🚀 go-pugleaf

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.

>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.

>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.


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