If you ran a stop sign

[texace]

Crown Victorias don't have hand brakes.

[Masherbrum]

Originally posted by Maverick
Masherburn,

Just for the sake of arguement, since there is no real information available to anyone yet, what would you charge him with if it turned out the brakes had just catastrophically failed on his car?

I notice you keep misspelling my handle, but back to this.

IMO, he still had ways to SLOW the car down, IF "brake failure" occurred.  

1.) Take the foot off of the gas.
2.) Throw it in Neutral
3.) If there is still enough distance, downshift from OD, to D, and maybe 1st.  

To me, this is natural, I'm sorry.   Boxboy, Shamus will be familiar with this area.

I had a 1996 F-150 on 31" BFG Mud Terrains.   I was driving down Telegraph Rd (M-24) with my wife (fiance at the time) to go to the Popmart U2 concert at the Palace of Auburn Hills.  

The speed limit is 50 North of I-696.   I kept seeing this ******* in a minivan deliberately, getting in the far right lane to "hopefully beat the car in front of me off the line".   For 4 lights we played the game, he "tried" forcing his way into my truck, I never relented, my wife was asleep on the way there (nothing new).   I had a 5.0l and a Manual.   Now it starts to drizzle, this is Halloween.  
I'm confident in my driving skills, even then.   This hugahunk decides he's going to cut off the Escort in the next lane to the left.   He got in front of us both and DELIBERATELY slammed on his brakes just South of Square Lake Rd.   He was a good 1/4 mile from the car in FRONT of him.   The van in front of me panicked and slammed on the brakes.   I had enough foresight to already look to the driver's side mirror and see the Escort lay off and allow me enough room to get over.   Without blinking, I downshifted from 5th to 2nd (I had to froce this into 2nd) and got off of the gas and brake.   I had all four lanes clear to the left of me, and went all the way over as I went through the motions of a rubber burning fishtail.   The driver of the Escort got out at the light and wanted to literally beat the watermelon out of this guy in his minivan.    I thanked the Escort driver for what he did and he said "He had thought I was going into oncoming, or at least spinning out."  

Had I slammed into the van in front of me, someone would have died.   It comes back to responsibility to know the limitations of your vehicle and what it can do.   Most of these Metrosexuals drinving Land Rover Discoveries, Range Rovers, Escalades, Denali's, etc have NO concept of what these vehicles CAN DO to a car in an accident.  They drive them LIKE cars, speed along, and think they will have enough room, and BOOM!    I have a Jeep CJ7 on 33" tires, I have had this since June.   I have been CUT OFF deliberately more times than I care to count, and still flip everyone one of them off, because they lack the common sense to realize they will get f**ked up in an accident situation.  

So again, he could have done a number things on top of "blowing" the sign if "brake failure" occurred.   God gave us a brain to use.   I tend to use mine.

[lasersailor184]

I was speaking hypothetically, like he had just discovered that his brakes were gone.

[john9001]

<>

so you like to "play games" on the road. thats a good way to make the TV news.  I don't play games on the road. if someone wants to play i back off and let them find somebody else to play with. My sheet metal is more important than my ego.



all todays cars have duel braking systems, the purpose is to prevent "catastrophic" brake failure, it means the car has two brake systems, the odds of both systems failing at the same time would be very high, you also have the "parking" brake which takes some skill to stop a car with but it can be done.
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driving is a skill, not a privilege

[lasersailor184]

Didn't know about that two systems thing.

[Masherbrum]

Originally posted by john9001
so you like to "play games" on the road. thats a good way to make the TV news.  I don't play games on the road. if someone wants to play i back off and let them find somebody else to play with. My sheet metal is more important than my ego.
------------------------------------------
driving is a skill, not a privilege

I do NOT allow any chitty drivers in front of me.   I'm sorry, but I do NOT play games on the road.   Bottom line, my ego of driving is the lack of tickets I have had, and the driving skills I have.  

BTW, in the above incident, I must point out, for two lights I "let off" and gave this dolt opportunities to get in front of me (I left it out due to NOT writing a novel).   He wanted to "be first".   After two lights, I got tired of it.   No games.   Nice hijack attempt though.

[joowenn]

[x0847Marine]

Originally posted by Guppy35
My son missed a stop sign and it cost him and his sister their lives.  I don't believe for a second he meant to miss it.  It was dusk, the intersection has had numerous accidents in the past.  They died and my family has to somehow live with it.

That being said, i take great offense at the 'bullet in the back of the head' comments.

I sometimes wonder how the woman who was driving the Jeep Cherokee that T-boned my son's car, lives with that, even knowing it was my son who missed the stop sign.

