gldwngr

One, judging closing speed in the dark is not as easy as in daytime. Headlights don;t give yu much to work with. Two, if you are accustomed to making the same turn day in, day out, after a while you may find yourself not guaging the speed of approaching cars so much as you note their position relative to the intersection you are turning. It's not how fast is that car approaching at - it becomes a matter of that car is plenty far enough away for me to make my turn in time. Of course, if that car is doing double the speed limit, that calculation goes out the window real quick.

Now, let's talk fault then under Ontario law...

These guys by doing more 16 kmph or more over the limit just tossed out the standard rules of fault determination. That person making aleft turn in front of them may in fact be considered not legally at fault for the accident because of the behaviour of the speeding cars. Their gross act of driving negligence trumps any mistake in making that left turn.

goneinsixtyseconds

i think it's presumptuous of you 6Msentra to assume that the driver of the victim's car wasn't paying attention (talking on the cell phone, changing radio channels, etc.) i'd have to agree with gldwngr, everyone is responsible to make maneuvers safely (whether it's a left turn, right turn, changing lanes, etc.) but it should be based on a reasonable behaviour of others. when two morons start plowing down a road at almost double the speed limit, that creates an extreme situation outside of the normal flow of the road.

sure YOU might be able to gauge that kind of distance, but just because the victims couldn't, doesn't mean it was in any way their fault. yes, i realize you aren't siding with the racers, but your argument for being able to gauge the distance of excessive speeders is erroneous.

as much as i hate the idea of criminalizing street racing, cases like this do illustrate how something as everday as driving, in the hands of immature, reckless kids, CAN be a weapon, one as serious as even gun-related homicides.

2TONE_93GT

iTrader: (3)

atleast theyre supporting the bill..idiots.

6Msentra

headlights give you plenty to work with.... i dotn know where you get that from... when you are driving at night you know when a car is travelling quickly towards you.... and if you dont.. then you are an unsafe driver and perhaps should not drive at night and endanger the rest of us that actually pay attention.
now legally at fault, and being the cause of the accident are two different things... they definately caused the accident.. sure if they had survived i would never consider them to be legally at fault... but the faact remains that as a result of their judgement error (or negligence? or inattentiveness? we will never know) a crash happened which could have been avoided. the fact that one of two idiots plowed into them at 150km/h is inconsequential in my mind, because the possibility still exists that they could have been hit by either car if the two "racers" had only been doing 100km/h which is the normal driving speed near that intersection during the evening/night. we dont know what the dead driver had done... maybe he was unsafe? maybe he didnt even pay attention? we dont know...

6Msentra

now thanks for bringing this up.

if you are used to something being a certain way... your toaster is on the left hand side of the counter... your fridge opens to the right.... you dont notice it as being anything other than normal... its routine, your brain simply registers these things as nothing.

now one morning you wake up and the fridge opens to the left, and the toaster is on the right hand side of the counter

holy !!!!!! you certainly register that as being out of the ordinary and you are surprised because it is very different.

well its the same thing with driving... the same reason you notice a car weaving toward you when you werent even looking at it, the same reason that you wait before making a left turn because the guy coming toward you seems to be goinhg quickly... dont even start to tell me that this hasnt happened to you, because you know it has. you notice things out of the ordinary.

when 2 cars are coming at you at 150km/h with their headlights on you notice it as being DIFFERENT than what you are accustomed to.. you notice it simply... because its out of the ordinary... its extreme... and you notice.... unless.... you werent paying the proper attention to the road that a driver should.
it is not presumptuous of me to profer that this MAY have been a factor in the driver's inability to read the traffic properly... but they possibility IS that i am presuming correctly.... i mean, you are presuming that the 2 little ****faces were going 150km/h... i remember being a witness to a police chase that ended in a fatality... 9 other witnesses claimed the driver was doing "at least... 200km/h" ... no joke! well i put his speed at about 100-110km/h.. and guess what? after listening to my photographic recollection, and using some video evidence they were able to determine that the speeds in the moments leading up to the crash were no greater than 125km/h. there is always the possibility that 2 loud exhausts sounded like 150... but in fact were 120... lets see what the civic's speedo says..

gldwngr

Headlights vary in shape, intensity, definition, and distance from each other so much that they alone cannot give you a reliable indication as to speed. Headlights alone really only tell you something is coming your way - there is no context of the vehicle in relation to landmarks etc that can help you more accurately guage the speed of an oncoming set of headlights. This becomes even more true when there is more than one set of headlights coming your way.

