The day I accidentally killed a little boy • Hacker News Board

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#111

Post by maxerickson » Tue, Jan 09, 2018, 3:25 PM UTC

sathis wrote: post #82

maxerickson wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was involved in a collision where the other driver crossed into my lane in front of me, so I hit the passenger side of the car. I incorrectly swerved towards the oncoming lane, so I hit the back of the vehicle. My vehicle was immobile and landed on the opposing shoulder, the oncoming vehicle ended up in the ditch on the side of the road I had been driving on. The mother of the other driver was in the front passenge…

Glad or sad?

Glad. I wasn't the cause of the collision but I responded to it incorrectly, in a way that made it much less likely for 2 people to die.

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#112

Post by chickenfries » Tue, Jan 09, 2018, 3:25 PM UTC

phkahler wrote: post #77

Xeoncross wrote: post #50

Such a sad story. > "The voice said in this very biblical, Old Testament, angry way" Is this what people consider "biblical"? An angry person? I've spent years reading the Pentateuch, writings, and new testament and I don't see this voice (I assume she means "God") as angry at all. Quite the opposite actually, as the narrative is [to the Jews] about God restoring them despite their rebellion and sin and [to the Chris…

>> Is this what people consider "biblical"? An angry person? I've spent years reading the Pentateuch, writings, and new testament... No, it's the old testament god. The one who punished Adam and Eve, the one who decided humanity was such a disgrace he flooded the world to purge them - that angry god.

Or the one who destroyed Job's life to win a bet with Satan. Or cursed the people of Babel. Or summarily executed all of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#113

Post by 0xfeba » Tue, Jan 09, 2018, 3:26 PM UTC

bryanlarsen wrote: post #6

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.

"We're way too far down that rabbit-hole to address it" That's BS. Sweden has essentially zero pedestrian fatalities annually, and its overall traffic fatality rate is well under a quarter that of the US. There are two main components: reducing speed limits and spending money on infrastructure. Both of these are anathema in the US, but the refusal to do so is borderline criminal, IMO. http://www.visionzeroinitiative.…

And way more intensive driver training, car inspections, etc.

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#114

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jan 09, 2018, 3:26 PM UTC

sathis wrote: post #82

maxerickson wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was involved in a collision where the other driver crossed into my lane in front of me, so I hit the passenger side of the car. I incorrectly swerved towards the oncoming lane, so I hit the back of the vehicle. My vehicle was immobile and landed on the opposing shoulder, the oncoming vehicle ended up in the ditch on the side of the road I had been driving on. The mother of the other driver was in the front passenge…

Glad or sad?

[deleted]

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#115

Post by jwineinger » Tue, Jan 09, 2018, 3:26 PM UTC

chris_7 wrote: post #75

If someone fires a gun randomly down the street, not aiming at anyone, but happens to hit someone, they'd certainly be arrested. Drive a multi-thousand-pound projectile down the street, kill someone, and it's just an "accident". The default needs to move to charging every driver involved in a fatal crash with manslaughter. Currently the police won't even perform basic investigative work that would make any charge pos…

They're hardly the same. A vehicle moving on a road is using that space exactly for its intended, accepted, and lawful purpose. A bullet moving through the air in a populated area is not.

Accidents do happen; you can't make the world perfect because it is full of imperfect and sometimes irrational (like a 4 year old) people. Personally, I drive extra slow in residential areas just so I can hopefully prevent something like this from happening to someone's child.

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#116

Post by fernandopj » Tue, Jan 09, 2018, 3:28 PM UTC

As someone who is not a parent, and reading these comments from fathers on how unbearable must be to lose a child (even the thought of it), brought me back to a story which taught me to feel, years ago, to try understand what losing a child does to a person. It was the game Heavy Rain. It is a big part of the narrative to put you on the father's shoes, to lose a child and dive down to a limbo, how your life basically just ends, emotionally. Of course, just a videogame, but that's what good fiction does, it puts you at a characther's shoes and makes you feel and think really hard about a situation unfamiliar to you.

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#117

Post by mattlondon » Tue, Jan 09, 2018, 3:28 PM UTC

bryanlarsen wrote: post #6

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.

"We're way too far down that rabbit-hole to address it" That's BS. Sweden has essentially zero pedestrian fatalities annually, and its overall traffic fatality rate is well under a quarter that of the US. There are two main components: reducing speed limits and spending money on infrastructure. Both of these are anathema in the US, but the refusal to do so is borderline criminal, IMO. http://www.visionzeroinitiative.…

+1

This seems to be a common excuse from people in the US "Oh yeah - well - of course you could do in such a small place - the US is just too big for to happen!"

I looked up some stats for the inevitable "But the US is bigger than that! We simply cannot solve this problem!" replies. The EU is pretty big too, but the fatality rate is half of that in the US despite being of comparable land-area.

US road fatalities per 1m population in 2013: 104 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_i...) EU road fatalities per 1m population in 2013: 51 (http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/...)

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#118

Post by cobbzilla » Tue, Jan 09, 2018, 3:28 PM UTC

peatmoss wrote: post #47

bryanlarsen wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We're way too far down that rabbit-hole to address it" That's BS. Sweden has essentially zero pedestrian fatalities annually, and its overall traffic fatality rate is well under a quarter that of the US. There are two main components: reducing speed limits and spending money on infrastructure. Both of these are anathema in the US, but the refusal to do so is borderline criminal, IMO. http://www.visionzeroinitiative.…

Reducing speed limits and designing roadways to discourage high speeds. But yeah, I like to measure annual traffic fatalities in 9/11s. Here in the US, we typically do >10 of them per year. We toppled the governments of two countries, created a whole new department of our federal government, and continue to advance prosthetics at a breakneck pace to fix the men and women we send to be disfigured overseas as a respons…

Maybe if all the traffic fatalities occurred on the same day each year it would be a more apt comparison. I bet you'd see some political will power then.

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#119

Post by lr4444lr » Tue, Jan 09, 2018, 3:29 PM UTC

chris_7 wrote: post #69

nkrisc wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what procedure are you imagining, exactly? Grilling her until she confesses to something? There was no indication of any crime, just a tragic accident.

http://crashnotaccident.com

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concurrence

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#120

Post by usaar333 » Tue, Jan 09, 2018, 3:29 PM UTC

chris_7 wrote: post #68

epitrochoidal wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

If you're driving fast enough on a local street that you can hit and kill someone, you're incredibly negligent (see: all NYC taxi drivers).

Did you read the article? It was a rural road with a high speed limit.. very common in many parts of the world.

Engineers assumed people wouldn't run into the middle of the street without looking.