Motorcyclist Dies after running into driveway chain

[mike wilson]

Enquiring minds just gotta know, and eagerly await, rapt with fascination!

 

My take on the matter is:

 

1. The person crashing is responsible for the crash.

 

2. As the intersection is designed with excellent runoff areas but has had repeated replacements of the said sign, the designated authority is, at least in part, responsible for any injuries or damage caused by impact with it.

 

3. Said authority should do something about water management on the intersection.

 

 

The sign is often down for months at a time - in one case for over a year. I presume that this is due to wrangling with insurance companies - the driver at fault is responible for the cost of replacement in the UK.

 

Thinking further about the situation, I suspect that most of the accidents are happening at night. The street lighting is vestigial, as there is no foot traffic there. Travelling at 60mph, on dipped headlights, would give you (considerably) less than a second to do something even if you spotted the hazard.

[Guest ratchethack]

One of my favorite Simpsons episodes was where Homer goes around putting safety signs up everywhere.

Perhaps there are real angels here on Earth....

...Or perhaps there's a better, WONDERFUL world of our own imagining -- a nice, soft and fluffy world, a perfect world where nothing bad ever ever happens, and only happy, nice things happen!

 

If we can just wish hard enough, it'll come true! It can be REAL! We just know it can!

 

It could be, it should be , we want it to be, therefore, IT IS!

 

Come now, Dingaling, come Tinkerbelle, come Twinkletoes -- Let's forget all our cares, sprinkle the magic Pixie dust, and dream of Never Never Land, where all the bad bad things and all the bad bad people can't ever ever hurt us ever ever again!

 

When You Wish Upon a Star

 

http://solosong.net/wish.html

 

When you wish upon a star, makes no difference who you are

Anything your heart desires will come to you

 

If your heart is in your dreams, no request is too extreme

When you wish upon a star as dreamers do

 

(Fate is kind, she brings to those who love

The sweet fulfillment of their secret longing)

 

Like a bolt out of the blue, fate steps in and sees you thru

When you wish upon a star, your dreams come true

[dlaing]

...Or perhaps there's a better, WONDERFUL world of our own imagining, a nice, soft and fluffy world, a perfect world where nothing bad ever ever happens, and only happy, nice, wonderful things happen!

 

If we can just wish hard enough, it'll come true! It can be REAL! We just know it can!

 

It could be, it should be , we want it to be, therefore, IT IS!

 

Come now, Dingaling, come Tinkerbelle, come Twinkletoes -- Let's forget all our cares, sprinkle the magic Pixie dust, and dream of Never Never Land, where all the bad bad things and all the bad bad people can't ever ever hurt us ever ever again!

 

When You Wish Upon a Star

 

http://solosong.net/wish.html

 

When you wish upon a star, makes no difference who you are

Anything your heart desires will come to you

 

If your heart is in your dreams, no request is too extreme

When you wish upon a star as dreamers do

 

(Fate is kind, she brings to those who love

The sweet fulfillment of their secret longing)

 

Like a bolt out of the blue, fate steps in and sees you thru

When you wish upon a star, your dreams come true

You really are desperate.

Are you sure this isn't you son replying using your identidy?

Grow up!

[Guest ratchethack]

Travelling at 60mph, on dipped headlights, would give you (considerably) less than a second to do something even if you spotted the hazard.

60 mph = 88 ft./sec

 

Now this is just me, but considerably less than 88 ft. visibility at 60 mph would be an indicator of fairly heavy fog, rain, or snow, day or night, assuming decent, modern headlights on low beam. Having done a considerable heap o'driving (and a much smaller heap o' motorcycling) in such conditions (both with and without many different kinds o' fog lights on cars and various 4-wheel drive vehicles), I'd say that it may occur to reasonable, thinking drivers that 60 mph could be too fast f'er the conditions with this kind of visibility, depending on wot specific kind of weather, etc.

 

Just a thought.

[Guest ratchethack]

Are you sure this isn't you son replying using your identidy?

Not likely. He's nearly 18 now, and for the most part, has his own identity (as well as his own computer). Thankfully, he's already savvy enough to spot airy fairy wishful thinking, false motives, fraud, GROUPTHINK, lemming behavior, some of the indoctrination agendas of his teachers, and the most blatant forms of propaganda a mile away. He's nearly as suspicious of misguided idiot do-gooders, politicians, nitwits, and fools as I am, and seems like he came up with that on his own, since (unlike many adults I know of) there's increasing evidence lately that he can actually reason (using Earth logic) and (danger of all dangers! ) even think f'er himself.

