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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

#531

Post by ptaipale »

CalRobert wrote: post #347
rdiddly wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Umm, pretty much. Sold my car, moved to Europe, commute by bike. I do rent a car now and then when it can't be avoided and in those scenarios I drive with extreme caution. The US has a 9/11 every month on the roads and almost nobody there gives a shit. I never understood it.

It's not at all a 9/11 because not very many of traffic accidents are intentional homicide.

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#532

Post by Doctor_Fegg »

thomastjeffery wrote: post #486
Theodores wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a glancing blow at 70 mph with a car doing a similar speed coming the other way. I was in the last mile of a cross country drive and was thinking of getting to the pub. It was the bit of road I knew best. I drove a couple of times after that, but the screaming kids in the back of the other car was enough for me. Now I cycle everywhere. Or get the train. I was not prosecuted or anything but I didn't want to almo…

Not to tell you your reaction is wrong, but it's important to remember that cycling is generally more dangerous, and that while you aren't taking action dangerous to those around you, you are likely taking action that makes everyone around you dangerous to you yourself. Even so, cycling is wonderful. I certainly recommend it.

> cycling is generally more dangerous

Out of interest, do you have a citation for that in European countries?

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#533

Post by labster »

mulmen wrote: post #494
jablan wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The likelihood of death is proportional to speed [1], and the speed is lower in the urban cores. The math is super simple, and let's stop trying to justify bad urbanistic (essentially, political) decisions blaming it on the bad fate instead. [1] http://www.copenhagenize.com/2012/11/the-85th-percentile-fol...

Even if your claim is true it's still not the point of the article.

The point of the article is wrong, though. Anyone could have done it. All of us drivers could have killed Brian. We just weren't the unlucky ones. But it is not just the author's fault, it is all of our faults.

The road system is designed with inherent danger. The street she was driving had a high speed limit with children near the road. If we design better systems, then no one has to live with needless guilt. And, even better, less people die.

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#534

Post by dsnuh »

5ilv3r wrote: post #529
PhasmaFelis wrote: post #505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 2. Don't post pictures of your kid all the time on social media. No one really cares. Sorry. Send those pictures to your parents or friends directly. For many people, social media is how you send things to parents and friends. It's more straightforward than managing an email list, and needn't be any less real a connection. I don't deny that ubiquitous social media is deforming our interactions, but I think a lot of…

Facebook is notorious for making those connections impossible when they are truly needed most. It's a marketing tool with aggressive filtering, not a family message board.

Agreed. I wish that I could get my family and close friends to join a Mattermost server I host, but so far, FB has a stranglehold on everyone it seems.

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#535

Post by mattsmith321 »

leonroy wrote: post #389
parasubvert wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that kind of paranoia productive? Especially considering we are at historically low crime rates. A very young child needs supervision and precautions to prevent them from hurting themselves, as this article sadly shows, and even then, its blind bad luck sometimes. But otherwise I can’t think any of my family (two young kids, 1 year and 8 years) or friends (many kids of various ages) being super cautious about thei…

Excellent points. There was an article where the author interviewed a bunch of kids a few decades back and examined how they played and then revisited them 20 years later to see how their kids played. The original group of kids played across a very large area (something like a couple square miles of woodland) and roamed across their hometowns with little oversight. Two decades later their children by comparison were…

Not sure if this is the same article, but this one has stuck in my mind for the past 10+ years: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-462091/How-children-...

Obviously with little kids in an urban environment we kept them pretty close to home. Once they were in 7th and 8th grade then the ranges got longer. And honestly, it was a challenge dealing with my spouse and other families who insisted on hover-parenting or refusing to let their kids walk 3 blocks to our house. To a certain degree, that is to their detriment because it doesn't allow kids to learn and explore.

Of course, my argument, along with the article above, was "They sneak out at night and wander all over multiple neighborhoods, so why do you feel the need to keep them in your sight at all times?" But that leads to lots of other parenting stories that I'm not going into here.

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#536

Post by softawre »

Waterluvian wrote: post #483
JTon wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry if I missed something philosophical here, but why can't you convert money into time with him? Contracting services that could you could otherwise do yourself (e.g. cooking, cleaning, renos, repairs, etc) and spending that time with your son seems to fit the bill.

Fair question. I spend 8 hours a day not near him (at work). Most of that 8 hours is making money I don't need. I'm not a frugal or ascetic person but I have very few wants that cost money.

Is time better spent earning money to help pay for a kids financial future, or better spent playing with the kid? It's a fine line and I'm not sure there's a one-size-fits-all answer.

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#538

Post by labster »

megy wrote: post #515
Aloha wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this is the argument the author of the article was trying to send at all. This accident could have just as easily happened in a dense urban core, as it could have in suburbia. The message was something else - sometimes, bad things just happen to people, and there is little you can do about it other than move on, and learn from the experiences.

Sure, that is the message they want to give over. However, the message I take away from this is that somehow we have accepted into society this incredibly dangerous thing which while convenient it not necessary at all. While we make everything else in society safe, we seem to ignore the most dangerous thing around us, that kills around 1.3 million people every single year.

It's amazing how much death and disease we're willing to suffer for the sake of convenience, isn't it.

We treat automobiles as a necessity of modern life in all places, but it wasn't always this way. In the 1910s and 20s, many writers excoriated all of the roads bringing dangerous cars into places where people live and play. It turns out they were right, but we just became blind to the danger.

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#539

Post by rootusrootus »

AznHisoka wrote: post #398
rdiddly wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Actually, a lot of people including dread driving cars and try to avoid it as much as possible. My wife thinks I'm lazy because I don't want to drive to so and so, but the real reason is because I know the more I drive, the higher the chances of a life-threatening accident

Are you a nervous wreck? There are lots of things more dangerous to you than driving a car. A little less than 40,000 deaths a year sounds like a lot, but I think perhaps we are just not good at comprehending what that number means in the context of a country with more than 300,000,000 people.

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#540

Post by trgn »

dm319 wrote: post #223
rdiddly wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I forget where I heard this joke.

In the future, little Johnny and grandpa are fishing on the lake, after being driven there by their self-driving car.

"You see that car there Johnny? When I was young, we had to drive these ourselves if we wanted to go fishing. It was great! You felt the wind in your hair, you could go wherever you want, whenever you want, you could make out with your sweetheart in the backseat, you would never feel so free!"

"Whoa, grandpa! Wasn't that dangerous, going so fast without the help of a computer?"

"Oh yeah, millions died".

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