In the aftermath of certain car accidents, all you can do is scratch your head and wonder…
How the heck did that happen?
and…
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I saw your discussion and thought, “Wow, VDCdriver saw the crash I saw on the news this morning.” However, this is the one I saw…
http://www.kmov.com/story/35896007/fire-crews-respond-to-car-trapped-in-roof-of-st-louis-home
How the heck did that happen?
CSA
The first photo reminds me not of a car crash but a wino. I saw him laying cross-ways across a concrete barrier just like that, stiff as a board. This was on Manhattan’s Wall Street, on a Friday, about 5:30 pm, with all the Wall Street types trying to get out of town on their way to their home in Connecticut. But they had to pass this wino laying on the barrier first. He was teetering ant tottering, like Humpty Dumpty, no way to know which way he’d fall, but falling either way into traffic was no good for him or the traffic. lol …
I found another pedestrian to help me carry him to the nearest sidewalk, where we sat him under a tree. Believe it or not he says to us “Thanks guys, I needed a little help I guess”.
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I’ve seen a couple weird ones. One morning on my way to work a step van had climbed up on the center railing of an overpass. He was still up on the railing but his rear axle had been knocked off by the railing and laying on the shoulder. No one around but it was in a rural interstate. Then on I35 in Minneapolis I saw a car sitting at a 45 degree angle with another car behind it. Evidently heavy traffic and the first guy braked hard with worn shocks and the guy behind him just went right under him lifting his rear end in the air. Just like a demo derby.
Many many years ago I was riding my bike down this road at about 7am and saw the police and wrecker near this creek looking at how they were going to pull the car out that was lying next to the bank of the creek. The car was on the other side of a 6’ fence. There was no damage to the fence. Turned out the guy must have been traveling 80+ and came to the end of the street…then went through the street…hit the curb that sent him flying OVER THE FENCE. He was asleep in the car (uninjured) not knowing how he got there. I believe alcohol might have been involved.
+1 to Mike I’m betting traffic cops have that engraved on a dashboard plaque…
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+1
I think that I will likely never forget when my father’s '63 Plymouth was rear-ended by a drunk who was driving a '55 or '56 Ford. I was sitting in the back seat, and I turned around when the Ford’s tires let out a loud squeal. Almost simultaneous with the Ford hitting our car, the drunk’s door flew open and he rolled–over and over–on the pavement.
We pulled over onto the shoulder, and luckily a NY State Trooper was on the scene w/in a minute or two. The Trooper confirmed that the guy who hit us was not seriously injured, but that he was stone-drunk.
Wasn’t there some old saying like…God protects drunks and idiots?
What irritates me is when the news has to be politically correct and say “speed may have been a factor” when anybody can see that it definitely was a factor because cars don’t {insert conditions here like; go airborne or broke in half around a tree for example} when traveling the residential speed limit…
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It has NOTHING to do with political correctness. But has everything in getting the story accurate. They aren’t going to say anything about the cause until they get official word from the police. Without official word it’s only speculation. They may be right 99.9999% of the time…but that .0001% they’re wrong could have dire consequences.
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Thanks for making my point.
They aren’t going to say anything about the cause
But they did Mike. Is “speed may have been a factor” saying nothing about the cause? No, silence is nothing. They have speculated about the cause- which is obvious to everyone else. So why bother saying anything at all?
There’s a HUGE difference in saying “Speed MAY be a factor” and “Speed IS a factor”.
Actually they have re-written the style book used by “journalists/writers” to take out many offensive words and phrases that we are too fragile to read.
Of course there is but that’s not the point!
This is from your first comment in this thread.
"What irritates me is when the news has to be politically correct and say “speed may have been a factor” when anybody can see that it definitely was a factor
So enlighten me what you actually meant.
So enlighten me what you actually meant.
If you can’t state the obvious then say nothing. It doesn’t add any value to say it the way they did.
You then followed up with this:
It has NOTHING to do with political correctness. But has everything in getting the story accurate.
How does saying that make it accurate? There are many things that COULD have been a factor. However, it is obvious when a car in a 30mph speed zone goes airborne and clears a fence that speed HAD to have been a factor. Maybe not the only one but a big one. So if you can’t state the obvious, then don’t say anything. It’s a weasel way of saying what people already know.
Is that clear enough?
There is no one style book for journalists. Who is “they,” and what do you base this statement on?
Speaking from experience, here’s what happens. You go out to the crash site and find the public information officer. The investigation isn’t finished yet, and sometimes hasn’t even really begun, so the PIO can’t say for certain that speed was a factor. But he can say that it may have been a factor.
You then go to write the story and since you don’t have confirmation that speed was a factor, you also say it may have been a factor, both to be accurate and to CYA - if it turns out speed was not a factor then you’ve just accused some schmuck of speeding when he didn’t, and he just might sue you over it, and you just might lose since no one told you that speed was a factor and therefore you made that bit up.
Journalists are not crash reconstruction experts. They go on what the cop tells them. If the cop tells them speed was a factor, then that’s what they’ll write.
However, it is obvious when a car in a 30mph speed zone goes airborne and clears a fence that speed HAD to have been a factor.
I don’t agree that this is obvious. It may be obvious that the vehicle was speeding, but that does not mean the speeding was the cause of the wreck. Maybe the cause of the wreck was getting T-boned by a drunk. Maybe the driver fell asleep in which case the crash was going to happen at any speed.
And if you’re going to say that speed does not have to have contributed to the cause of the crash in order to be a “factor” as long as it contributed to the results, that’s a fair point, but I would then point out that any non-zero speed is then automatically a factor in every crash, and therefore “speed is a factor” is a tautology and shouldn’t be mentioned at all, ever.
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It may be OBVIOUS…and that is EXACTLY WHAT I’M SAYING. News organizations won’t say what the possible cause was until they get official word. That has been standard policy from every GOOD news organization I know of for the past 40+ years. They want an official statement…and it has NOTHING to do with political correctness.
Right! The Russians somehow hacked the election and helped President Trump steal it from Mrs. Clinton. 
She didn’t lose because she was a flawed candidate, running a flawed campaign, with a flawed platform, in a flawed party. 
Bring it back to cars, is Hilary even allowed to drive?
Where is she?
CSA
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She’s not at my house.
But, just like the car crash, hacking may have been a factor in the election. When you say it this way, you’re almost never wrong, but then again you’re never right enough for anyone to care what you said.
Well like Bill just said, if you’re going to run for president you need to have a message.
It was a news report on the AP style book I believe, but you’re right, it might have been fake. It was on the radio so my attention was divided and I don’t usually write down the sources of bits of news that seem interesting. On my trip to South Dakota I must have gone through 15 stations as they faded in and out.