# Dead IROC Driver **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 28, 2007, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dead-iroc-driver/405746 "2007-05-28T01:40:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Gary\_Kumquat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/4491bb/32.png) [@Gary\_Kumquat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Kumquat)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2007, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dead-iroc-driver/405746/21 "2007-05-28T12:46:41Z")
[QUOTE=Quartz] Road humps are the bane of emergency vehicles. [/QUOTE] As insurmountable problems go, that ain’t. > **[Speed bump](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_cushion)** > > Speed bumps are a class of traffic calming devices that use vertical deflection to slow motor-vehicle traffic in order to improve safety conditions. Speed bumps are also known as a sleeping policeman in British English, Maltese English and Caribbean English, a judder bar in New Zealand English, and a lying-down policeman in Colombia, Dominican Republic, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Estonia, Lithuania, Slovenia, Bulgaria and Russia. Variations include the speed hump, speed cushion, and speed table. T... ---
**Author:** ![Zabali\_Clawbane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/ecd19e/32.png) [@Zabali\_Clawbane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zabali_Clawbane)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2007, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dead-iroc-driver/405746/22 "2007-05-28T13:19:56Z")
[QUOTE=Gary Kumquat] \ > **[Speed bump](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_cushion)** > > Speed bumps are a class of traffic calming devices that use vertical deflection to slow motor-vehicle traffic in order to improve safety conditions. Speed bumps are also known as a sleeping policeman in British English, Maltese English and Caribbean English, a judder bar in New Zealand English, and a lying-down policeman in Colombia, Dominican Republic, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Estonia, Lithuania, Slovenia, Bulgaria and Russia. Variations include the speed hump, speed cushion, and speed table. T... [/QUOTE] That’d get my vote! [QUOTE=Wikipedia] The design of speed cushions forces cars to slow down as they ride with one or both wheels on the humps. **However, the wider axle of emergency vehicles such as fire engines and ambulances allows them to straddle the cushions without slowing down or increasing response times.** [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![Tully\_Mars](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7ab992/32.png) [@Tully\_Mars](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tully_Mars)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2007, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dead-iroc-driver/405746/23 "2007-05-28T13:35:36Z")
[QUOTE=Boyo Jim] Just sayin… Sure the guy was a dangerous asshole, but he’s dead now, and isn’t pitting him just a little bit piling on? 😉 [/QUOTE] To paraphrase my late great-grandfather, “If he was a son-of-a-bitch when he was alive, he’s a son-of-a-bitch when he’s dead.” Dying didn’t make him any less pitworthy. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2007, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dead-iroc-driver/405746/24 "2007-05-28T13:50:40Z")
[QUOTE=Tully Mars] To paraphrase my late great-grandfather, “If he was a son-of-a-bitch when he was alive, he’s a son-of-a-bitch when he’s dead.” Dying didn’t make him any less pitworthy. [/QUOTE] Ok, I will retract my, uh, scolding. Apologies. I recall doing some dancing on Jerry Falwell’s corpse, myself. ---
**Author:** ![Sal\_Ammoniac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8dc957/32.png) [@Sal\_Ammoniac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sal_Ammoniac)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2007, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dead-iroc-driver/405746/25 "2007-05-28T13:52:35Z")
[QUOTE=duffer] Somewhere Darwin is smiling. [/QUOTE] Would Darwin have been equally smiling if this guy had taken out a PhD evolutionary biologist on the blind curve? ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2007, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dead-iroc-driver/405746/26 "2007-05-28T15:36:17Z")
[QUOTE=Sal Ammoniac] Would Darwin have been equally smiling if this guy had taken out a PhD evolutionary biologist on the blind curve? [/QUOTE] That’s kind of the point, i’nit - that he got taken out of the gene pool before he could do something like that. If the PhD was killed, the baby Darwin would be crying… ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2007, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dead-iroc-driver/405746/27 "2007-05-28T15:47:48Z")
