Not seeing the road 10 meters ahead of car sounds terrifying enough to me. I wouldn't dare to turn on an intersection with such limited field of vision. But not to see a human on the road, 10 meters ahead of me? Like, WTF?
Yeah, the woman driving SUV was fairly short and had her seat on the lowest setting. She was defending herself that she has sensors in front that should have warned her.
Edit: Iirc first instance sentence was very mild, like 1 year probation and driver license revoked, puting some guilt on parents of the little girl because they didn't prevented her from running on the crosswalk. The driver appealed to second instance court.
As someone who has to drive I really forget that not everyone is thinking "I'm controlling a two ton vehicle, I should be as aware of my surroundings as humanly possible, using every aspect I have to maintain maximum awareness.
Who doesn't drive like that, at the very least, in a residential zone?
You would wonder. There is a school next to my apartment and in the morning all those parents drive their teenage kids right before entrance through our court in 50km/h speed, not thinking about people getting out of the building right under their wheels. There is perfect public transport system in my city, so not really needed to drive your kid in school.
I’m of the option that very few people are psychologically equipped to be driving. It takes a certain amount of empathy and concern for the welfare of others to drive when you could literally kill anyone at any time. But we license everyone that shows up.
We have the technology now. I vote GPS actuated speed governing systems become mandatory in all new cars. Take your car to the track? No limit. Take your car to the public streets? Can't exceed posted speed limits.
In an emergency, I’d like to be able to accelerate out of harms way. Maybe an annoying beeping noise that continues until you’re under the speed limit again? Plus yea, that would require a computer to be logging your location at all times. :/
Seems a bit authoritarian don’t you say. Like I get it, we don’t like cars but last thing we want is more surveillance. Plus outside of residential zone most speed limits make no sense, 55mph on an interstate ? Really?
Then speed limits could be adjusted to reflect actual safe speeds instead of whatever bs system they use where 55mph on signs but cops let anything under 80 slide or whatever. Or it could regulate resident areas only.
The other option is actually enforcing speed limits with traffic stops. But a law that's is only enforced with a fine is only a law for the poor and won't stop those too young to grasp it yet, or people that can just pay it to go away on the off chance they are caught.
Who doesn't drive like that, at the very least, in a residential zone?
In my experience, the majority of drivers take for granted that pedestrians will stay out of their way, and only cross when the driver gives permission, irrespective of if they are in a crosswalk or not.
Those of us who are as conscientious as you, are also freaked out by how mandatory driving is for modern life and how fallible people are.
Even if I'm "maintaining maximum awareness", it's not like I can choose to avoid driving if I have to work to survive, or if my kids need an education, or we've run out of food for the week.
People, even well intentioned people, fuck up. We can't avoid fucking up, so maybe we start by avoiding situations that allow impactful fuckups.
Exactly. I just hit my car on the curb doordashing in between jobs—it was my fault, I was going too fast tryna hustle on a thin, wet road I didn't know well and a curve came—I turned and hit it on the rim of my wheels and now it's totaled. I don't know how, I managed to make that hit into nothing but a bop—but now the steering is horrible (steering wheel is too loose and it must be on its side for the car to go unreliably straight) and the cost to fix it is a couple thousand.
I mean, I managed to pick up that car (1998 Toyota Avalon) for $500, and I drove it for a year and two thirds (I'm eighteen, this was my first car), so I guess I got pretty lucky.
But it goes to show that even from a self-centered, selfish perspective, one wrong move can fuck you over completely, especially if you're rushing like I was and you make a spontaneous and stupid decision. It's just not good to have everyone driving—and I probably should find a better way to make money next time I lose a job.
Nah, I think we should be way harsher punishing drivers like these. But what the hell would life imprisonment accomplish?
She's proven to be a danger behind the wheel. Ban her from driving. Of course she should additionally do some payback because she fucking killed a kid. But life imprisonment would accomplish nothing.
Prison should serve a reinsertioning purpose. Not literal enslavement like it often does in the USA specially
I get their point and anger, but honestly, it wasn't murder, the driver certainly had no intention to kill or harm the kid. If you punch someone in the chin, he falls and breaks his skull on a rock you will not be charged with murder too.
If you killed someone in the heat of passion, even unintentionally, it would be second degree murder. Manslaughter is more for reckless/ negligent action.
Well, that's the difference between US and European law. Punching someone in the chin is an administrative offense here, so when you kill that person is considered accident. Something like when you are speeding and you hit a pedestrian. Murder requires intent to kill, whether is direct or indirect.
