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The day I accidentally killed a little boy

bbc.co.uk

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Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#221

Post by lolsal »

peatmoss wrote: post #122
lr4444lr wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's being downvoted because there is no reason to arrest the person. "They looked for skid marks on the road and took some measurements", and presumably they concluded there was no foul play.

Yeah, still not getting it. Wouldn’t normally a person be detained for questioning if they had just killed a person in some other context? Maybe arrest isn’t warranted—maybe a, “hey you look pretty shook up, would you mind coming down to the station with me to answer a few questions? Cool, I have to let you know before I get started that anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.” But I also…

Consider that she was detained for a little bit by the rookie police officer while they concluded their investigation. That seems all that was necessary since this was an accident. Believe it or not, it's not actually necessary to arrest and jail someone every time there is an accident like this.

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#222

Post by lolsal »

erik_landerholm wrote: post #53
corpMaverick wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How is it morally wrong?

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#223

Post by dm319 »

rdiddly wrote: post #207
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.

And all of you saying "same here" because your children are so precious, you all swore off driving cars, right? Because other people's children are precious?

I'm hoping one day we'll look back on car driving as something as horrendous as gladiatorial entertainment in Rome.

In the UK we have 1 child killed and 37 seriously injured every week.

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#224

Post by jacquesm »

somebodyfree wrote: post #197
christophilus wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a similar experience yesterday when my wife related a near-kidnapping that happened in a grocery store. It seems that a pair of child-traffickers attempted to take a baby out of a shopping cart. It was a male/female duo. (Side note: NEVER leave your children unattended even for a moment. In this case, the parent was right beside the cart, moving groceries from the cart to the conveyor belt. It was a brazen act…

This did not actually happen: http://reason.com/archives/2017/10/23/ye-olde-ikea-sex-traff...

Apologizing for the source, but sometimes it does happen:

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2123200/man-arrested-after-thr...

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#225

Post by xenophonf »

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).

I live out this way. These aren't local streets like in a city or suburb. It's very rural with houses spaced far apart. Speed limits are 45-55 MPH (70-90 KPH) depending on the road. See for yourself on Street View:

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.5080693,-84.689404,3a,75y,28...

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#226

Post by Pxtl »

alien_at_work wrote: post #219
PerfectElement wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here. I cringe when I see the common HN rhetoric that parents now a days are over-protective. Go say that to parents who lost a child and now live in regret. Kids are unpredictable. I remember being 7 years old and waiting with my mom to cross a busy street. For some reason that today is unknown to me, I decided to just run across the street as soon as the lights turned yellow. I almost got hit and my mom almost…

Being careful is fine and understandable but over-protective "helicoptor" parenting is bad for the kids: it destroys their self confidence. I know a helicoptor family where their youngest daughter couldn't properly walk down stairs until she was 12. She's already broke more bones than all my kids combined.

That's why our priorities are so backwards. We deprive our kids of the simple adventurousness of childhood, but at the same time we structure our lives in ways where speeding auto traffic is functionally unavoidable. That's like locking the liquor cabinet but not the cabinet where you keep the rat poison. Or like filing down the sharp edges on a hand grenade.

Children need to live in an environment where they can have adventures make mistakes and get hurt. Even badly injured. But not killed.

Cars kill.

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#227

Post by tlb »

gkya wrote: post #99
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.

While I upvoted you for the initial part of your comment, I do not support the autonomous car argument, as I can't see how an autonomous car can avoid an accident of the sort cited in the article, namely an object or a person darting in front of a vehicle moving with enough velocity to be unable to come to a stop immediately.

Human reaction time to unexpected events is at least 400 mS. Autonomous car reaction time can be as low as 40 mS. You can slow down a lot in those 360 mS (about 6 mph) which can turn a fatal accident into a moderate one.

The vast majority of accidents are due to sloppy, aggressive, or distracted driving, which autonomous vehicles will completely eliminate.

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#228

Post by BearGoesChirp »

baxtr wrote: post #185
BearGoesChirp wrote: post #155

All the people talking about being unable to handle/comprehend the death of their child, and especially the one line of conversations about the impact of losing one child when you have many more, made me think about something. For most of human history, losing some children was expected. Child mortality rates for most of our history have been abysmal. As species, what impact did that have on us? Child abuse has a lon…

My mother lost one of her siblings (a small boy of 4) 65 years ago. She still talks about it and becomes very sad. I think life was just much much crueler and a lot lot worse than it is today.

65 years ago is after the change happened. Part of the problem is I'm talking so long ago that everyone who only knew that reality. Maybe we could look at some place overall isolated from the rest of the world where child mortality throughout the society is similar to centuries ago, but with globalization I'm not sure that is possible because even in places where it is extremely high now, the local wealthy would have access to ways to lower it and in many places the child mortality rate hasn't been sustained at that level (if you look at the child mortality rates in Yemen, the levels is something new caused by the war).

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#229

Post by dm319 »

cozzyd wrote: post #213
notacoward wrote: post #180

Mailboxes on the opposite side of a street with a 45-50mph speed limit? STUPID. I feel terrible for both the victim and the author, in part because tragedies like this are avoidable . This particular scenario seems pretty egregious, but even the typical line of cars parked along the side of the road - obscuring view of the sidewalk and giving pedestrians a false sense of security - is provably bad for safety. If you…

Indeed the civil engineer who allowed such an egregious speed limit is at fault here.

Speed limits are not speed targets.

In the UK most b-roads are 'national' speed limit (i.e. 60mph or 70mph). It is expected that the driver selects the appropriate speed for the conditions, visibility, road etc etc.

Of course, we're humans, which means errors are made, people are impatient, we don't balance risk very well etc etc.

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#230

Post by sulam »

Mithaldu wrote: post #211
usuallymatt wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same for me. I read stuff like this and always picture it happening to my kids. It somehow makes it worse in this instance that it's a complete accident that no one could have done anything to prevent it. I'm much more sensitive and squeamish since having kids.

There's plenty that could've been done to prevent this. Most basic and simple would be to institute a traffic law culture in which the driver does get blame by default for hurting a pedestrian so they have pedestrians on their mind every single minute they control their car.

What the hell? Did you read the story? This woman should be blamed for what was completely unpredictable? Do you realize she would be in prison for vehicular manslaughter?

How about not having a 40 or 50 mph speed limit on a residential street?

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