As insurmountable problems go, that ain’t.
That’d get my vote!
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.
Ok, I will retract my, uh, scolding. Apologies. I recall doing some dancing on Jerry Falwell’s corpse, myself.
Would Darwin have been equally smiling if this guy had taken out a PhD evolutionary biologist on the blind curve?
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…
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”.
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.
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.
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’.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Nope. He’d probably be laughing his ass off at the irony.
Speed cushions come in different sizes. The ones around here are spaced so emergency vehicles can straddle the center line and maintain speed.
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.
Like Crown Victorias?
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.
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. 