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The day I accidentally killed a little boy

bbc.co.uk

571–580 of 683 posts

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#571
post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speed limits are a function of road conditions, both static (e.g design) and dynamic (e.g. weather). Posted speed limits are a function of the 90th percentile speed (usually based on typical conditions). If you set low speed limits because "think of the children" you get other (safety) problems.

Just add speed cameras and eventually people will stop speeding.

They'll also spend more time looking at their speedometer and less time actually paying attention to the driving conditions.

[uncited opinion]

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#572
post #507

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…

Use whatever app or medium you choose, my advice was simply that sending directly to specific people is a better than flooding your IG or FB with photos of junior every day.

How is emailing photos to specific people materially different than posting photos to a Facebook account followed by the same people? (Particularly if the account is otherwise private.)

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#573

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speed is the most quantifiable factor in a collision. It is also very controllable. That is why it gets the focus that it does. The trouble is, it's easy to get distracted by speed as a coefficient in collision intensity, and not pay attention to what causes that collision in the first place. People often think that because speed is such an important factor that they shouldn't drive faster to help traffic flow, or ev…

Reducing speeds is a form of collision prevention, is it not? A typical car can just about stop on a dime at 15mph, and a pedestrian has more time to react. There's a whole slew of other pedestrian-friendly street design that we could & should adopt as well, but that doesn't make speed any less of a valid approach.

Speed, in of itself, is not dangerous. What is more dangerous on highways is differential speed. i.e. if you're driving 60 mph when the traffic around you is doing 80 mph, you're the problem. Probably exponentially so if you're driving slowly in the "fast" lane. While rarely enforced, most states in the US have laws that require you to pull to the right if you're impeding traffic (usually defined as holding up +2 vehicles behind you) - even if you're doing the speed limit. Yet, these laws are rarely enforced, just like "No Trucks Left 2 Lanes" is never enforced in & around Chicago, despite being posted every mile or so on I 294.

I'd wager, also, that speed itself is rarely the direct cause of an accident. High speed, though, will make an accident more severe. My bet is that distracted driving is the #1 cause of accidents. On my daily 2-hour round trip on Chicagoland highways, I usually see 4-6 accidents each involving >2 cars. The shear amount of people I see on their phones is staggering. Hard to tell if it's social media or texting, but you can always tell because their head is staring at their lap, or they're holding their phones at the top of the steering wheel for all to see. I also see people with their phones mounted on their dashes watching movies or TV shows. Playing with your phone while driving is far more dangerous than paying attention & speeding.

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#574
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.

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…

Ironically, I had the same thing happen with cycling (at a lower speed). Got in a bike vs. car accident ten years ago and since then almost never ride on the street, but driving is fine.

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A little girl cycled of the pavement a while ago, just as I was passing, good brakes and no traffic from the other side. Very close call and I have not yet gotten over it yet, nightmares and daily thoughts about it. I am pretty sure her mom also remembers it vividly. Kids can be totally unpredictable like that and how it all ends is hugely dependent on circumstance.

You're a good person; listen to your subconscious! You can't change the unpredictability of kids, but you ~can stop driving, and model good non-driving behavior for your kids and the other people around you.

I’m not sure what you’re envisioning, but unless you live around reliable public transit (which is a tiny percentage of the geographic US) you can’t avoid driving, or at least carpooling.

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#576
post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>...It's more common than lightning strikes, though still super remote. It doesn't look that way: >...During the study year, there were an estimated 115 stereotypical kidnappings, defined as abductions perpetrated by a stranger or slight acquaintance and involving a child who was transported 50 or more miles, detained overnight, held for ransom or with the intent to keep the child permanently, or killed. http://www.u…

Right. My back of the envelope math shows about 100 children abducted by strangers per year in the US and about 60 children are struck by lightning per year (hard to tell, but based on % of lightning related deaths that are under 19)-- most of which are probably well over 4 years of age[0]. I mean, either way, it's exceedingly rare, but the odds of a young child being abducted is a good bit higher than the odds that…

>...I mean, either way, it's exceedingly rare, but the odds of a young child being abducted is a good bit higher than the odds that they are struck by lightning.

Your link is talking about fatalities. Just as the number of fatalities from lightning is much less than occurrences, the same applies to kidnappings. The probabilities for the two things aren't that different.

>...But my point is that it's just logical to take precautions. Not leaving your kids unattended in public places and not leaving them out in thunderstorms... both strike me as reasonable advice. :)

Yea, the low number for lightning strikes is likely due to the fact that people do avoid going out in lightning. Also while it is reasonable to not leave kids unattended in public places, kidnappings of children have always been very rare and the extra paranoia people have about it today isn't helpful and as posters have pointed out, actually makes the world a more dangerous place.

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#577

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really enjoyed (maybe not the best word...appreciated) the film "Manchester By the Sea" for reasons that this story reminds me of. My wife and some friends who have seen it said it was 'boring' and that 'nothing happened'. To me, the fact that 'nothing happened' was a very much the point; There was no grand character arc because for most people you just don't ever come back from an event like that. There is no majo…

> because for most people you just don't ever come back from an event like that Is this even true? I think we tend to assume so but isn't it likely that many people simply move on with their lives? I mean Laura Bush was responsible for a fatal car accident and she seemed to do fine.

The article above talks about how many of the author's friends had no idea that the event happened to her, even though it was one of the most important events of her life. I imagine it's similar for many people who've endured a tragedy of some sort. At some point you have to stop talking about it because it doesn't help and you think that no one wants to hear it. It doesn't change how much the event has affected the trajectory of your life.

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#578
post #507

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…

Use whatever app or medium you choose, my advice was simply that sending directly to specific people is a better than flooding your IG or FB with photos of junior every day.

I'm not sure why. My sister has an Instagram where she takes a couple of pictures of her kids a day, and has for the past five or six years, and I quite enjoy it. I know many of my family members do too. I visit a URL that just shows me her posts once a week or so, and just scroll to see what my niece and nephew have been up to.

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#579
post #541

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People treated their children well enough for us to exist! If we had a time machine and brought an ordinary American from the 1950's to the present, or asked ~40% of Americans nowadays, chances are they'd be horrified by what they'd see as the legalized murder of tens of millions of children (abortion). I'm not trying to bring politics into this (I'm strongly pro-choice), just pointing out that the definitions of "cr…

Low life expectancies in the past weren't because most people died in their 40s / 50s. They were heavily depressed by infant and child mortality - if you survived to adulthood, you had a reasonable chance of living to a ripe old age.

I'm already adjusting upwards for that; life expectancies didn't reach 50 (in the US) until the 1920's[1], and the posts I'm responding to are talking about the Medieval period or earlier, when life expectancy at birth would've been 30 or so. Some people did live into their 60's or longer but they were very much the exception, even among adults.

[1] https://www.seniorliving.org/history/1900-2000-changes-life-...

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#580
post #515
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.

In the latest season of Black Mirror, the most dangerous technology is cars: https://medium.com/@galencro/whats-up-with-car-accidents-and...
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