I know what my life has been like since my kids died.  I can imagine there is no greater punishment for that cop then having to live with the knowledge of what his missed stop sign caused.  That will be a far greater punishment then anything the law can hand out.

BTW I have the accident reports and they are very detailed and very difficult to read considering it details the last seconds of my son and daughter's lives.  The state patrol in Minnesota is responsible for doing all of them and they were/are very thorough.

Dusk is a perfect example of a contributing factor, the setting sun hits a dirty windshield at just the right spot, blinds the driver, driver gets in collision.

Time of day Roadway conditions: most roadways are of asphalt or concrete construction, crowing in the center, sloping to cement curb lines. Both types absorb leaked fluids differently... even a small amount of am dew can create a slick road, but it wont be that way later in the afternoon.

Everyone here who complains that cops drive too fast would be jumping for joy at the sight of a police car hauling-ass, against policy / law, to save them.

One guy on my shift was infamous for getting everywhere last, even to his own calls. He made a joke of it, driving like an old lady to burglary in progress, prowler there now, assault in progress, robbery just occurred.. no matter to him, complete stops, waiting at red lights, obeying every traffic rule. His response times were so bad, it started to kill our response time stats.. of course people called in to complain it was taking too long.

So like I said earlier, pick your poison; aggressive cops who will get to you, or "screw you" cops who honestly dont care if you die, your just another stiff.. just like the one last week, just like the one next week.. its not like he'll get fired for following "the rules" if it took him 5 extra minutes.

[Trell]

One guy on my shift was infamous for getting everywhere last, even to his own calls. He made a joke of it, driving like an old lady to burglary in progress, prowler there now, assault in progress, robbery just occurred.. no matter to him, complete stops, waiting at red lights, obeying every traffic rule. His response times were so bad, it started to kill our response time stats.. of course people called in to complain it was taking too long.

So does that mean he is not alowed to put his lights on to respond to any off these issues?  Sounds like a dept problem to me,  if he is responding to something that just happened  I would think he would be alowed to speed up.  But you never know..


But that does not give him the rights to drive crazy  just for fun,  with out his lighs on when he is not responding it any one.  

Maybe i am wrong,  But i would want cops to actualy have to follow the laws when everything is normal.

So like I said earlier, pick your poison; aggressive cops who will get to you, or "screw you" cops who honestly dont care if you die, your just another stiff.. just like the one last week, just like the one next week.. its not like he'll get fired for following "the rules" if it took him 5 extra minutes.

So   what are the rules??  Are cops alowed to speed?,  I see them speeding all the time here with and with out there lights off,


I guess we should just accept ******* cops and agressive cops, and bend over and kiss there ass?  Becasue the police dept cant seems to find good cops?

[-Concho-]

As most of ya'll know I'm a state trooper here in Texas and maybe I can answer a couple of your questions.

Cops aren't allowed to speed or blast thru intersections, even if on a call.
We are required to use due care at all times.  Alot of times on a call I will run over 100mph without my lights or siren due to the fact people are unpredictable.  I know everyone here is an expert and well seasoned driver and know to yeild to the right for an emergency vehicle, but there are the few out there that will yeild to the left, side swipe the car next to them, or stop in the traffic lane all together.  Its easier to slip by without them even knowing that your there.

Accident investigation is a very detailed and time consuming process, much like doing a jig saw puzzle.  There are a lot of factors not mentioned in the article that could have bearing on the situation.  As mentioned the fact that charges haven't been filed lean to that more serious chages other than a traffic violation are on the way.

As for lasersailor184, do you really want to live in a place where you "get shot in the back of the head" for a traffic violation well before the facts are in?  With a comment like that I sure hope your are just trolling and are not serious.

Cops are people too.  We make mistakes and yes some are real jerks too.  There are far many more good ones than bad.  If this guy in NJ messed up, then he should be punished to the full extent of the law, but like guppy said he probably has enjoyed his last night of restful sleep because this is going to be with him forever.

[Masherbrum]

Originally posted by -Concho-
As most of ya'll know I'm a state trooper here in Texas and maybe I can answer a couple of your questions.

Cops aren't allowed to speed or blast thru intersections, even if on a call.
We are required to use due care at all times.  Alot of times on a call I will run over 100mph without my lights or siren due to the fact people are unpredictable.  I know everyone here is an expert and well seasoned driver and know to yeild to the right for an emergency vehicle, but there are the few out there that will yeild to the left, side swipe the car next to them, or stop in the traffic lane all together.  Its easier to slip by without them even knowing that your there.

Accident investigation is a very detailed and time consuming process, much like doing a jig saw puzzle.  There are a lot of factors not mentioned in the article that could have bearing on the situation.  As mentioned the fact that charges haven't been filed lean to that more serious chages other than a traffic violation are on the way.