 

I suspect it's mostly NATURE, with just a pinch o' NURTURE thrown in....

 

He ain't near as sarcastic as the ol' man, though, so he'd not likely come up with a post the likes o' the above. But I'm not worried. In another coupla decades, I'm sure he'll grow into it.

[Skeeve]

He ain't near as sarcastic as the ol' man, though, so he'd not likely come up with a post the likes o' the above. But I'm not worried. In another coupla decades, I'm sure he'll grow into it.

 

"Cynicism is nothing more than the smoke rising from the ashes of burnt out dreams..."

 

Glad to hear your son has a got a better grip on reality than most of his generation!

[Guest ratchethack]

"Cynicism is nothing more than the smoke rising from the ashes of burnt out dreams..."

 

Glad to hear your son has a got a better grip on reality than most of his generation!

Thanks, Skeeve.

 

But make no mistake! Cynicism's a horse of an entirely different hue!

 

Once again, the apple don't fall too far from the tree here. Like his ol' man, the sprout ain't no kinda cynic -- generally speaking, that is!

 

Ya gotta love the boy's budding sense of sarcasm, though. Seems to really annoy certain kinds o' lunkheads -- in a most eadearing, warming the cockles o' the heart kinda way. . . . .

 

F'er me, it's nothing short of a joy to behold. . . .

[dlaing]

It's time again for the annual "Stella Awards"!

 

For those unfamiliar with these awards, they are named after 81-year-old Stella Liebeck who spilled hot coffee on herself and successfully sued the McDonald's in New Mexico where she purchased the coffee. That's right, these are awards for the most outlandish lawsuits and verdicts that happened in the U.S. during 2005. You know, the kinds of cases that make you scratch your head. So keep your head scratcher handy. Here are the Stellas for the past year:

 

To kick things off the right way, there was a three-way tie for 5th place. Kathleen Robertson of Austin, Texas, was awarded $80,000 by a jury of her peers after breaking her ankle tripping over a toddler who was running inside a furniture store. The store owners were understandably surprised by the verdict, considering the running toddler was her son.

 

Also in 5th place is Carl Truman, 19, of Los Angeles, California - you knew California had to be in the list somewhere, right? - who won $74,000 plus medical expenses when his neighbor ran over his hand with a Honda Accord. Truman apparently didn't notice there was someone at the wheel of the car when he was trying to steal his neighbor's hubcaps. Go ahead, grab your head scratcher.

 

The last of the 5th Place winners was Terrence Dickson, of Bristol, Pennsylvania, who was leaving a house he had just burglarized by way of the garage. Unfortunately for Dickson, the automatic garage door opener malfunctioned and he could not get the garage door to open. Worse, he couldn't re-enter the house because the door connecting the garage to the house locked when Dickson pulled it shut. Forced to subsist for eight - count 'em, 8! - days on a case of Pepsi and a large bag of dry dog food, he sued the homeowner's insurance company claiming undue mental anguish. Amazingly, the jury said the insurance company must pay Dickson $500,000 for his anguish. We should all have this kind of anguish.

 

Keep scratching. There are more...

 

Jerry Williams, of Little Rock, Arkansas, garnered 4th Place in the Stellas when he was awarded $14,500 plus medical expenses after being bitten on the butt by his next door neighbor's beagle - even though the beagle was on a chain in its owner's fenced yard. Williams did not get as much as he asked for because the jury believed the beagle might have been provoked at the time of the butt bite because Williams had climbed over the fence into the yard and repeatedly shot the dog with a pellet gun.

 

Grrrrr ... scratch, scratch.

 

Third Place went to Amber Carson of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, because a jury ordered a Philadelphia restaurant to pay her $113,500 after she slipped on soft drink and broke her tailbone (coccyx). The reason the soft drink was on the floor: Ms. Carson had thrown it at her boyfriend 30 seconds earlier during an argument. What ever happened to people being responsible for their own actions?

 

Scratch, scratch, scratch.

 

Hang in there, there are only two more Stellas to go.

 

Second Place: Kara Walton, of Claymont, Delaware, sued the owner of a night club in a nearby city because she fell from the bathroom window to the floor, knocking out her two front teeth. Even though Ms. Walton was trying to sneak through the ladies room window to avoid paying the $3.50 cover charge, the jury said the night club had to pay her $12,000 ..oh, yeah, plus dental expenses. Go figure.

