush catcher of the Cat in the first 2 pictures is bent in 2 locations roughly in-line with the rams; the 3rd picture shows the brush catcher bent at the ends, but not along the middle section.
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The stack on the Cat in the second picture is bent (leaning to the left) whereas the stack in the 3rd picture is straight.
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The features in the background are markedly different (trees left-frame in the 3rd photo are not in the second photo; ‘stack’ right-frame in 3rd photo is not in second photo).
The second photo (the one labeled, “A clearly marked Rachel Corrie, holding a megaphone” in your link) does indeed show that she was ‘in view’ of the operator, but the above mentioned points lead me to believe that the Cat shown in the second photo is not the Cat that ran her over. Unfortunately we do not have the full story.
Isn’t all of the above assumng the driver was alone and undirected from the side. If that’s the case, in these circumstances it seems odd he’d actually carry on at all.
But if he’s demolishing Palestinian houses, I find it hard to see he was ‘working’ alone, there must have been a military presence, surely ?
According to another activist from her organization, Rachel Corrie was STANDING ON THE BULLDOZER’S BLADE and fell off (or possibly jumped). Also, the publicity photos don’t quite fit together - they’re taken in different locations. Here are the details:
http://silflayhraka.blogspot.com/2003_03_16_silflayhraka_archive.html#90829505
Here is a picture of me standing beside a Cat D9L.
http://www.pbase.com/image/1286247
Obviously the news pics are of a much smaller machine. (I’d say a D6)
Visibility varies depending on location of object. Center of the blade? You wouldn’;t see anything closer than 15 ft., specially if she was kneeling.
Thank you everybody for the responses. 
pegleg Hmm, i don’t know. Look at the first picture in the link i provided above. From this side view, it certainly looks like a D9L to me. Although she may be below the level of the cutting edge of the blade, she still appears to be shorter than the blade. Also, i have a D6R sitting right outside the door and the blade-tilt ram is not near as beefy as the one in the picture. I’d say the Cat in the picture is no smaller than a D8R.
Regardless, the one she is standing in front of in the first 2 pictures is not the same as the one that the group is in front of in the 3rd picture.
Of course, i’m not saying that i’m right, just not convinced that the Cat is in the D6 range.
This article discusses the discrepancies among the photos, and states that Joe Smith, a friend of Rachel Corrie’s who witnessed what happened when she was run over, said that the photo of Rachel with a megaphone was taken hours earlier. After I read that article this morning, I went back to the website that the OP linked to, and I see that captions have been added to the photos explaining the time frame. The captions of the photos of Rachel holding a megaphone state that these photos were taken between 3:00 and 4:00 PM, and that the photo of Rachel being tended by her friends after being run over by the bulldozer was taken at 4:45.
So, Duck Duck Goose, it does seem that this was indeed a terrible accident, and not cold-blooded murder.
Octothorpe
I know what you mean. I switched back and forth several times between different images of dozers.
The tilt cylinder is the key, I agree with you on that. That is why I figured it for a D6. If you check the pic of me beside the D9L, my arm is resting on the tilt brace, and the angle is just too gradual to match the news pics.
I think the reports are ambiguous.
Would you agree with my estimate on visibility??
pegleg I gotta stick with my assertion that the Cat is too large to be a D6. I did some more searching and did find a site that mentioned that the dozers that they are using were D9s, but didn’t remember to grab the link. We may just continue to have a difference of opinion on this.
As to your estimate of 15’ on the visibility side, i agree with you on that. My estimate that you could see the top of the head of a 5’ 6" person that was 10’ in front of the blade assumes blade resting on ground (floated) and Cat on level ground. Put that person on his/her knees, and 15’ may not be enough to see them.
Did you also pick up on the 2 different Cats? That was what got me going on this originally. While i consider the death of Ms Corrie a tragic accident, i consider the possibility that the story surrounding it (with the accompaning pictures) was put out to further someone’s political agenda unconscionable.
Octothorpe
Yeah, the different machines kinda make it hard to peg the size.
Although, as operators we both know you wouldn’t want to be pushed by a D3, let alone a D9!!
Quite frankly, I think that the International Solidarity Movement leadership made some tactical mistakes that helped contribute to Rachel Corrie’s horrific death. Letting her stand singlely between the bulldozer and Dr. Samir’s house was a tactical mistake on the part of the leadership of the ISM (Internal Solidarity Movement), especially because at least a couple of ISM members had some narrow escapes with the Israeli military-operated bulldozers, and had to be extricated by fellow ISM members at the last possible moment.
Having said the above, I firmly believe that Rachel Corrie might very well be alive today if her friends had stood with her while she was trying to protect Dr. Samir’s house from demolition from the Caterpillar bulldozers. I think that Rachel Corrie’s friends really did let her down by not standing between the bulldozer and Dr. Samir’s house with her.