What a tragic, freak accident

[Stinky The Clown]

http://wjz.com/local/fatal.accident.2.914567.html

A 21 year old Univ of Md student was struck and killed by a runaway tire and wheel that broke loose from a truck.

The embedded video has the incredible graphic that shows how this happened.

[NYC_SKP]

1. Freak is right, like a pachinko machine ricochet death wheel from hell.

Damn!

[patrice]

2. "Unbenounced to her . . . " Huh?

unbeknownst

[dixiegrrrrl]

17. "Unbenounced" ?? another poor child left behind.

The Neo-cons have succeeded in stupifying a whole generation.

[EOTE]

19. The entire article is written very poorly.

Loads of spelling and grammatical errors. What a terrible tragedy.

[proud2BlibKansan]

3. Reminds me of the guy who died when some kids dropped a bowling ball off of an overpass

[blonndee]

4. Huh?

Those two situations don't seem to be much alike to me at all. :shrug:

[proud2BlibKansan]

9. A heavy object crashed through the windshield of a car and killed the driver

Isn't that what happened - in BOTH stories?

[blonndee]

11. OK- the ONE thing these have in common. Thank you.

[wildbilln864]

5. It was a dumbell here in my state IIRC. nt

[parasim]

6. Well, the result may be similar...

but the situations are not. The ball dropper perpetuated the incident, in this case it was a total fluke.

[proud2BlibKansan]

10. Both involved something that came through the windshield and killed the driver

[dorkulon]

7. What a poorly written/edited article.

"In one second, that tired probably would have landed on the road; in one second, the victim's car would have been out of the way, but in this terrible twist of fate, the timing could not be worst.

"Unbenounced to her, a truck out in front of her had lost a tire and a wheel."

"Police say Quinichett mother asked them, what if my daughter wasn't driving a small sedan, what if it had been an SUV or heavier vehicle. Would that have made a difference? Investigators say the answer is no." (where are the quotation marks? If it's not a direct quote, it shouldn't be phrased in the first person.)

Was this semi-literate report outsorced to Bangalore or what?

[enlightenment]

8. That, unfortunately, is about the level of writing exhibited by many

of my college level students.

Spelling has become ever so passé.

[leftofthedial]

12. I recently began teaching college English part-time.

I'm shocked at the low level of my Composition students. I do the best I can to help 20-25 of them improve in our 12-week term, but it's a daunting task.

[MajorChode]

13. I have a hard time seeing how this is an "accident"

For the student who died, this was truly an accident. However I don't really believe this situation was unforeseen. There's too many people in the US who have a flippant attitude towards traffic safety. Truckers routinely drive unsafe trucks. The companies that own them don't care. The government doesn't care about standards and enforcement. Then take a look around at the general attitude towards driving. People routinely drive while playing with electronic toys. Few truly obey the rules of the road. Many don't even know what most of the rules are. It really shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that people are going to routinely die due to gross negligence.

[skids]

14. On the way home I passed a truck oh boy...

...the entire side of the truck was covered in thick sheet ice,
with gigantic icicles hanging off the side, as if it had been parked
under a waterfall overnight. Very thick solid ice, I'm talking 1/2 to 1
inch thick. Not like the scary but relatively harmless snow crusts
that come off the top of those trailers. It was 30 degrees out.
That will probably all cascade off all at once and I hope nobody is
around when it does. I hope that trucker didn't turn southbound,
but I didn't stick around to find out.

[proud2BlibKansan]

15. My son works for a trucking company and I disagree

The regulations are very very stringent. One of their drivers was involved in an accident last week. The load in the trailer shifted because it was improperly loaded. The truck overturned on a curve and the driver went through the windshield. He was suspended as soon as he got out of the hospital, there was an investigation and work at the company halted until the investigation was concluded. It was a very big deal.

Turned out the truck had been loaded in another state by another company who now has a bunch of fines to pay.