As for lasersailor184, do you really want to live in a place where you "get shot in the back of the head" for a traffic violation well before the facts are in?  With a comment like that I sure hope your are just trolling and are not serious.

Cops are people too.  We make mistakes and yes some are real jerks too.  There are far many more good ones than bad.  If this guy in NJ messed up, then he should be punished to the full extent of the law, but like guppy said he probably has enjoyed his last night of restful sleep because this is going to be with him forever.

Good post Concho, I never agreed with lasersailor's post.

[Chairboy]

Concho++

[Maverick]

Masherbrum,

Sorry about mispelling your handle, I really didn't notice.

Going back to the discussion we were having. I'll quote the relevent portion as all the other stuff you put in it was off topic.

"IMO, he still had ways to SLOW the car down, IF "brake failure" occurred.

1.) Take the foot off of the gas.
2.) Throw it in Neutral
3.) If there is still enough distance, downshift from OD, to D, and maybe 1st."

Nice set of options but there are a couple things here. I don't know of any standard patrol cars that are not automatics so option 1 and 2 are not likely to result in a significant or rapid loss of speed. Option 3 might allow a reduction but only if the transmission will allow downshifting above the lower gear's normal operating speed. Some auto transmissions also do not remain in lockup allowing the vehicle to coast as well. This will again not result in any significant reduction or speed. Since we know absolutely nothing about the terrain we can't even really speculate he could have shed speed by rubbing the guard rail or terrain to the side of the road. We also don't know if either driver could have seen the other prior to actual impact, so lights and even siren may not have made any difference to the other dirvers approach to the intersection.

I brought it all up just to illustrate one simple point here. I really didn't mean to pick on you, just you were a good "foil" for the sake of discussion as you didn't go off the handle.

The point I wanted to make, again, was that there is far too little information in the article to really understand how this collision happened and what are the contributing factors. All we know from the article alone (assuming it was correct in what little info it had to begin with) is that there was a stop sign, the Officer appears to have not stopped and that 2 people are dead. Yet inspite of the vast lack of information many folks are already sentencing the Officer to death, life in prison or other terms of imprisonment as if the collision was a willful act and he deliberately killed those 2 people. It kind of reminds me of the scene with the witch in Pythons "Search for the Holy Grail".

[lukster]

We will all be angry at this guy if he was abusing his authority by hurrying home to dinner feeling above the law without need to observe the stop sign. I get the impression that this is what some believe. We don't have all the facts and I'm confident there will be a full investigation. Hold judgement until then.

[Masherbrum]

Originally posted by Maverick
Masherbrum,

Sorry about mispelling your handle, I really didn't notice.

Going back to the discussion we were having. I'll quote the relevent portion as all the other stuff you put in it was off topic.

"IMO, he still had ways to SLOW the car down, IF "brake failure" occurred.

1.) Take the foot off of the gas.
2.) Throw it in Neutral
3.) If there is still enough distance, downshift from OD, to D, and maybe 1st."

Nice set of options but there are a couple things here. I don't know of any standard patrol cars that are not automatics so option 1 and 2 are not likely to result in a significant or rapid loss of speed. Option 3 might allow a reduction but only if the transmission will allow downshifting above the lower gear's normal operating speed. Some auto transmissions also do not remain in lockup allowing the vehicle to coast as well. This will again not result in any significant reduction or speed. Since we know absolutely nothing about the terrain we can't even really speculate he could have shed speed by rubbing the guard rail or terrain to the side of the road. We also don't know if either driver could have seen the other prior to actual impact, so lights and even siren may not have made any difference to the other dirvers approach to the intersection.

I brought it all up just to illustrate one simple point here. I really didn't mean to pick on you, just you were a good "foil" for the sake of discussion as you didn't go off the handle.

The point I wanted to make, again, was that there is far too little information in the article to really understand how this collision happened and what are the contributing factors. All we know from the article alone (assuming it was correct in what little info it had to begin with) is that there was a stop sign, the Officer appears to have not stopped and that 2 people are dead. Yet inspite of the vast lack of information many folks are already sentencing the Officer to death, life in prison or other terms of imprisonment as if the collision was a willful act and he deliberately killed those 2 people. It kind of reminds me of the scene with the witch in Pythons "Search for the Holy Grail".

All three of those suggestions would slow down the car.   Hell, throwing it into  Park or Reverse would destroy the tranny and slow it down.    There is always an option, I'm always thinking ahead when in a vehicle.   I rarely "wait til the last minute to change lanes, etc"  My wife hates it.

Vehicular Manslaughter rarely carries a Life Sentence.   If he made a mistake, he's already paying for it is all.