http://www.courier-gazette.com/artic...e/news/236.txt

Feel sorry for the family of the deceased. He was just doing his job.

-danny

 

Yeah, I posted about this story in another section. Was sad to hear about it this morning. Then thought to myself this is exactly what the general public people think about Mustang owners. Most of the time they barely, if ever point out the cars that are in the story. This time it was in the headline.


In other news, on my way to work, on I-30 I saw a Stratus coupe had launched its self off of a guard rail, pinwheeled and wedged its self between two pillars of an overpass. Never heard anything about that on the news other than I-30 is slow through Arlington.

 

How do you NOT see a street-sweeper?!

Edit: Apparently the sweeper turned left across their lanes, apparently not realizing how fast they were going.

Use your heads, folks. And NOT as battering-rams!

 

Regardless, THIS is why these forums don't condone posts bragging about street racing. And neither do I.

Dumbasses. Get on the track and vent there.

/Condolences to the street sweeper crew's families.
//Forget those jerk racers. They survived.
///Hope they're charged good and correctly... and I don't get picked for jury duty.

 

ouch!! now thats gonna stay stuck in their heads for as long as they live. their street racing antics cost an innocent man his life.

 

found a video!

http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2011/03/14/1...treet-sweeper/

 

People have a tough time judging speeds, you'd think even in a place like Germany they would have a handle on it, but people making lane changes and being unable to judge how fast the approaching vehicle is coming is cause for alot of accidents there, and thats even guessing that the driver of the street sweeper was even aware of the other cars. The driver could have just as easily been fiddling with the radio or texting or any other number of things.

I'm not saying the guys street racing should be let off the hook and certainly deserve what they get (what the driver of the street sweeper was doing is completely irrelavent - he could have been stoned out of his mind booming the radio past 13 on the dial and glued to some **** beamed in on his smart phone), but you just can't stop at "they were racing and that is all that needs to be asked since its pretty much been shown that any individual under the age of 25 is especially susceptible to making poor judgements and even (says this as I throw the last mirror in the house out ) even some older than that depending on thier personality.

My younger brother is a very good example of the latter, by dint of his personality type it doesn't even occur to him what the ramifications of his actions are, if he feels like he can accomplish it he will do it and if something bad happens, it was the other guys fault not his.

Anyways, the thing that needs to be reinforced is; be aware of your environment becaue you just might be in the same situation as the street sweeper some day, no amount of law enforcement (you could even publicly execute those drivers on the spot making sure the bullet plainly exits thier head and thier brains coat the camera) or anti-speed campaigns will prevent this.

 

Easy Stan, I dont think it was Martin Sugar driving one of those Mustangs.

 

You can't be serious. If I see lights from cars in the distance and know that based on the speed limit I would have sufficient amount of time to proceed forward, how in the heck could it possibly be my fault if idiots are racing? Stop making excuses for the idiots that were racing. I'm sure that if it was a family member of yours that died you wouldn't have made the statements above. At least for your family members I would hope not.

 

At first, I was gonna be almightily hacked off by your insolence... but then I found what you reference. Heh.

And right on, adrenalin. Right on.

/stopped watching TV a few months ago, mostly.
//Just movies now.
///News and such is interwebs!

 

What he said.

Most people really are pretty terrible at judging distance and speed. Pulling out in front of someone and just assuming they're going the speed limit isn't a good plan. It sucks that the guy died, and of course we wouldn't be saying this same thing if he was a family member...but he wasn't. They shouldn't have been street racing...but it happens, and it happens a lot. I'm sorry for the guy's family, but it's unfortunate for all parties involved.

 

Well put...crap happens its terrible for those poor kids sitting in jail, and the family members of the deceased/injured. But bottom line is 9/10 people with fast cars have light up a speed sign... all I can safe is use your head, be safe, wear your seat belt

 

What if you were distracted (or worse) and failed to see the oncoming cars and just pulled out, that somehow makes you any less culpable for your actions because they were racing? Worse behavior still doesn't excuse bad behavior.

However, your reply underscores a basic problem with drivers, you would indeed pull out into the street irregardless of whatever speed the oncoming cars were approaching at. Even though they were doing something illegal, physics wont bow to your poor judgement.

I'm not making excuses, but just stopping at "they were racing and thats all that needs to be said" is only looking at half the problem, even at legal speeds and in ordinary operation the same situation occurs or have you never had some knucklehead pull out onto the highway in front of you at a considerably lower speed forcing you to slam on the brakes in order to avoid a high speed collision? I see the results of that on a regular basis when hitting the brakes isn't enough.

I'm not in the habit of excusing my family members for making bad judgements when I know they've made them.

But if you must know (I'm sure somewhere I've mentioned this before), yeah I've had someone very dear to me killed in a car accident, she wasn't wearing her seatbelt when the car crashed, she was ejected and bounced head first off of the pavement, the impact was severe enough that it pretty much liquified her brain. She was a passenger, the driver was fooling around with a high performance car at a high rate of speed.

As much as I would like to blame the driver for the entirety of her death because the driver was speeding, the fact remains, she wasn't wearing her seatbelt, so I cant - again worse behavior doesn't excuse bad behavior.

You guys can just stop at street racing is bad and they need to be punished and thats all there is to be said about that, but I rarely find things so simple that other questions dont need to be asked and additional solutions sought.

 

A few years ago I was making a left into a 25mph zone in the rain, slightly uphill. Usually I'm okay at judging speed, but this guy was apparently going 40+ so I had to hit the gas harder than I wanted to which immediately spun me around and put me off the road. Guess what? The other drivers looked at me as if I was at fault. I got flipped off, glared at, and honked at for trying to avoid an accident. I can only imagine that I would have been at fault if an accident had happened although the other driver was clearly speeding. Stupidity isn't punished as often as it should be.