Well, you see, a bridge is designed to drive on, over things like rivers. When you drive *off *of one into a river beneath it, that’s pretty fucking negligant.
If you take your eyes off the road at the wrong time and this causes an accident, the accident is your fault. If it doesn’t, you were lucky.
This.
While “too-black a road (which most others handled fine),” “too-small stop sign (which most others saw just fine),” “engrossed in my convo” and “sleek sports car which is known to roll over*,” excuses don’t necessary mean a lack of remorse, why even write this down and publish it if you aren’t, at lest to some extent, trying to rationalize what happened.
- Sure it’ll roll over if you hit it at the right speed. How fast was she supposed to have been going anyway?
He was driving in the dark, and it was an unlit bridge with no guardrail. He also wasn’t actually trying to drive over the bridge. He had taken an accidental wrong turn down an unlit dirt road that led to the bridge. He didn’t realize he was even driving toward a bridge, or towards the water until he right up on the bridge. He hit the brakes, but toppled over to the right. He wasn’t speeding either, he was going 20 MOH.
His mistake was taking a wrong turn in the dark and not realizing he was headed towards a bridge. That’s not a mistake that necessitates any negligence, much less intentional illegality like running a stop sign.
Good for you. Seriously, owning your mistakes is part of responsibility, and that’s what I’m arguing for.
Again, she’s not a murderer. Intent does count for something. Nor do I think she’s “happy” about it.
She does seem to be rationalizing it in a way that minimizes her responsibility, and I can’t condone that. If she had used the accident to send a constructive message at the height of her public profile, as Duke suggests, I would have nothing but respect for her.
She did take a life. It was her fault. And our legal system is far too lenient on people who commit the crimes (charged or not) of reckless driving and vehicular manslaughter.
Do they actually have different size stop signs at different intersections? How do they determine what size to put where? How small do they get? Do they have huge ones for dangerous intersections?
I always felt bad for Laura regarding this accident. It could happen to anyone who takes their attention off the road for a minute. My dad didn’t see a stop sign and ended up in an accident that killed my mom. I’ve seen guilt first hand.
The accident got very very little attention before Bush became president and during his presidency. Most people who knew about it were respectful to Laura, and really, it was talked about so seldom that most people probably didn’t even know about it.
My main thought regarding the accident was knowing that, if the tables were turned, and Hillary Clinton had had an accident at age 17 that killed someone, the right would have screamed about it so loud and so long, think Chappaquiddick x 10, even jungle hermits who still think World War II is going would have known about it. And that was then, when she was First Lady. Imagine when she ran for president, and then become Secretary of State!
Yeah, that would have been nice.
The [family tree](The population in our immediate area just outside of Houston proper was app. 80% “Hispanic” with app. 80% of that percentage being in the country illegally. This according to a city government funded survey, and I say they were, if anything, a bit conservative in their figures.) is alive and drinking down memory lane. Maybe the Bush girls can break tradition and keep it an off-road activity.
Durn right! Anyone can miss the fact that they’ve driven onto a bridge, but running a stop sign is criminal, a true sign of being a Republican. :dubious:
Actually I get the same vibes from Laura Bush’s quoted statements as others do. She seems to be saying “I feel terrible about the accident, but look at all these mitigating factors that mean I wasn’t really so much at fault for going through a stop sign and killing somebody.”
“And if he’d known what was good for him, he’d have been driving a full-sized car.” :rolleyes:
Anyone can swim back from an island to avoid reporting an accident (that would have saved her) and then later attack the policeman publicly for investigating it.
Yes, that’s the same thing.:dubious:
I’ll be inclined to give her that much. Essentially what she seems to be saying is, “It was an accident. I caused it. Here are some of the reasons why it happened… But the reason the other driver died instead of being injured but surviving is the vehicle being driven, which Ralph Nader condemned as unsafe.”
Any explanation of mitigating circumstances always sounds like someone is trying to escape blame. Even if that is not his/her intent.
Yeah, they do. And it’s a factor of where they need to be seen from. City street corners, a sign that I’ve never actually gotten the measurements of but looks to be around 15"-18" diameter is adequate. A stop sign on an intersection on a straight-line open rural highway needs to be much larger – coming down that road at6 55 or greater, you see the stop sign ahead at some distance, and only on coming up alongside it do you realize that it’s actually Red-Octagonzilla.
I never heard Ted claim that it was dark, the bridge was small, and it was rainy a half a century after the fact. I don’t think I ever heard him say anything but take sole responsibility. For some shit it’s just a bad idea to make excuses or throw in caveats. He understood that, she doesn’t.
Didn’t we have about 200 threads on this back when it was relevant? This one is about Bush. You are Shodanizing again. Like Teddy said " we will cross that bridge when we come to it". But Laura is the subject here. She just released a book .
You know, I’m going to give Laura a pass on this just like I give Ted Kennedy a pass on his long ago car accident.
Don’t care.
But, she wrecked a corvair? Man those cars are cool.
This goes way back but some of the older ones were about 5 inches smaller in diameter and were posted lower than the current height. The paint was either a different color or very faded. I haven’t seen one of those in a good 30 years and it was in the boonies. It was old then.
Laura Bush old?
Why shouldn’t he point out when you guys are being hypocrites? The whole argument for being disgusted by her actions involves taking the moral high ground. At that point it becomes relevant whether you are actually moral enough to take that high ground.
By excusing it when it happens to someone on your side, but being against it when it happens on the other, you indicate you do not have the moral high ground.
Myself? I say they both did stupid stuff. They both wound up killing someone. There are arguments that either side are refusing to take the blame. I decide to give them both a break. I really can’t be assed to care about either of them. It’s not like I can do anything about it, anyways.
One last thing: How’s the newfound moral relativism working for you, Dio?
Y’know, I used to have a modicum of respect for the woman.
But blaming the accient on the other driver’s car, the small stop sign (that she’d probably driven by before), and road conditions (which she as the driver should’ve been taking more care driving in) is reprehensible.
It makes her and her husband true soulmates: he starts a couple of unwinnable wars, wastes away a budget surplus into a record deficit, and does very little on domestic issues (over 8 fucking years), and then has his GOP cronies pin it all on Obama as he tries to clean it all up.
I’m a moraol absolutist. I have no idea what you’re talking about. The same thing didn’t happen in both cases. One case involves an instance of proven reckless negligence and illegality ending in death. There is NOT any evidence that Kennedy’s accident was caused by any negligence or illegality, so no comparison, but even if there had been, that would not excuse Laura Bush’s crime, so Chappaquiddick is nothing but a dickless tu quoque anyway.