Of course a scatterbrained driver can kill potentially fewer people than a scatterbrained air traffic controller.
What about a scatterbrained driver who causes the driver of a blasting explosives delivery truck to swerve into the control tower of a busy airport, leading to a number of airliners falling out of the sky, each one plunging onto a packed football stadium?
Not really newsworthy compared to the 9 pedestrians killed by cyclists over the last four year. Maintain a sense of proportion, please!
>You're suggesting that practically *no* "accident" is actually an >accident, but the result of negligence - or just "accidents" >involving a motor vehicle?
Quoted message said:
Yes, that's what I'm basically suggesting.
There is a note inside the police driver's manual 'Roadcraft':
"After this book went to press, The Association of Chief Police Officers made a formal decision to stop using the word accident to describe a road traffic accident (RTA) involving injury and/or damage. This decision was prompted by the Transport Research Laboratory findings indicating human error as a cause of 95 per cent of such incidents".
I thought they said a third were caused by speeding ;-)
/All/ of which are human error. The car doesn't speed by itself.
/All/ of which are human error. The car doesn't speed by itself.
Our car is trying to - the throttle/accelerator cable gets stuck two-thirds of the way down sometimes.... Though it probably is human error to keep believing that some WD40 and oil fixes it while it only works for a short while and we should really get it to a garage!
"After this book went to press, The Association of Chief Police Officers made a formal decision to stop using the word accident to describe a road traffic accident (RTA) involving injury and/or damage. This decision was prompted by the Transport Research Laboratory findings indicating human error as a cause of 95 per cent of such incidents".
IIRC 90% of air accidents are caused by human error. And these are people who have a strong vested interest in not having an accident.
-- Tony
"The best way I know of to win an argument is to start by being in the right." - Lord Hailsham
If you drive with 'due care and attention' (as airline pilots fly), then your chances of having a crash in your lifetime are virtually non-existent.
I am not convinced by that. There are some conditions where, even proceeding cautiously, can lead to a chain of events that is forseeable but subsequently unavoidable crash. And there are the occasions where wild animals collide with the vehicle in which you are travelling (it has only happened to me 3 times - 1 deer, 1 pheasant, one mountain hare - the makings of a good pie!)
If you drive with 'due care and attention' (as airline pilots fly), then your chances of having a crash in your lifetime are virtually non-existent.
Quoted message said:
I am not convinced by that. There are some conditions where, even proceeding cautiously, can lead to a chain of events that is forseeable but subsequently unavoidable crash.
Furthermore, ISTM it needs to assume that everyone /else/ is driving with the same DC&A as well. If I proceed /incredibly/ cautiously up to a blind bend and some loon thunders round it on my side of the road within their possible stopping distance then we'll have a prang.
Pete. -- Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK net [email hidden] http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/
If you drive with 'due care and attention' (as airline pilots fly), then your chances of having a crash in your lifetime are virtually non-existent.
Quoted message said:
I am not convinced by that. There are some conditions where, even proceeding cautiously, can lead to a chain of events that is forseeable but subsequently unavoidable crash.
Furthermore, ISTM it needs to assume that everyone /else/ is driving with the same DC&A as well. If I proceed /incredibly/ cautiously up to a blind bend and some loon thunders round it on my side of the road within their possible stopping distance then we'll have a prang.
And, for example, that the other guy's spanner-wielder has also been doing his job properly. I do not, for example, think any blame whatsover can be attached to the driver of a motorcar I once saw struck by a large - truck / bus size - wheel which impacted his motorcar smack in the middle of the bonnet, having flown over the wall separating the entrance to the Hyde Park Corner underpass from the eastbound slip road. It is mot the simplest matter to look out for an approaching hazard which is arriving from both above and behind simultaneously.
However, such incidents are a comparative rarity in comparsion with those directly attributable to numptyism.
And, for example, that the other guy's spanner-wielder has also been doing his job properly. I do not, for example, think any blame whatsover can be attached to the driver of a motorcar I once saw struck by a large - truck / bus size - wheel which impacted his motorcar smack in the middle of the bonnet, having flown over the wall separating the entrance to the Hyde Park Corner underpass from the eastbound slip road. It is mot the simplest matter to look out for an approaching hazard which is arriving from both above and behind simultaneously.
I was at the scene of a similar incident. Two lanes of traffic in each direction. Car coming one way accelerates and loses the rear wheel, literally. This puts a decent sized dent in the front of a 1 week old jaguar, bounces onto the pavement (where I had to step smartly to one side to avoid it - too smart to try and catch it), hits a wall, and goes back into the road, colliding with a sierra and making it's presence felt. Not a lot one can do to avoid that except to avoid the numpty garages.
And, for example, that the other guy's spanner-wielder has also been doing his job properly. I do not, for example, think any blame whatsover can be attached to the driver of a motorcar I once saw struck by a large - truck / bus size - wheel which impacted his motorcar smack in the middle of the bonnet, having flown over the wall separating the entrance to the Hyde Park Corner underpass from the eastbound slip road. It is mot the simplest matter to look out for an approaching hazard which is arriving from both above and behind simultaneously.
I was at the scene of a similar incident. Two lanes of traffic in each direction. Car coming one way accelerates and loses the rear wheel, literally. This puts a decent sized dent in the front of a 1 week old jaguar, bounces onto the pavement (where I had to step smartly to one side to avoid it - too smart to try and catch it), hits a wall, and goes back into the road, colliding with a sierra and making it's presence felt. Not a lot one can do to avoid that except to avoid the numpty garages.
