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Ratbuell
| | Posted on Thursday, December 15, 2011 - 08:31 am: | 
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One of these victims needs to sue Motorola. Or Samsung. Or Blackberry/RIM. Or Verizon Wireless / Sprint / Boost / AT&T.
Hit THEM where it hurts (the wallet, and the publicity) - then I bet we see some changes real fast.
Right at the source. The phones themselves. |
Scottorious
| | Posted on Thursday, December 15, 2011 - 09:40 am: |
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Have their been lawsuits on alcohol companies for deaths related to drunk drivers? Let me clarify myself. I am not opposed to law. I just want to be very cautious about asking for more laws that in most cases only the law abiding citizens follow anyway. So I am really just restricting myself. We ask for one law and where do the laws stop? Should eating and driving be outlawed? What about the use of helmets in cars. that would most certainly increase safety. What about a nationwide speed limit of 30 mph. All of these sound outrageous to us but im sure that 50 years ago the thought that you could be ticketed for not wearing a seatbelt was outrageous. |
Crackhead
| | Posted on Thursday, December 15, 2011 - 09:51 am: |
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Sifo,
"Investigators also found significant problems with the brakes of both school buses involved in the accident. A third school bus sent to a hospital after the accident to pick up students crashed in the hospital parking lot when that bus’ brakes failed. "
Because of the budge squeeze, I am certain more schools are having to turn to the lowest bidder for bus services. To reduce your cost, the "savings" has to come from somewhere.
"However, the brake problems didn’t cause or contribute to the severity of the accident, investigators said."
Bull shit, or the investigator should have said the buses where being operated in a unsafe manner. |
Sifo
| | Posted on Thursday, December 15, 2011 - 05:42 pm: |
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Interesting Crackhead. I didn't see that in the article I read about the first accident. Not familiar at all with the hospital one. I wonder what the brake problems were. It's hard to imagine brake problems on 2 out of 2 random buses from my perspective. They are in a different state and different company though. |
Sifo
| | Posted on Thursday, December 15, 2011 - 06:02 pm: |
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In fact I still can't find an article that describes brake problems with these two buses. I did find 0,386455.story,this description of how things happened though.
quote:The highway patrol says a GMC pickup rear-ended a Volvo semi truck in the right lane. The driver of the first school bus was carrying the girls from the John. F. Hodges High School marching band. The driver saw a vehicle on the right shoulder and moved over to the left lane to avoid that car.
While the bus driver was checking her mirrors to make sure it was safe to return to the right lane, she did not see that the GMC pick-up had hit the semi truck. The first bus then hit the GMC pick-up and the semi truck. The second school bus, carrying the boys, then hit the back of the first bus.
It does sound like if the pickup truck hadn't hit the other truck, none of this may have happened.
Still got a link where the talk about the brake problems? |
Team_ruthless
| | Posted on Thursday, December 15, 2011 - 06:47 pm: |
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I personally love that even though we have laws against distracted driving we need more specific ones. Once they started to come up with laws specifically against texting or using a handset I got really excited... Thinking of all the things I can do now while driving just because no law specifically states I can't. "I'm sorry officer, please tell me where exactly the law states making pizzas and playing a banjo while driving is illegal." |
Swampy
| | Posted on Thursday, December 15, 2011 - 07:16 pm: |
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I am your resident state bus inspector.
When I was an elementary school kid our school bus was really late to pick us up from school and take us home. When the bus got there the driver jumped out and started telling all the kids and principle that the bus did not have brakes, but she was going to get us home...she hoped...anyways we all load onto the bus and head off on down the road. I particularly remember rumbling down the dirt road extra fast.....probably because we were running late. We come rolling up to the end of the road and blew through the stop light trying to make the left turn and we must have been hit by 4 cars and rammed into another elementary schools fence and stone pillar. Not too many people got hurt we all got rounded up and went into the elementary school and waited in the gym until our parents picked us up.
45 years later....
I still believe that a real bus driver can safely drive a bus without brakes....the only problem is there are very few true real bus drivers out there...including Greyhound. Most of them are weekend warriors barely able to operate the complicated heating systems on the new buses, unable to understand the responsibility of what they are doing. It is like that with all vehicle drivers, very few of them know what the heck they are doing and unable to comphrehend the responsibility of not giving their full attention when they are driving.
That being said, there should never be a commerial vehicle operated on the road without being properly maintained.
I was rear ended twice in my State vehicle by commercial vehicles, both times by drivers that were inattentive. Both times I was stopped at a light. The one guy got out and said "Damn, I saw the insignia on the back of your truck and I thought I really hit the wrong guy this time" It was the drivers training run and he had a trainer with him (more to show him the route)I inspected the truck and put it out of service for having defective brakes. The trainer was telling me the truck was scheduled to go to the shop tomorrow but they needed it today.
Putting profit over safety, it will bite you in the butt everytime. |
Ratbuell
| | Posted on Thursday, December 15, 2011 - 08:47 pm: |
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Again - I'm not asking for more laws. I just wanna be safe on the road - cage, or motorcycle. Hell...*walking*. I was crossing the street to a 7-11 today for coffee and almost got plowed over by a bimbo in a Kia, yapping on a cell phone. The phone had full focus, I could tell by her body language. The steering wheel was the "bother"...and apparently so was I, judging by the glare she tossed my way because I dared to be in her way when she wanted to fly into a parking lot with no turn signal to get gas.
How dare I?
If people would use common sense and think about another human being once in a while, we wouldn't need all these damned laws.
If only. |
Kyrocket
| | Posted on Friday, December 16, 2011 - 09:03 am: |
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If you can find it I would suggest you take an evening and watch this...
http://www.theveryworstthing.com/
It's a documentary/movie about a school bus crash in E. Ky. in 1958. My grandfather was teaching in the school system one county over and knew some of these families, very heart wrenching.
Accidents are going to happen, that's a given but there are so many things that can be done to reduce the chances. Most of it is common sense, which it seems, is not so common any more. |
Pwnzor
| | Posted on Friday, December 16, 2011 - 10:13 am: |
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There are truck inspections, and then there are truck inspections.
By that I mean there are crooked-assed mechanics out there who make a living doing "DOT inspections" on entire fleets of trucks.
School buses included. |
Sifo
| | Posted on Friday, December 16, 2011 - 10:51 am: |
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My boss has the NTSB report from the Fox River Grove, IL accident from 1995 sitting on her desk just as a reminder about safety. That bus got hit by a train while at a red light. The report is over an inch thick and resulted in numerous changes in the school bus industry nationwide. Grim stuff. As with most accidents they found MANY factors that contributed to causing it.
My boss is also a IDOT examiner for school bus license testing. She also does the annual refresher courses that are mandatory for all drivers. To say that she takes safety seriously is kind of an understatement. Probably not the same at all companies. Even with all of this many of our drivers just don't seem to get it. My boss does like to hire bikers though. Somehow many of them do get it. |
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