🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <35a26105.4394501@news.okc.oklahoma.net>,
   in@the.sig (E. Faubion) wrote:
>Dennis.Jensen@dwt.csiro.au (Dennis Jensen) wrote:
>
>>Earl, I have also heard of a number of people who have dies in their sleep 
who 
>>were not moving at all. Yes, people were kileed, and it is tragic. But to 
say 
>>people are killing themselves, and it is due to lead footed drivers, when 
the 
>>statistics indicate otherwise is deluding yourself.
>
>You can continue believing your bias influenced interpretation of the
>stats.  I'll go on believing the documented physical evidence.  
>
>>Absolutely not. However, it seems to me that when you talk of safety 
measures, 
>>you are talking of safety measure (singular), that of speeding?
>
>On the contrary.   My job is to determine the cause of a crash.  If
>speeding is involved I'd be remiss to bury the evidence just because
>it offends someone.
>
>>One factor that has intrigued me is that of people blacking out behind the 
>>wheel. I have a question that I would like you to answer honestly, Earl. An 
>>acquaintance blacked out behind the wheel about 2 months ago. He was 
>>travelling in an 80km/h (50mph) zone , and went straight ahed on the corner, 
>>and hit a power pole. Car was totalled, he got broken ribs. Now, we know 
that 
>>he blacked out prior to the crash because he stated that. However, what 
would 
>>you, as an accident investigator, have ascribed the crash to had he been 
>>killed? 
>
>You didn't give enough information to make that judgement however in
>this case there should be an absence of marks on the roadway
>indicating driver input.
>

But Earl, in that case, what would you attribute a crash to where the driver 
used threshold braking, but still crashed and killed him/herself?

>>In all honesty, I am sure that you will agree that the speed box would 
>>have been one of those ticked, despite the fact that speed per se had 
nothing 
>>to do with the cause of the accident. 
>
>No.  As I wrote above, there isn't enough information to make that
>judgement.   If I was retained by an attorney to look at this case and
>was given no more information than you've given I'd hand it right back
>to him.   
>
>>The reason for the concern is that this is not the first instance I have 
heard 
>>of.
>
>I've investigated many collisions where the driver was incapacitated
>in some way prior to crash and the medical problem is listed as the
>cause of the crash.  If someone has a fatal heart attack while driving
>(it happens more often than you may think) and crashes, the death is
>not counted as a traffic fatality.
>

Huh, I don't get it. The person was in a car, if they hadn't been, they 
probably wouldn't have died, right? It is like you saying if the person didn't 
speed, they wouldn't have died? Also, what about other victims, are they 
listed a traffic fatalities? Something is somewhat amiss here.

>>How much research is being done on this? Nope, it is 
>>obviously all to do with speed;)
>
>Jumping to conclusions before hearing the other side is a fatal
>mistake in my business. :=]
>
>>Fatalities up, fatality RATE down. Now which do you believe is the real 
>>indicator of road safety?
>
>The thousands being killed every year, the millions being injured
>every year, the billions of dollars it costs every year.
>

Earl, if you have a country where you have 200 cars, and they drive an average 
of 1000mile pa, and 100 people are killed in car crashes, or you have a 
country with 1 million cars, where people drive 10 000miles pa, and there are 
150 fatalities pa, which countries roads would you prefer to drive? I would 
prefer the second, despite the increased fatalities (but vastly lesser 
fatality RATE). 

Dennis