Will County Fairgrounds Demolition Derby
One of our friends ran in the Will County Fairgrounds Demolition Derby last night. She did really well, but unfortunately she got stuck on the logs at the track edge and even though she took hardly any damage – couldn’t continue. She would have easily won, but I guess she learned from it and will be back! She’s the red #11 in the photo gallery. As always, the gallery will be available in the post and the photo gallery page.
It’s really amazing to see this kind of thing. A huge amount of safety has been added to these cars since 2001 and we probably just saw hundreds of them all working together to save this man’s life.
A woman now lays in a hospital on life support and two of her four children are dead.
Whatever her pace of life, was it really worth racing a train, risking her life and her children’s life for the sake of waiting for it to pass?
The mother could not see that a train was heading in the opposite direction to the train she was racing, when she attempted to cross the track she was hit by that train and her car was knocked into the path of the one she was trying to beat. While local residents perhaps may choose to blame the incident on the lack of barriers, I will blame the mother. There were warning lights, clearly visible, and there was A BIG TRAIN. If that was not warning enough, then I don’t think a barrier, which she could easily have driven around, would have changed the outcome. What more warning do you need than the possibility of death?!
The next time you drive quicker to beat something, be it a red light or a train, remember these images…
Well, Lance Briggs has come clean, has said he was stupid and that he crashed his car, got scared, called in a fake police report (saying it was stolen) and ran from the scene of the accident. He did later call in to the police to admit what he had done.
It reminds me of what I was told by a Skip Barber Racing School driving instructor about people who buy cars like Briggs’ Lamborghini Murcielago… He said “Lots of people buy cars like this [Dodge Viper], then hurt or kill themselves or somebody else soon after because they lost control…”
I kind of wonder if there should be some sort of advanced driving education given to people as a part of the sale of this type of vehicle. When you’re buying a $400,000 car like the Lamborghini, a few $1K’s on lessons of how to control the darned thing can’t be a bad idea. Driving the Viper last year I was amazed by how much grip the car had, it seemed stuck to the road, but paradoxically it was also really easy to get it out of shape and lose control.
As for Briggs, he was obviously stupid – but the law will deal with him. My biggest concern though is why the hell was he driving at 3am when he is meant to be at “work” (for the Chicago Bears) just a few hours later?
The speed limit in most built-up areas like the one this incident happened in is 30mph. If your brakes failed, can you imagine any corner that couldn’t be taken at 30mph (or less – because if your brakes were not responding, wouldn’t you let-off the right pedal?)
I’ve been in a car before with someone who really was not capable of driving safely and it wasn’t because of drink or drugs, it was because of age. For this incident to have resulted in the death of a baby is horrifying, but the very LAST thing you do, even if you have brake failure, is mount a pedestrian walkway… You should be trying to stop with the hand-brake (as it’s unlikely that ALL brakes failed) or you should be trying to have the car gradually come to a halt (but remaining on the road!) The man in question has stated that he was on the pavement for 25 metres (82 feet), BEFORE hitting the woman and child.
I haven’t done a lot of driving in my life, I’ll admit, but I have pushed the limits. I can’t think of any corner that would have 82 feet of available running area that couldn’t just be taken at 30mph on the roadway. So his story just makes no sense… If his brakes did fail, he should have been should have been going slow enough to not have to mount the pavement. He was either speeding, or he cannot control a car and should not have been on the road anyway. What a shame for that young family.
This guy’s Guardian Angel did a great job. Note the damage to the guard rail and the resting position of the truck after the accident…
 |
 |
 |
This is absolutely un-be-f*cking-liev-able! I have to say, thanks for this one have to go out to the volunteer based St. John’s Ambulance crew who were on-hand during the accident. Read the story here.