Daytime is different - you have crisper definition on the vehicle images you see, you have a better view of the vehicles in relation to their surroundings which in turn helps you better estimate their speed. There's tons of studies on this sort of stuff. Go do the research.

The left turn did not cause the crash. Thecrash was caused by excess speed far beyond what other road users would expect to encounter on the road. The whole discipline of driving is predicated on predictable behaviour of drivers on the road. Defensive driving techniques are intended to "help" mitigate the effects of unexpected behaviour on the part of other drivers, but even defensive driving has its limits. In this case, the two morons caused the accident because their closing speed on that car turning left was DOUBLE what it should have been.

Speculation on the dead driver's abilities is pointless - it's like blaming the rape victim for wearing the wrong clothes. The fault lies on the heads of the two youths racing their Hondas at almost twice the speed limit on a public street. For you to try deflecting blame onto the victims is pathetic.

goneinsixtyseconds

i won't even comment on how obscene it is to compare everyday routines like your toaster and fridge door to the routine's on the road, but the point isn't that the behaviour of the 2 racers were out of the ordinary (extreme), but it's that the victim shouldn't HAVE TO be responsible for noticing idiotic behaviour like theirs because of how grossly reckless they were.

i only presume their speed based on what the newspapers/news agencies tell me. sure an arguement can be made for their bias, but since i didn't witness the accident, nor do i know anyone who has, i can only base my opinions on what their reports say (which i further assume is based on police reports/etc.).

but enough squabbling over semantics or definitions, i think what's important to discuss here isn't necessarily who's at fault, but what we can do about preventing future occurences. i'd be interested to hear the side of the story of the 2 drivers, and what they were thinking at the time.

Tony the Tiger

Clearly one of the main cause of this tragedy is speed... And it's just that, speeding.

The whole thing about streetracing is too vagulely used... The term is being thrown around without even knowing the true definition of it.
I remember a traffic lawyer used to tell me what defines racing. It has to meet certain criterias, such examples would be stopping in the middle of the road to do a run for no apparent reason (no stop lights, no stop sign, etc...). Another is with bets involved, money/betting from the outcome of the race. There are more others, but simply two cars speeding and trying to get ahead of each other is not racing, and which is probably why all those streetracing cases we've seen over the years are either dropped or lowered to something stupid like a fine. Speed does not define streetracing.

Streetracing is not like drinking and driving because DUI has evidence to support the driver's state when he was pulled over (blood alcohol level, etc), but streetracing needs witnesses and a whole bunch of other supporting factors to prove that "racing" was the cause. Apparently, when a bystander sees two cars revving by, that is not racing. When other cars on the road see two "hondas" playing cat and mouse, cutting off traffic and speeding like crazy, that's not racing either. That's reckless or DD, or even road rage. But again, it's not racing.

Even if I launched from a stop light at a regular intersection trying to beat a BMW or something, that is not racing unless there are bets involved, plus evidence to proof those bets. I could be trying to make a lane change but the BMW is being as a$$ and not allowing me to do so. So if the BMW crashes, somehow I am supposed to be charged? That's how stupid is sounds, but unfortunately, that's what we are seeing on the news.

It's always about the media trying to exaggerate things. I could be in fact racing by stopping in the middle of the road for no apparent reason, and racing the car beside me. The moment we start racing, regardless of speed, we would be actually racing. The race could stop at 60 km/h and under the speed limit, or 200 km/h, but again, speed does not define street racing.


Basically, the accident happened because two cars were speeding. Perhaps they were racing each other, but I get people trying to pass me while I was already doing 100+ km/h and I usually step on the gas as a natural thing do do (you naturally step on the gas when a car is approaching fast from behind). This is pretty much on a daily basis. On that stretch of Yonge, it is actually very open and I travel on that intersection 3 to 4 times a week. Easily I see cars doing 130 km/h on there everyday, and just before after work rush hour, I get passed whipped by from cars and trucks when I am already doing 40 km/h over the limit (120 km/h). And during nights, I've seen cars go way faster. It's simply a nice stretch of road and people speed. Would ever car be going 80-90 km/h on HWY 7 (between say Bathurst and centre street)? Cars on hwy 7 go at least 120 km/h and they are passing each other with 120 km/h traffic speeds. As a driver, you pay attention to speeders. Sort of like walking across a busy intersection.. You always pay attention to traffic even though it says "WALK" at the pedestrian crossing... You don't trust it 100% because a car could be running a red light and run you over. Being a regular person, you also look clearly and pay close attention when making a left hand turn on a long empty stretch of road with 80km/h as a speed limit. People could be speeding 180+ km/h, and it is not out of the norm on a nice stretch of road.

