SUV T-bones Prius

Good luck on finding 12 jurors that would all vote to convict.

 

According to the captions under the pictures, the driver of the SUV was a 16-year-old. Personally, I think that teenagers shouldn't be allowed to drive SUVs or other large cars until they have more experience.

 

if the folks at the NHTSA had his way, nobody would drive smaller cars (they basically mean anything smaller than Buick, I suppose) and we would all drive trucks or SUVs...

 

Wrongful death, negligent homicide or other, but Murder is a bit extreme. Usually murder requires malice aforethought

 

That happened to my wife back in 2002. She was driving her '99 Expedition. She turned left and a guy ran a red light that had been red for several seconds (according to witnesses). It was a 3 lane road with cars stopped and he cruised into the middle lane and my wife didn't see him. My wife assumed since there were lines of cars stopped that everyone was stopped. Police estimated he was doing between 60-65 when he ran into her passenger side door. He was driving a Chevy pickup truck (one of the smaller ones). He had a bed completely full of 5 gallon buckets of paint.

My wife spun around through the intersection. The drivers side rear tire bead failed. When that happened the aluminum rim dug into the ground (half the rim was actually ground away from sliding). As she slowed down, the rim grabbed the ground and laid her over on her side. If you can imagine this, her vehicle is on it's drivers side, she manages to grab her cell phone from her purse while on it's side and calls me. I answer, she says, "I've been in a bad accident at the intersection of..." This intersection is about 3 miles from my house. To say I literally melted the tires off my car as I ripped out of my driveway to the accident site would be the understatement of the year.

Got to the accident scene and the fire department was already there. My wife was unscathed but really shaken up. The fire department wanted to slowly get her out just in case she was injured bad so they went through the rear hatch. It was locked, but I had just arrived and I had the spare keyless remote on my keychain. I unlocked the doors and helped them remove the third row so they could climb in. They ultimately abandoned this attempt and just cut out the windshield to get to her that way.

While all this is happening the guy that hit her, all cut up and bleeding, walks over to me and is trying to apologize. I was calm and said, "you better sit back down over there before we have a problem".

My wife was checked out at the hospital and all she had was a hair line fracture from the seat belt. She joked about how, "if I wasn't wearing my seat belt that wouldn't have happend" (she used to never wear her seatbelt and I lectured her enough when we got married).

Checked out her vehicle the next day. All the glass was intact (except the windshield they cut out... but that was intact in the back where they placed it when it was transported to the yard. Even after that huge hit, there wasn't a single piece of the vehicle that protruded into the cab. Even if a passenger was in the seat, the door was still a couple of inches from even touching the passenger seat. I was very very impressed. Because of that I decided to buy another Expedition based vehicle, my '03 Navigator.

The person that hit her of course only had the very minimum insurance but American Family insurance (our insurance) took care of us.

Mike

 

If she died I'd probably be manslaughter. It the FJ's at fault she's in a world of shite. Gonna be paying scads of cash on this one. Probably somebody gobbing off on their cell phone, which will really give the plaintiff lots of ammo in court. I'd sue the hell out of 'em. Take half their paycheck for the next 20 years.

On the other hand, the Prius might be at fault...

 

Your post reminds me of this morning. I was driving next to a Progressive Insurance adjusters SUV and he was "gobbing" (to use your word) on his cell phone.

 

an interesting spin on the word.

 

Sounds like a problem with the driver, not the vehicle.

Anything else Stalin?

In case you missed the memo, incompetent drivers are not limited to SUV's. Just yesterday, I was cut off by one of your fellow Carolla skippers. Must have been jealous of my 51 mpg average right now.

 

The slideshow captions tell a lot more of the story. The SUV was driven by a 16 year old who did run the light. The driver of the Pruis was a 60 year old woman who was pinned and had to be cut out. She suffered from a broken pelvis and a broken collarbone. The CRV was parked and unoccupied.

Personally I think this stems more from 16 year olds driving alone. I think they need more experience AFTER receving their PROVISIONAL license with an adult in the car before being sent off to navigate the roads alone. Personally, I don't think 16 year olds should be driving at all, but that's another thread.

At least that one will lose his/her license until 18 due to that accident.

 

Amen! With the idea of more and better public transit (which I support) there is no reason why 16yr olds should need to drive. In fact MANY peopler would not need to drive and there will only be beneficial effects to the economy, health, and environment. Sorry for the rant but I can't stand young drivers! I was one and it is a miracle I did not kill anyone despite many close calls due to agressive stupidity.

 

I agree. I think they should raise the age on getting a drivers license to 18.

I never cared to drive when I was 16. Every teen thinks it'll be the end of the world if they don't get it right when they turn 16.

If I needed to go places I would use public transportation, family members would drive mi or even ride a bike. I didn't get my license until I was 19. Which will be a year ago in 2 weeks.

Chau

 

Here here!

Love the avatar btw. Orem Utah, that where the manufacture of my turbocharger (truck) is based.

 

That's great Pat. Let's put a 16 year old in prison for the rest of his/her life because they were popping a CD in the car stereo. If they we're racing, drunk or stoned, maybe a murder charge would hold. But more than likely this was due to the inexperience of a 16 year old. An accident due to inexperience or inattentiveness won't pass muster as murder.

God help you Pat if you have one. You're "solution" will ruin a life, not save one.

 

I wonder if it is age - or # of years behind the wheel. Raising to 18 may help, but then at 18 you have a "new" driver with no experience instead of 2 years of experience. Drivers have to get their experience sometime. Perhaps there should be some sort of readiness pre-test instead -- although I'm not sure what the criteria would be.

 

Let's keep the driving rules at the state level. It's one thing to drive in SoCal traffic, and another in rural Kansas. We start the kids at 14, give them school/work solo at 15, unrestricted at 16. Is that too young? Probably, and it gets debated every year. But honestly our situation is quite different from the more populous areas, as is the availability of public transit.

Wish the victim a full and speedy recovery.

Kid faces plenty of punishment without calling it murder.

 

I'm 50/50 on young drivers. I was one, and I too am lucky I didn't injure someone. I've always obeyed red lights, but I drove very fast. I remember racing back from lunch during high school. In particular I remember one time, hopping up the curb when backed up at a red light (while "racing" back to class) and driving down the sidewalk to get around cars. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

The reason why I'm 50/50 is I'd be all for very extensive driver training/licensing such as they have in Europe. It's waaaay to easy to get a drivers license in the U.S... and some states are worse than others (in AZ it's absolutely ridiculous). A side affect of this increased training will probably be many waiting until they're 18 or older to get a license... due to the additional cost associated with the more extensive training.

Just a thought... like I said, I'm 50/50 on this issue.

Mike

 

One thing would be to require an increase in the number of actual hours behind the wheel with an instructor. That really helped me in the 1970's.

I think one advantage to raising it to 18 would be that an 18 year old usually has more maturity and better judgment than your typical 16 year old. On the other hand, I can also cite numerous cases where just the opposite is true. I agree with the poster who said a lot of this should be up to the parents. I have a 15 1/2 year old right now who wants to get her permit, then license, and I'm not so sure that her mom and I should allow her to do this at this time. She's fairly level-headed but could show more responsibility in "the little things," as she tends to forget to do her chores. Her mom and I are trying to assess this and make the right decision.

I was talking with a traffic cop the other day, and he told me that he's not going to let his kids drive until they are 18. He said the reason was that here (in San Diego), just in the past 10 years, the traffic has gotten so much more congested. Add to that people's stress levels, road rage, etc.