I think the real lesson here is never ride in a vehicle driven by an idiot.
A buddy of mine was riding (drunk) in the back of one and either fell out or jumped out. He had casts on both of his arms for nearly a year.
When I was a kid, I rode in the beds of pickups all the time.
Nothing bad ever happened.
One of my classmates got thrown out of a pickup bed into the wall of an overpass the week before high school started. He was what an EMT I used to know referred to as DRT–dead right there. There was no tomfoolery, drinking, or other stupidity, just a wet patch of road. He was just going someplace with his family, riding in the back as we often did in those days if the cabin was overcrowded (or hell, sometimes just if the weather was nice), and his dad hit that wet patch and went into a skid. Damn shame, too. Jacob was a hell of a good guy.
The first time I watched this, the most horrifying aspect to me was realizing right before rollover that the bed of the truck has a litter of human beings in it, and watching the way that human mass spills out of the truck as it tips over is just mortifying to me. Yet morbidly fascinating, too.
Physics at work.
Surely you don’t believe that that means nothing bad can happen? Cause I’ll bet I can show you a video of a whole bunch of people that something bad did happen to.
Hang on, I’ve got it around here somewhere…
Of course not. But the way people carry on around here, anyone riding in the bed of a pickup (or riding a motorcycle, to reference another thread) is guaranteed to die or be severely injured.
Certainly not as safe as riding inside with a seat belt… but NEVER ride in the back of a pickup because sometimes accidents happen? People ride motorcyles, which certainly has a risk, but I wouldn’t say NEVER ride a motorcycle, despite the horrific videos one can find quite easily. There are a lot of things in life that are not completely safe; doesn’t mean one shouldn’t ever do them.
I am not so sure that the driver was pulling stunts, looks like maybe he went around something in the road, and with an overloaded truck, perhaps a touch too much speed and poor suspension he just kept overcorrecting till it all went bad.
I just can’t believe that a large number of you seem to have never been in the bed of a truck. I’m the biggest city-boy around and even I’ve been in the back.
I used to do this occasionally as a kid, most notably when my family was moving and I was charged with holding things down, like delicate lamps and stuff.
As an adult, I used to ride in a friend’s bed, for which her bought a couple of hammock-like seats. Apparently these were legal. I never felt quite safe, but it was kind of a cool ride in the summer. It sucked ass in winter.
All I could find out on the fatality was that a 15 year old girl died in this accident. This would make a good drivers education scare film.
I think part of the problem is a driver of pickup drives like they are IN a pickup while the people in the back are exposed to risks levels equivalent to being a passenger on a motorcycle.
A good motorcycle driver drives knowing damn well they are one small misstep from serious disaster. A typical car driver? Not so much.
I know some folks that if I road in the back of their pickup and I told them “drive carefully, because my life back here REALLY does depend on it” I’d feel reasonably safe. Certainly not so for some other folks I know (they scare the crap outa me riding IN the truck).
Also, truck bed passengers rarely wear helmets…
Yeah, this. At least when you’re riding a cycle, you have some control over what happens…and like you said, wear a helmet. The only option for a passenger in the bed of a pickup is jumping out of it, which frankly isn’t a good option at speed and even then that’s only if the person is aware enough of an impending accident that they even have time to attempt it.
I’ve never known anyone who owned a pick up truck, even when I wasn’t living in a city.
Actually I think people riding in the back of pickup truck are much safer than motorcycle riders. Statistics show that motorcycle riders are 30 to 40 times as likely to be killed on a passenger mile basis than people riding in cars or trucks. I doubt that people riding in the back of a pickup truck are more than 10 times are likely to be killed than people inside the truck.
People who think their superior driving skills will protect them on a motorcycle are a. wrong about being a better driver and b. what difference does it make when you are sharing a road with bad drivers in vehicles that outweigh you by at least a factor of 10.
You’ve never ridden a motorcycle, have you? :dubious:
That much weight in the back of a truck can seriously reduce the amount of weight on the front wheels, making the truck very hard to control at anything above dead slow.
I remember hauling hay in a half-ton pickup and having to go pretty slow to maintain control. That’s what it looked like to me.
Ergo, the driver was going way too fast with that much weight in the back. Idjut!
In some parts of Central America, pickup trucks are used for local “bus” service. Don’t know if that’s what’s going on here. (The pickups I’ve seen used that way had side rails, although I don’t think side rails would have particularly improved the outcome of this wreck.)
I saw a guy almost fall out. He was sitting on the side rail and the driver swerved a little. Dude’s butt went over and he was hanging on by his hands and back of his knees. Could have been a bad scene.