 

Finally, (may I have a fanfare played on 50 kazoos please) this year's runaway First Place Stella Award winner was Mrs. Merv Grazinski, of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, who purchased a new 32-foot Winnebago motor home. On her first trip home - from an OU football game, no less - having driven on to the freeway, she set the cruise control at 70 mph and calmly left the driver's seat to go to the back of the Winnebago to make herself a sandwich.

 

Don't look so incredulous. Remember, we're talking about Oklahoma here.

 

Not surprisingly, the motor home left the freeway, crashed and overturned. Also not surprisingly, Mrs. Grazinski sued Winnebago for not putting in the owner's manual that she couldn't actually leave the driver's seat while the cruise control was set. The Oklahoma jury awarded her - you are sitting down, right? - $1,750,000 PLUS a new motor home. Winnebago actually changed their manuals as a result of this suit, just in case Mrs. Grazinski has any relatives who might buy a motor home

 

Are we getting more stupid?

[Bill Hagan]

Always fun to reread those stell and darwin, etc., award lists, dlaing, but trust you know those are bogus:

 

http://www.snopes.com/legal/lawsuits.asp

 

Bill

[mike wilson]

60 mph = 88 ft./sec

 

Now this is just me, but considerably less than 88 ft. visibility at 60 mph would be an indicator of fairly heavy fog, rain, or snow, day or night, assuming decent, modern headlights on low beam. Having done a considerable heap o'driving (and a much smaller heap o' motorcycling) in such conditions (both with and without many different kinds o' fog lights on cars and various 4-wheel drive vehicles), I'd say that it may occur to reasonable, thinking drivers that 60 mph could be too fast f'er the conditions with this kind of visibility, depending on wot specific kind of weather, etc.

 

Just a thought.

 

 

I think you would be suprised how little you can see really ahead on dipped headlights. I would think that maybe 100ft would be a good set of lights and that does not take into account getting acclimatised, dazzle factor from oncoming traffic, differing road surfaces, etc, etc, etc.

 

Factor in bad weather and you will get less than that. Bear in mind also that you are looking at a hazard that is pretty nigh invisible, as it's only 1-2cm above the road surface and running right across. It could easily be mistaken for a change of material. The hazard also manifests on a road that may be substantially dry. It occurs after heavy, prolonged rain but obviously continues after the rain stops, until its source dries out.

 

Stopping (I know we don't want to stop in this instance) distance at 60mph? About 240ft, in good conditions, for a car. 60ft thinking distance alone. So you are almost on top of the hazard at best before you can even begin to brake, assuming you can do that as a first resort. Remembering that the ones who are losing the plot are "pressing on" around a curve and may not be in a position to immediately brake, it's not suprising that one or two lose control when hitting an essentially unseen hazard.

 

No doubt there are contributing factors from poor driver input after commencement of the incident. It would be interesting to know how many incidents occur that do not end up in collision with the sign.

 

None of the above changes the fact that this is an incident which is, at least partly, the fault of the local highway maintainer and the injurious outcome is, in my opinion, almost wholly the fault of the highway maintainer.

 

FWIW, I've seen a Mercedes coupe, a largish 4WD, a Citroen Saxa and a Nissan Micra piled into the sign.

[dlaing]

Always fun to reread those stell and darwin, etc., award lists, dlaing, but trust you know those are bogus:

 

http://www.snopes.com/legal/lawsuits.asp

 

Bill

Thank You, I did not bother to check the source, I got it in the mail only read the first award and immediately thought Ratchet would enjoy it.

What better Valentine's gift could I deliver to the RatchetMan?!?

It did not cross my mind that it was fake but it did cross my mind that they might withold evidence that women tripping over the toddler might have been pushed by an employee (accidentlily) or had to avoid a hazard like fork lift running through the store, or some reasonable explanation for the award.

 

Snopes' link to the McDonald's case is interesting

http://caoc.com/CA/index.cfm?event=showPage&pg=facts

They make it sound like McDonald's is negligent for serving coffee at 185 Degrees!!!

WTF!?!

In my home I serve my coffee to myself at 160F and could probably chug it at that temperature.

My wife likes it hotter so I heat her's to 170F, and she drinks it without letting it cool down.

When I am out of my home I often have to wait 5 or 10 and once in a while 20 minutes to drink a coffee because it is too hot.

Once in while I scald my lips or tongue by trying to drink too soon.

Common sense should be used when ordering coffee.

Maybe when it is that hot I should sue them

Sometimes I ask for an ice cube.

My understanding is that they serve it that hot so people can drive the coffee back to their co-workers and still serve it at a McHappy temperature.

But I guess that ain't gonna happen anymore.