All in all, think about the same scenario, but now instead of modded Hondas, it is a Jeep SRT-8 and a BMW X5. The news wouldn't just be quite the same thing even though both drivers could be doing essentially the same thing ("racing" each other by trying to get ahead of each other).

The old programs like PACER was doing okay, but instead, they now went with ERASE. Instead of trying to prevent kids from streetracing and educating them, they now bust them on their spot. It gets pretty stupid when you have cops setting up traps and giving out tickets at the drag strip! So I seriously do not get it; are we supposed to sit at home and not race anything at all? It's retarded, and with the current politicians and the way things are going, this problem would only get worse.

6Msentra

i will simply break it down to its simplest form.

the 2 "racers" did not lose control of their vehicle.
the innocent victim did not lose control of his vehicle.

therefore one person did something to cause the crash.

if there was no left turn made... there would have been no crash.
if the "racers" hadnt been "racing" and were cruising at the normal speed at that intersection which would have been roughly 100km/h (still we dont know how much faster they were ACTUALLY going at the time of the crash) and a left turn was made into their path, a collision may have still occurred.


the onus is on the driver crossing traffics path to ensure it is safe to proceed. this driver unfotunately did not! you can go on and on about the dark and the headlights, but the fact remains that when any of us are crossing traffic we make sure that it is safe to proceed, and when we notice something out of the ordinary (we have all driven many km and have made thousands upon thousands of left turns and will notice something out of the ordinary... if we are paying attention) we wait and make sure it is safe before proceeding.

there are alot of "ifs" surrounding this of course... but there is one FACT!

if the victim had not proceeded across traffic there would have been NO crash (and no potential for a crash) as none of the drivers had lost control of their vehicles up until the impact.

coles:
victim caused crash
"racers's" speed caused death

[/devilsadvocate]

4cefed6

And another thing to consider, what do you do at you wedding aniversary? Celebrate...champagne or wine anybody?

v8mike

Talk about blaming the victim! Yes, the driver has the onus to check traffic before proceeding with a turn. Based on what I have read, this point hasnt been disputed by any. However, the point that I do have an issue with in your arguments is that the driver making the left turn assumes this reponsibility in all situations.

Lets say you are sitting at a traffic light waiting to make a left turn. Im a hundred meters away on my turbocharged hayabusa doing the speed limit of 40 mph. Based on that speed, you decide you have sufficient time to turn, not knowing that at that very moment, I decided to go WOT and Im now travelling at 100 mph. I end up ramming into you. Who caused that accident - you or I?

Could you *reasonably* be expected to know how fast the bike could accelerate in such a short distance? Is the driver making the left turn ALWAYS at fault regardless of the circumstances? That is the argument you are making.

kyriian

as much as i hate to say it..... it is apparently when there's an accident.... the one making the left turn is almost always at fault..... 'right of way' remember?

pg29

i don't know about you guys, but i can easily see when someone is comming towards me at way over the speedlimit when im trying to make a left turn. i just wait until the speeding vehicle has passed, then make my turn when i think its safe. those retards shouldn't have been racing but you can clearly see(and hear sometimes) when someone is speeding towards you, unless youre impaired as someone else already brought up.

gldwngr

Very few people, even stone cold sober people, can accurately gauge speed of approaching traffic at night when their only visual cues are headlights in darkness. There are studies available on the subject. Go find them. The studies almost universally note that people rely on apparent distance of the approaching object, together with the reasonably-expected speed for the area, when determining if there is enough room to complete a driving maneuver. The decision become not one of "how fast is that car going", but one of "is there enough room between me and him for me to complete my turn". Nobody reasonably expects oncoming traffic to be going twice the speed limit, and if you don't expect that, your decision-making will not take that speed into account, nor does the law expect you to take extreme driving behaviour on the part of others on the road into account.

To the other genius mouthing words about right-of-way and how the one making the left turn is almost always at fault, the key word is "almost".

Ontario law defines who is at fault in various circumstances. However, also under Ontario law, those fault determination rules get tossed out the window if the otherwise not-at-fault driver is speeding 16 kmph or more above the speed limit. Those rules also get tossed out if a driver is charged with an indictable offence in connection with their driving, such as impaired or dangerous driving, or in this case, criminal negligence. That means that a collision arising out of a left turn is not necessarily the fault of the person making the left turn when the actions of other drivers involved are extreme and beyond what is considered reasonable and expected driving conduct.

gldwngr

Well then you must be really special. Even trained observers with extensive experience observing cars at high speeds have difficulty determining closing speed of oncoming vehicles at night in darkness.