Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The day I accidentally killed a little boy

bbc.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 683 posts

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#51

Post by nxc18 »

thriftwy wrote: post #35
erik_landerholm wrote: post #30

I have 4 boys under the age of 12. I would say I think about one of them dying (accident, sickness, murder...so many ways it can happen...) multiple times a day. I know that sounds morbid, and it probably is, but my brain does it on its own...not a lot of control over it. Nothing on earth scares me more than the idea of having to go on living without one of them. Having 4 increases my odds that I might have to. It te…

On the other hand, having more of them decreases your odds that you will face losing all of them. Imagine how parents live who had just one child, who died.

There have been studies on this. Your life (well, chance at ever being happy again) is effectively ruined by the death of one child, regardless of how many you have.

You never stop loving or missing the one that died.

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#52

Post by dmitripopov »

thriftwy wrote: post #35
erik_landerholm wrote: post #30

I have 4 boys under the age of 12. I would say I think about one of them dying (accident, sickness, murder...so many ways it can happen...) multiple times a day. I know that sounds morbid, and it probably is, but my brain does it on its own...not a lot of control over it. Nothing on earth scares me more than the idea of having to go on living without one of them. Having 4 increases my odds that I might have to. It te…

On the other hand, having more of them decreases your odds that you will face losing all of them. Imagine how parents live who had just one child, who died.

It does not work in mathematical way. You lose one and your life is broken forever.

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#53

Post by erik_landerholm »

corpMaverick wrote: post #45
dudul wrote: post #25

"The lead officer came and told me that they were not arresting me - there was no indication that I was negligent or distracted or impaired in any way - but he gave me a little lecture saying, "This child died, that's a terrible thing, you need to make sure that you never do this again."" Was I the only one shocked by this? I mean, a little kid died and she's not arrested at least to conduct an investigation? How did…

Clearly who was mainly worried about her mental health knowing how hard it can be. > you need to make sure that you never do this again Just a stupid sentence that came out not knowing what to say.

It’s not stupid it’s a morally wrong thing to say and very mean. She was what, 19? He obviously knew it was an accident (why did he let her go? He obviously thought it was an accident, probably unavoidable), more the little boys fault (if you have to blame someone) than her’s..what a jerk-off.

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#54

Post by rodolphoarruda »

CodeCube wrote: post #19
Pigo wrote: post #7

I can barely bring myself to read stories like this now. I never really thought about it before my son was born, but there's always this dread you live with in the back of your mind. This little helpless person has your life in it's hands. The world and fate is trying to take them out, and if they succeed you'd never recover. You can learn to live with pain, but I don't believe you ever get over something like that.

same ... I can't watch movies and tv shows (cop dramas and such) in which a child is victimized. When such an episode comes on, I just get really uncomfortable, and nope out to do something else.

Same here. Father of two. I tried to watch Schindler's List during the holidays but I couldn't... some scenes are just unbearable for a parent to see.

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#55

Post by UncleEntity »

dudul wrote: post #25

"The lead officer came and told me that they were not arresting me - there was no indication that I was negligent or distracted or impaired in any way - but he gave me a little lecture saying, "This child died, that's a terrible thing, you need to make sure that you never do this again."" Was I the only one shocked by this? I mean, a little kid died and she's not arrested at least to conduct an investigation? How did…

> Was I the only one shocked by this?

I think anyone who was actually alive in a time when it was possible for an accident to occur and people didn't automatically look for someone to blame aren't shocked. I'm a lot more shocked by what happens today.

You know, back when the police's job was to 'protect and serve'.

I think half the stuff my parents did to us kids in the '70s would lead to them being arrested today...

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#56

Post by thr0waway2a7 »

My wife was involved in a similar accident except the victim was an elderly lady. My wife was driving very carefully, not speeding etc.

One of the things that I observed whilst we endured the aftermath is the lack of support for people in this situation and what a taboo there is around it. It felt as if there was no 'right' to sympathy or support due to the asymmetry of experience for those involved. It's even difficult to find the right language without it being pejorative. 'Hit and killed' implies some kind of intent or that there was some kind of choice.

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#57

Post by bryanlarsen »

DarronWyke wrote: post #39
weavie wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you expound on how the culture and mindset is different? I can imagine what it would be, but don't want to just jump to stereotypes..

Not the OP, but my take on it would be that every State is different from each other, and even within the State there's differences. Take a look at where I live, Texas. Dallas will be different than Austin which will be different than Houston. Any metropolitan area, even within the same borders, will have different culture and mindset than another. Compare that to another State and the divide only widens. Most countr…

Stockholm and Lapland have significantly different cultures, infrastructure requirements, populations et cetera. We can argue which has the bigger difference, but we should be able to agree that the differences are similar in kind.

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#58

Post by gambiting »

nxc18 wrote: post #40
gambiting wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm hoping that pedestrian collisions will be reduced to nearly zero thanks to the rise of autonomous braking(don't they have to be installed in every new car by 2020?), long before anything reassembling self-driving cars is available. My own car has already given me a solid scare when a toy ball rolled onto the road from in between the parked cars and my car has stopped before I could even react - surely enough, the…

What kind of car do you have? I got a new Toyota Corolla (lease, fortunately) with autonomous braking, but it seems to be a “slow down by 5mph pre-collision” sort of system rather than an “avoid the collision” sort of system. Seeing the Subaru system in action gives me faith, but you pay the premium.

Mercedes-Benz GLA - it does stop down to zero, at least at lower speeds. This video shows how it works:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hndlXz844No

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#59

Post by epitrochoidal »

dudul wrote: post #37
dsego wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What investigation? They measured the tire tracks. Unless there was an eyewitness, there is nothing else to do.

I guess. I'm just baffled picturing the scene. This young woman just killed a little boy and the cop is basically saying "ok, well, he's dead, just be careful next time. Ok, have a safe trip home, bye". You're right, without witnesses what can you do? But I would imagine a procedure a little more involved when somebody kills a child.

The procedure later, away from the accident scene, probably was more involved, but at the scene, unless there was evidence of negligence or bed intent I wouldn't expect an arrest. She didn't flee. Apparently didn't appear impaired. What would they possibly arrest her for?

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#60

Post by peatmoss »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #29
oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #3

You have to feel terribly sad for everyone involved here. The only place the blame can rest is humanity's desire to mix very fast, solid vehicles with very slow, squishy pedestrians in the same spaces. We're way too far down that rabbit-hole to address it, but hopefully self-driving cars (and less polluting cars, too) will start to reverse the damage done by the automobile, in the not-too distant future.

> but hopefully self-driving cars Think more boldly: public transportation.

The OG self-driving tech. Side benefit, you get more than small marginal, theoretical gains in terms of the numbers of people who can be transported, especially at peak demand times!
Post reply on HN