Someone I used to work with had his Peugeot 205 written off when a wheel (and hub) came off a car going around the M25 in the opposite direction and bounced over the central reservation, on one of those rare occasions when M25 traffic was going 70mph both ways. Crumpled the windscreen pillar and driver side door, another foot to his left and it would probably have killed him.
I was at the scene of a similar incident. Two lanes of traffic in each direction. Car coming one way accelerates and loses the rear wheel, literally. This puts a decent sized dent in the front of a 1 week old jaguar, bounces onto the pavement (where I had to step smartly to one side to avoid it - too smart to try and catch it), hits a wall, and goes back into the road, colliding with a sierra and making it's presence felt. Not a lot one can do to avoid that except to avoid the numpty garages.
Someone I used to work with had his Peugeot 205 written off when a wheel (and hub) came off a car going around the M25 in the opposite direction and bounced over the central reservation, on one of those rare occasions when M25 traffic was going 70mph both ways. Crumpled the windscreen pillar and driver side door, another foot to his left and it would probably have killed him.
Luckily, as you said, rare.
I'd have to sheepishly admit that the wheel of my car came off at 40mph causing almost no damage to anything except the verge and my wallet, thankfully. Since then, I've discovered spare wheelnuts stored in my car, so I suspect that given that the hub seemed crossthreaded when I was tightening the nuts, I was not the first to suffer from losing wheelnuts in that car (I'd had it 3000 miles at the time, and replaced the brake discs almost as soon as I got it.) However, I was deeply stupid not to check the wheelnuts when trying to figure out what the vibration had been for the 150 miles previously.
Fortunately, the wheel ended up between the barriers in the central reservation, and hurt no one.
And, for example, that the other guy's spanner-wielder has also been doing his job properly. I do not, for example, think any blame whatsover can be attached to the driver of a motorcar I once saw struck by a large - truck / bus size - wheel which impacted his motorcar smack in the middle of the bonnet, having flown over the wall separating the entrance to the Hyde Park Corner underpass from the eastbound slip road. It is mot the simplest matter to look out for an approaching hazard which is arriving from both above and behind simultaneously.
When I cycled LEJOG many years ago we were approaching Inverness three in a line one behind another with me at the back. I noticed a large thing shoot in front of me and narrowly miss the rider in the middle. A fraction of a second later I saw another go in front of him an miss the front rider.
Then the articulated lorry that was passing us shed it near side rear wheel from the trailer which missed the front rider by what looked like inches, went up the bank then back down and across the road and down into the valley (It went miles I've often wondered if they retrieved it or just got a new one). Followed shortly by the other wheel off that axle stub. The things that had been flying between us were evidently the wheel nuts.
We continued on for a bit passing the lorry that had eventually stopped. When we stopped after about ten minutes for breakfast it then dawned on us exactly how close we had come to being mince meat. Even being hit by one of the nuts would have been very nasty.
The lorry was from a clothes shop and we did consider going back and asking if he had any clean underpants.
In article <[email hidden]>, Alan Braggins ([email hidden]) wrote:
[Wheel-o-BLEAN]
I once had to take violent evasive action in my motorcar, when the under-car spare wheel carrier of some ancient French heap finally gave in to the Rust Monster and deposited said wheel in the centre of the northbound A1. Which was alarming.
And earlier this year I had to make an unscheduled take-off through a red traffic light when a rear wheel came off a low-flying police Astra and started heading in my direction. Which was /very/ alarming, as it was being followed by the Astra, which was umop-ap!sdn and thus, it may reasonably be assumed, not under the full control of the driver.
And, for example, that the other guy's spanner-wielder has also been doing his job properly. I do not, for example, think any blame whatsover can be attached to the driver of a motorcar I once saw struck by a large - truck / bus size - wheel which impacted his motorcar smack in the middle of the bonnet, having flown over the wall separating the entrance to the Hyde Park Corner underpass from the eastbound slip road. It is mot the simplest matter to look out for an approaching hazard which is arriving from both above and behind simultaneously.
I was at the scene of a similar incident. Two lanes of traffic in each direction. Car coming one way accelerates and loses the rear wheel, literally. This puts a decent sized dent in the front of a 1 week old jaguar, bounces onto the pavement (where I had to step smartly to one side to avoid it - too smart to try and catch it), hits a wall, and goes back into the road, colliding with a sierra and making it's presence felt. Not a lot one can do to avoid that except to avoid the numpty garages.
Someone I used to work with had his Peugeot 205 written off when a wheel (and hub) came off a car going around the M25 in the opposite direction and bounced over the central reservation, on one of those rare occasions when M25 traffic was going 70mph both ways. Crumpled the windscreen pillar and driver side door, another foot to his left and it would probably have killed him.
Similarly, a friend was driving on the M2 when four brand new large television sets (still in their boxes) fell off a truck and bounced on the carriageway, one bouncing off the bonnet of her car denting it very badly. Very frightening indeed but not necessarily an accident. It's highly probable that all these incidents were down to human error. It does occasionally happen that something just breaks without warning, as in the case I cited up thread. However it's likely in most of these 'wheel came off' incidents that someone simply forgot to tighten the wheelnuts, or to put the split pin through a crown nut; or, in the television incident, failed to properly latch the back door of the truck.
Real accidents are /very/ rare.
-- [email hidden] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/ Ring of great evil Small one casts it into flame Bringing rise of Men ;; gonzoron