I was really surprised by how strict the laws are, but also glad to hear it. That truck driver was lucky to survive the accident.

[MajorChode]

16. There are plenty of regulations for commercial operators

But Jim Bob can throw whatever load of shit he likes in the back of his truck and never tie anything down. Of course he might get a ticket if something falls out and kills someone, but other than that he is good to go.

As far as the regulations on commercial operators, enforcement is quite lax. Yes they might be facing serious fines IF they get caught, but it's pretty hard to catch them when they don't get checked all that often. Even in the account you just mentioned, they didn't get caught until something bad happened.

In some countries it isn't that way. In Germany you will get a ticket for failing to keep two hands on the wheel or running out of gas. You can forget driving a piece of shit car or truck down the road. It won't happen. People take driving much more seriously there and they do it better than anyone in the world.

[proud2BlibKansan]

18. Yes you are right about that

A friend of mine totaled his car when an idiot in the next lane had 2 trash cans in the back of his truck and one blew out. The car behind him swerved to avoid the flying trash can, my friend swerved and hit a concrete wall and his car was a total loss. And no one stopped to help him. He did get the tag number of the guy with the trash cans in his truck but the cops refused to go look for him and give him a ticket.

[MadHound]

28. I don't, metal fatigues and lug bolts break loose

I've had it happen to me twice in my life, both times without causing major damage. Really, all it takes is one or two nuts to go, then the rest go quickly after due to unusual stress patterns, pop pop pop. Unless the truck company did metallurgical stress tests on each and every bolt, nobody would catch it.

[Bu Megdi]

20. Poor woman.

I knew the victime, she wanted to be an insect, even in that, she failed. what a pathetic existence!

[lonestarnot]

21. I can't watch someone be killed, especially to make a conscience choice to watch it, when I don't

have to. (I'm not on the jury.:) )Maybe the truck or whatever it was wasn't properly maintained because it was driven by someone w/o money to fix it? Poor woman (I assume woman because is indicated on thread).

[Uzybone]

23. There is no video of the incident

just a graphic showing how the wheel and tire bounced around.

[RebelOne]

22. My younger brother was run over by a tire that flew off a car.

He was playing in the front yard, and a car came speeding by and its tire came off and hit my brother. Fortunately, his injuries were not serious.

[dysfunctional press]

24. i almost killed someone in a similar manner...

a "friend" took the lugnuts off one of my tires as a "joke"...he thought that the tire would fall off as soon as the car moved. it didn't.

i was on the tollway headed to work some 30 miles later when it did. my left rear tire flew over the meridian into the outbound lanes of the nw tollway, right by the rosemont horizon(outside chicago). i had to run across three lanes of expressway traffic to retrieve it, and then run back carrying the tire over my head. as i was working to put the tire back on, using one lug nut from each of the other three tires, i heard "hey didyou lose a tire?" from across the expressway. "yes" i replied...
"it hit my car" was his response.
my tire had hit his car, a monte carlo, where the windshield met the roof- it was pushed down on the passenger seat. if there had been a passenger, they'd be dead. if it had hit the driver's side- he'd have been dead.
it was a VERY sucky day.

[dorkulon]

27. Jesus, some "friend."

I hope you took him to the woodshed at the very least.

[kwassa]

25. This same accident happened to a friend of mine

Her car was totaled by a flying tire from a truck, but it hit the front of her car, and she was fortunately not hurt. She was stranded way out of town, though.

[Xithras]

26. Hate to say it, but this sort of thing happens regularly.

They're typically just reported as car accidents so people aren't all that aware of them.

Just within a few miles of me...about 10 years ago a woman was killed when a large bolt was kicked up by the car in front of her and came through her windshield...a young boy was killed when a large rock was picked up by a semi-truck tire and came through his side window...and a motorcyclist was killed when a chair fell off the back of a pickup in front of him.

Three in a decade, in a fairly small area. On a national scale, I'd bet this sort of thing happens a few times a week.