There are a fair number of PhD’s who had been just as thoughtless and selfish in their testosterone years as this driver was. The world may well have lost someone who would have gone on to make great contributions, or at least act as a cautionary model for another generation of dumb kids. It isn’t fair, IMHO, to say that Darwin would have “smiled” or not. He just described what _is_, not what he thought _should be_, as a scientist should. Evolution theory is not, after all, an “-ism” that can be embraced or rejected like an ideology or religion, despite the common use of the word “Darwinism”. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2007, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dead-iroc-driver/405746/28 "2007-05-28T15:48:11Z")
I’ve changed the title so that IROC is all caps. I hasten to add, this does not reflect the OP’s capitalization skills; it’s the software. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2007, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dead-iroc-driver/405746/29 "2007-05-28T16:07:32Z")
This is how I am feeling about the idiots who tie up our one main highway that tens of thousands of commuters use just about every day. I am angry at the stupids who make commuting such a pain in the ass for everyone else, and sorry for anyone who gets hurt by their stupidity (such as me, if I happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time). Just about every car collision is preventable (I won’t call them “accidents,” because that implies that there is no responsibility to be assigned); collisions happen when people get caught being stupid. I feel little sympathy to the dead IROC driver, and a lot more to all the people affected by his idiocy. My point - people need to start taking driving a whole helluva lot more seriously. It’s not a right, and it’s not a game. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2007, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dead-iroc-driver/405746/30 "2007-05-28T16:18:25Z")
[QUOTE=featherlou] (I won’t call them “accidents,” because that implies that there is no responsibility to be assigned); collisions happen when people get caught being stupid. [/QUOTE] I also avoid calling them ‘accidents’. If someone loses control, it’s driver error (driving too fast for conditions). A tire blows out and causes a crash? Improper maintenance. IME most tires don’t ‘blow out’ unless there is something, usually detectable or predictable, that can be addressed. (Of course there were the infamous Firestone failures. I blame Firestone there, not the drivers.) Collisions? Driver error nearly every time. I’ve had an axle break. I pulled over under control to the side of the two-lane road I was on. Improper maintenance? In my 20s I’d never heard of an axle breaking, and there were no symptoms before it did. There’s the ‘refrigerator in the lane on a blind curve’ scenario known by motorcyclists. Sometimes there are situations that cannot be avoided even when operating a vehicle in an appropriate manner. But I think most ‘accidents’ are not accidents. I also call my seat belts ‘crash belts’. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2007, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dead-iroc-driver/405746/31 "2007-05-28T16:20:59Z")
[QUOTE=GuanoLad] What the hell is an Iroc? [/QUOTE] An IROC is in the big leagues when it comes to trashmobiles. Here in Boston, it used to be associated with Guidos (stereotypical low-class Italian males) cruising Revere Beach on a Saturday night but IROCS are more rare in general these days. In other parts of the country, like the South, an IROC or an old Trans-Am is associated with other kinds of trash (not true rednecks because they use pickup trucks and things but the really shady lowlifes). I only mildly hate to say it but it is probably for the best. In high school, two of my classmates and a coworker at my after-school job were killed or paralyzed in a similar accident. It was a tiny town and I saw the accident right after it happened and then the Medflight helicopter trying to load in anyone that could be saved. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2007, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dead-iroc-driver/405746/32 "2007-05-28T16:59:08Z")
[QUOTE=Gary Kumquat] As insurmountable problems go, that ain’t. > **[Speed bump](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_cushion)** > > Speed bumps are a class of traffic calming devices that use vertical deflection to slow motor-vehicle traffic in order to improve safety conditions. Speed bumps are also known as a sleeping policeman in British English, Maltese English and Caribbean English, a judder bar in New Zealand English, and a lying-down policeman in Colombia, Dominican Republic, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Estonia, Lithuania, Slovenia, Bulgaria and Russia. Variations include the speed hump, speed cushion, and speed table. T... [/QUOTE] I don’t know the road in question, but around here, people tend to park on the sides of the roads which renders the speed cushions no different to speed bumps. ---