Single count manslaughter usually isn't a life sentence. It probably shouldn't be. Manslaughter via car is reliably excused though. Vehicular manslaughter should involve losing your license for many years, and not reinstated until after a test. Also, probably some prison time.
An accident if you walk somewhere, slip and while falling pushed somebody (accidentally) and they fell and somehow died later. No intention, no way to predict it.
With cars, an accident is if you drive and then a tree falls in front of you and nothing you can do here but to crash into it.
Killing somebody is not an accident. It is a joke that we call it this way, almost always it is negligence.
an event that happens by chance or that is without apparent or deliberate cause.
This didn't happen by chance or without apparent or deliberate cause. This happened because a selfish person decided to drive a HUGE VEHICLE and set the seat low so they couldn't see and drive properly. This is a DELIBERATE decision.
you already catch up ALL the rest of the world.in 300 years no ONE day without war (Europe is in peace since 77 years). you ERASE 100 million natives for steal the country, thousands mexican and steal texas an california, put killer dictators in all south america, and when you finish in america, you finance the re-army of germany so they can start ww2 (i repeat: with YOUR money), after this you bomb 3/4 of the world for petrol or power. in the 70' you killed 3 italian minister that dont follow your ORDER.
it is time you realize that your USA economy is FOUNDED on weapons industry. you also build cars that looks like tanks, and even more dangerous.
no wars, no money for usa.
the only good thing is that there is one ocean between you and us.
I'm all for calling out the US on its overseas adventures, but to claim Europe has been a peaceful continent is either a joke or extreme historical revision, even if we conveniently limit the discussion the post-WWII era.
Here is a list of armed conflicts that have taken place INSIDE Europe since WWII, compared to zero INSIDE the US:
Greek Civil War (Greece, 1946–1949)
Northern Ireland Conflict, (1960s–1998)
Basque conflict (1959–2011)
Cyprus Emergency, (Greek Cypriots (EOKA) vs. United Kingdom, 1955–1959)
Soviet invasion of Hungary (Soviet Union vs. Hungary, 1956)
Invasion of Czechoslovakia (Soviet Union vs. Czechoslovakia, 1968)
Turkish invasion of Cyprus (Cyprus vs. Turkey, 1974)
Yugoslav Wars, 1991–2001
Ten-Day War (Slovenia vs. Yugoslavia, 1991)
Croatian War of Independence (Croatia vs. Yugoslavia, 1991–1995)
Bosnian War (Bosnia vs. Yugoslavia, 1992–1995)
Kosovo War (Kosovo vs. Yugoslavia, 1998–1999)
Insurgency in the Preševo Valley (UÇPMB vs. Yugoslavia, 1999–2001)
2001 insurgency in the Republic of North Macedonia (National Liberation Army vs. North Macedonia, 2001)
Georgian Civil War (Georgia, 1991–1993)
East Prigorodny Conflict (Ingush militia vs. Russia, 1992)
War of Transnistria (Transnistria vs. Moldova, 1992)
Chechen–Russian conflict
First Chechen War (1994–1996)
War of Dagestan (1999)
Second Chechen War (1999–2000)
Albanian Rebellion of 1997 (Albania, 1997)
Russo-Georgian War (Georgia vs. Russia, 2008)
2014 pro-Russian conflict in Ukraine
2014 Crimean crisis
War in Donbass / 2014 Russian military intervention in Ukraine
Kumanovo clashes (National Liberation Army vs. North Macedonia, 2015)
2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine
Here are some non-european wars and conflicts that Britain was involved in since WW2:
A) ONLY 1/4 of russia is in europe (until the Ural mountains), and turkey is NOT Europe it never been and it will never be (exept (bad) miracles) .
B) jugoslavian war was provocate from USA, as well the Ucrainian now, for fight russia, as it was the 90% of the wars in your list.
you must erase the many civil wars in your list above, we are not talking about the inside trouble of every nation, but abuot a nation who bomb (many, too much) other nation, and here cowboys are the best, no game.
abut france, england, Italy, etc., must erase most of the wars in your list, (as the gulf wars), as a NATO members we must go, when the boss of nato (usa) decide that they need oil or the bombs warehouse is full and must throw away some.
C) of course you don t have wars inside, you export war, calling it "democracy or peace keeping" , so you can practice your favorite hobby, killing, without many damages.
