…that texting and driving have frequently fatal consequences?
More than likely, her nearly-bald tires also had a lot to do with this accident that killed some of the children riding in her car, and her use of opioids may have also played a role. I think that this woman was an accident waiting to happen.
I’m not sure. The article states that cell phone records show that she was active on Facebook until 2 minutes before the crash. That’s certainly not definitive proof that she was texting and driving. A lot can happen in 2 minutes, wrecks don’t happen in minutes, they happen in seconds. I would want to know what was happening 10 seconds before the crash. I think poor weather conditions, a bunch of screaming kids, bald tires, and a mind hazy from pain meds contribute just as much.
But I don’t really think it matters what she has learned. 3 children are dead.
For the one child who survived, and for other future passengers in her car, it could be very important that she learned something from this experience.
I happen to know that section of road pretty well. Another article pinpoints the location of the crash on the road, and that she was driving southbound. If she got to the crash scene within 2 minutes of being parked and posting on Facebook, she was going way too fast for a wet December day. It’s a curvy, hilly area of highway that goes down into a valley between two tall hills, narrow shoulders, the works.
That said, I’m automatically disturbed when “you were using the internet 2 minutes before the crash and therefore you were definitely using it at the time of the crash” is proposed. I play Ingress, which means I’m quite often parked and using the internet, and driving somewhere immediately thereafter to use it again. I don’t do it in transit, but if I were to get in a wreck between stops, it could be shown that as little as 45 seconds ago I was using the internet. Doesn’t mean I was doing it unsafely or while the car was in motion.
Shadowfax raises a good point.
Just because she was using her phone 2 minutes before the crash, that doesn’t prove that she was using it at the time of the crash.
However, she is surely guilty of exercising extremely poor judgment by driving while under the influence of both an opioid an a tranquilizer. She might have fallen asleep behind the wheel, or she may have been distracted in some way or other, but she surely did kill those kids through her own actions.
And, of course, those worn-out tires didn’t help, but that is just more evidence of extremely poor judgment on her part.
NO !
This kind of person will surely blame it on the car.
This kind of thing just disgusts me to no end. Even if a cell phone had zilch to do with this accident there are plenty of reasons why she should be hammered legally and hammered hard.
It goes to show you where some people place their priorities.
Cell phone bill; no problem. Bald tires; so what.
I can just picture someone in a parking lot pointing out bald tires to her as being dangerous and being met with a snippy don’t tell me what to do attitude.
Just a few weeks ago an OK state trooper was killed and another seriously injured while investigating an accident involving an overturned truck.
Some guy in an SUV plowed into them and it was revealed a week later that he was updating his social media pages when it happened. It’s also being reported now that there was an infant or young child in the back seat of his vehicle.
The deceased trooper leaves a wife and 2 kids behind all because some moronic jackass wants to babble on FB or Twitter.
^
Excellent post! I couldn’t agree more.
That lady reminds me of half of the upwardly mobile couple who dropped off their fairly new SAAB one time. They wanted the oil changed, air and fuel filters, and the installation of a new from SAAB rooftop ski rack as they were going to hit the road with another couple for some snow skiing in Aspen, CO.
While the oil was draining I checked the front brakes as these cars were having some issues with the caliper sliders. Chewed up brakes inside of 15k miles was not rare and I’ve seen some shredded by 7 or 8k miles. These were down to about 3 MM thickness and their remaining life could be measured in thousands of miles or scant hours depending upon the whim of the sliders.
When called on the phone and told about the brakes needing replacement the woman declined.
When they came in to pick up the car the couple going with them had tagged along also. The service advisor brought them out in the shop as I was finishing up the ski rack installation.
That woman went on for 10 minutes about how “cool” that ski rack looked and what an impression it was going to make at the lodge, blah, blah, blah.
I was being very courteous with answers to any questions but inside I was seething at the thought of her fawning all over a ski rack and caring not one whit for the brakes that could prevent the car from going over on the roof along with squashing the rack and possibly everyone inside the car.
I was also pondering what the thoughts of the tag along couple would be if they knew they were occupants in a car that was going to be traveling through steep terrain with almost no brakes.
Somehow, I don’t feel that too many people at a ski lodge are going to be impressed by a ski rack; an item that is probably sitting on top of 80% of the cars parked in the lot.
@ok4450 Scary story! I once stopped to help a motorist with a flat tire. This guy was wearing an Italian designer leather jacket and very expensive shoes. His tires were nearly bald; he was lucky to have driven this far on the freeway without crashing.
I did point out that he urgently needed 4 new tires but it seemed to have no impact.
Our ski and hiking club has a number of engineers and medical practitioners. We have a sizable number of Subaru owners who treat their vehicles with care. Others all have at least winter tires. In the nearly 30 years of the club we have had one broken leg (high mountain accident requiring helicopter “extraction”) and one broken wrist and no car accidents.
@Docnick, the new car sales manager at our dealership drove a SAAB demonstrator and loved the cars.
A couple of months after that brake refusal incident he chatted with me a few minutes out in the shop one day and told me the couple had wrecked that SAAB with the new ski rack at some point after their ski journey. Apparently they returned to the dealer to consider another SAAB and had stated that they only had a few minor bumps and bruises that did not require treatment.
The sales manager did not ask and they did not offer any information about how the wreck happened but my first thought was “wonder if the brakes gave out or were too weak to get them stopped in time”.
Whether the brakes or lack of was the cause of the wreck will forever be unknown to me but it did have me very curious anyway.
I’ve been to Aspen a few times and 12,000 foot Independence Pass is a bit dangerous even in summertime as some of the traffic passing through there (especially the turbocharged cars) think that it’s part of a road race course no matter what the 25-35 MPH signs state.
@ok4450 Suspicious indeed! Mountain driving is very hard on the brakes. When descending from a high pass I always gear down (no overdrive) and still the brakes often smell when we get down to the valley level, especially when the car is loaded.
I think the SAAB got wrecked a few months after they returned from their ski trip. The brakes may have had nothing to do with the collision but it did cause me to wonder about it a bit. The lady half of the couple was what could be called an aggressive driver.
A friend of my wife and her husband took their 2 year old Jeep on a mountain trip to CO several decades ago and it was their first jaunt into the Rockies.
They drove the Pikes Peak Highway up with no problem.
By the time they got back to the bottom they stopped at the first shop they came to and discovered that the fading brakes and acrid smell was the front brakes fried off of it.
She probably learned something from this experience.
"They drove the Pikes Peak Highway up with no problem. By the time they got back to the bottom they stopped at the first shop they came to and discovered that the fading brakes and acrid smell was the front brakes fried off of it."
There is now a mandatory stop part way down where your brakes are checked with an infrared thermometer.
“There is now a mandatory stop part way down where your brakes are checked with an infrared thermometer.”
Just more evidence of those damned government mandates.
We should be allowed to live–and drive–without any of these pesky government regulations.
When will government stop attempting to control people’s behavior!
;-))
(Sarcasm ended…)
do they make you sit and wait if they’re too hot?
I assume so. There’s a parking area there, but there’s no gate to prevent you from taking off. I noticed it watching a YouTube of GoPro cameras mounted on an electric race car. Then going to Google street view, I found it after the first multiple switchbacks going down. Haven’t seen it personally. I drove it in '73 in my '68 Valiant when the road was still gravel.