**Author:** ![Zabali\_Clawbane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/ecd19e/32.png) [@Zabali\_Clawbane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zabali_Clawbane)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2007, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dead-iroc-driver/405746/33 "2007-05-28T17:02:20Z")
[QUOTE=Quartz] I don’t know the road in question, but around here, people tend to park on the sides of the roads which renders the speed cushions no different to speed bumps. [/QUOTE] Make the road wide enough so people won’t park in the driving lane, then. I know there are some places with roads that are narrow, that forbid people to park on the street for this reason. ---
**Author:** ![Cryptoderk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Cryptoderk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cryptoderk)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2007, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dead-iroc-driver/405746/34 "2007-05-28T17:54:44Z")
[QUOTE=Zabali\_Clawbane] Make the road wide enough so people won’t park in the driving lane, then. I know there are some places with roads that are narrow, that forbid people to park on the street for this reason. [/QUOTE] Not going to work in the UK. Please bear in mind that speed cushions, etc, cause serious problems for the millions with back problems. They also encourage people to buy silly SUVs to drive around town in, as well as annoying local residents through noise and causing pollution. Keep local garages in business though through the premature wear caused to suspension and tyres. Sounds to me like the driver deserved it; speed cushions/bumps would have only served to move the crash elsewhere. ---
**Author:** ![duffer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duffer/32/1026_2.png) [@duffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/duffer)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2007, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dead-iroc-driver/405746/35 "2007-05-28T23:42:08Z")
[QUOTE=Sal Ammoniac] Would Darwin have been equally smiling if this guy had taken out a PhD evolutionary biologist on the blind curve? [/QUOTE] Nope. He’d probably be laughing his ass off at the irony. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2007, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dead-iroc-driver/405746/36 "2007-05-29T16:15:14Z")
[QUOTE=Quartz] I don’t know the road in question, but around here, people tend to park on the sides of the roads which renders the speed cushions no different to speed bumps. [/QUOTE] Speed cushions come in different sizes. The ones around here are spaced so emergency vehicles can straddle the center line and maintain speed. ---
**Author:** ![Zabali\_Clawbane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/ecd19e/32.png) [@Zabali\_Clawbane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zabali_Clawbane)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2007, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dead-iroc-driver/405746/37 "2007-05-29T16:36:10Z")
[QUOTE=Cryptoderk] Not going to work in the UK. \ They also encourage people to buy silly SUVs to drive around town in, as well as annoying local residents through noise and causing pollution. \ [/QUOTE] With the quote below in mind, I bet they could work just fine. SUVs would have to straddle the center line in order avoid the cushions, and either wreck, or get ticketed for not being in their lane. [QUOTE=Lute Skywatcher] Speed cushions come in different sizes. The ones around here are spaced so emergency vehicles can straddle the center line and maintain speed. [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2007, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dead-iroc-driver/405746/38 "2007-05-29T16:46:49Z")
[QUOTE=Lute Skywatcher] Speed cushions come in different sizes. The ones around here are spaced so emergency vehicles can straddle the center line and maintain speed. [/QUOTE] Like Crown Victorias? ---
**Author:** ![brewha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@brewha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brewha)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2007, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dead-iroc-driver/405746/39 "2007-05-29T17:15:00Z")
[QUOTE=GuanoLad] What the hell is an Iroc? [/QUOTE] FWIW, IROC is an acronymn for International Race of Champions. The IROC-Z is just a type of Chevy Camaro, named for the racing league. I’ve done stupider things and lived to tell about it. I would rather see the guy receive life threatening injuries and spend a few months in the hospital/physical therapy than to see him dead. He didn’t learn anything this way. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2007, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dead-iroc-driver/405746/40 "2007-05-29T17:26:15Z")
[QUOTE=Loach] Like Crown Victorias? [/QUOTE] Yep. Pretty much any vehicle is able to fit between the three cushions by straddling the center line but only emergency vehicles are supposed to do that. Of course, that means non-emergency vehichles can do the same, which is why some of these cushions are now marked with “Do Not Cross Center Line” signs. 🙂 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dead-iroc-driver/405746.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dead-iroc-driver/405746.md?page=3)