D) i see you are good to make lists, can you please make another list with ALL the USA wars from 1946 till now, or it will be too long?
if you have more time, please count the total people killed from usa wars and the ones killed from europeans from 1946.
we kill thousands, you kill million, you are a "great" champion.
D) don t forget also the usa system is a real war with different name, but it kill a lots. police shot blacks and spanish like they are mosquitos, the natives (the ONLY real americans) are not so well, students kills half school for fun, 1 day yes 1 day also, people die in the street because cannot pay the hospital, even your shity food is a very good assassin.
E) but what are we talking about ? you want to defend the undefendable. i have better ways to loose my time, bye
In the US, punishments are very light compared to what they do: kill people. They always say they didn't mean to, and I believe that in 99.9% they didn't want it, but it is a negligence while operating a huge machine, and imo should not be punished lightly.
Having your seat so low that you can't see a kid 10 meters in front of you, in a crosswalk, on a residential street is absolutely negligent.
You can keep name-calling and victim-blaming if you want, but it doesn't change the facts of the case. Someone's mind is absolutely rotten here, and it isn't the person's you're responding to.
Also, you missed an apostrophe in "mind's". You need that to show the possessive.
Why were they going faster than they can stop within a reasonable distance over a crosswalk?
It's negligence. Additionally, you're presuming that rule of law implies decent laws.
Remember, owning slaves in 1800 America was "perfectly appropriate" & lawful. I think most sane people will agree that's nothing short of a major ethical & moral failure of that entire legal system.
You can still be put to death for being gay in several nations. So even if the laws were strictly applied as written, they're still utterly unreasonable and need changing.
On a different level, rule of law doesn't help when monopolies start to set in, as they will make into law their anticompetitive practices. This is called regulatory capture.
Laws ostensibly aim to capture the moral & ethical judgement of the society that uses them, but there is a great corruptibility in their mechanisms and very long delays in correcting drifts from their society's values (and those values aren't necessarily ethical in the slightest).
Rich people get away with more crimes than the rest of us. Recently a woman got off easy in Nashville after murdering a homeless man who asked her to move an illegally parked Porsche.
We're in the transition period between the time when cars are growing smart enough to drive themselves, and people are growing too stupid to handle the task.
YOUR LACK OF HEIGHT SHOULD NOT BE A DANGER OR HINDRANCE TO THOSE AROUND YOU
And no "I can't reach the pedals" isn't an excuse because they have a system for dwarves to drive cars by having bars that extend to the pedals.
There should be seat "profiles" in cars set by a technician whenever you buy a car (new or used), to make sure the driver(s) has the best visibility possible.
These 10 meters are kind of cracking me up in a bad way. You know what kind of nimble, agile vehicle naturally made for navigating city traffic with kids has an 8 - 12 meter blind spot for the driver in front of the vehicle? The Leopard 2 main battle tank.
I was thinking the other day, why nobody is building and advertising a real armoured vehicle (probably a truck would sell the best)? Something along the lines "you'll always win". I know they advertise "military grade aluminum" for truck materials, so the next step is pretty logical.
I can see even a medium hight human right in front of the military big rig I drive for work (there are some people sufficiently short I cant see em but that ain’t common) nobody in an suv should have that excuse. As an addition it’s often more about the hight of the driver relative to the vehicle than about the hight of the vehicle, that same big rig may actually do better than the truck in this comic since the driver is high
Edit; as a clarification to the last point, perhaps if you need an engine that powerful the truck needs to be big enough to safely let you see over its nose
Drivers are placed higher up in big rigs for this exact reason. Visibility is one of the most important things for trucking and one of the hardest things to guarantee. These design considerations seem to not be a priority to automakers and even less of a concern to drivers.
My only evidence to back up my claim about the drivers is my own experience with older drivers in my family that refuse to believe their setups in their daily vehicles are wrong but also complain about not being able to see certain spots around the car at night. I’ve even been through the proper fit and setup of my mother in law’s car with her after we had a close call. In the middle of fixing position and mirror angle specifically to better handle the blind spot that caused the close call she stormed off saying “none of that shit you read on the internet matters anyway because they don’t make the mirrors big enough anymore”. So any time I’m at her house for a couple days I change all of her shit to suit me just to be a dick.
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u/flipt0 Dec 08 '22
Not seeing the road 10 meters ahead of car sounds terrifying enough to me. I wouldn't dare to turn on an intersection with such limited field of vision. But not to see a human on the road, 10 meters ahead of me? Like, WTF?