Who is really at fault here?

[tcrist]

Driver sent or got 11 texts in 11 min before crash - Yahoo! News

So who is to blame? Your thought's?

[Ron61]

Terry,

Just a week or so ago we had a school bus full of students crash while the bus driver was texting. I still think that all vehicles should be made with a screen so cell and text phones won't work in them so long at the engine is running. And I have taken a lot of flack because of that but these same people managed to live before they had those dam things. When I was working with the labs we were just starting to set up the computers so they would switch a cell call from one area to the next and not drop it. I wrote a letter then telling the higher ups that this was going to go out of sight and it wouldn't be good. There is one guy who stops his pick up here in front of my house quite often and I asked him one morning what he was doing. He was making a cell call and he said he always stops and pulls over as he was tired of being ran off the road by people and those dam phones and he wasn't going to be one of them. Now all of you that think you can't survive without your cell phone and talking while you are driving can start calling me names. You won't have any that I haven't heard before.

And if you think society can't survive without being able to talk, text, take pictures, and drive at the same time visit a cemetery and tell that to the ones there because of it.

Ron

[mreid]

Obviously the driver is at fault. However, our society is decaying into an entitlement driven, no-fault mess. Frankly, I can believe you even had to ask the question.

[tcrist]

I look at it this way,

Yes, the 19 year old driver was texting and driving, which is wrong no mater which way you look at it.

That said the school bus would have hit the big truck if the 19 year old had not. Look at how far that bus rammed up on the back of the big truck. Now that could have happened when the second bus hit the first bus. Either way, those buses were going to hit the big truck. That could be driver error for following too close or it could be because the brakes on BOTH buses were crap (as stated in the report). If the buses had not rearended the 19 year old's pickup, would there have been any deaths? We will never know.

Note that the bus that went to the hospital (sp) to pick up the students wrecked in the parking lot because of bad or mis-adjusted brakes.

The 19 year old is going to get all of the blame. Should he???

JMO

[Ralphy]

I don't know about the entitlement thing, but I see stupid everyday. Drive through a parking lot and today's idiots walk right down the middle of the roadway. Or seem to think because they are a pedestrian they can walk in front of a moving vehicle, WHENEVER, if they even look.

[olddog]

I can see the second bus not being able to see ahead of the first bus. Maybe.

The first bus should have been able to see ahead of the pick up truck.

Investigators said the brakes played no roll in the accident or the severity of the accident. I take that to mean the driver never touched the brake peddle. How else could defective brakes not play a roll?

So why did three drivers not see a Semi truck in front of them? News media hype? Facts conveniently left out? Fog, sun, curve with obstructed view?

Take the kid in the truck completely out of the picture, and the two buses would still have crashed, something important is missing here!

We have all seen idiots that cannot walk and chew bubble gum try to drive and talk on a phone. It isn't pretty, and I'm not going to defend it. I do not believe all people are impaired equally, when talking on a phone, and not all situations require 100% of your attention at every fraction of a second. You have to blink sometime. The problem is that idiots do not believe they are idiots, and they will never make good decisions.

As for making cell phones non-functional inside cars, that is flat out wrong. Many lives have been save by someone calling 911 to report a drunk driver and following them until police arrive. Road rage incidents, and many more things can be brought up as well. A rapist who was impersonating police was caught by a woman calling police while she was driving.

So if we are going to ban cell phones, let's get rid of all audio equipment, no smoking, no eating or drinking, and ban drive through windows while we are at it. No make-up, no newspapers, or magazines allowed inside the passenger compartment. Ban all talking and no children allowed without another adult to keep them under control. Oh yea and no kissing or other sexual activity inside a car. I've heard stories that has gotten people killed too.

I'm so fricking sick of people wanting to pass a law to protect idiots from themselves, I could puke. And they are the very same people who want to protect all idiots right to be an idiot, but never seem to care about my rights. Then when an idiot breaks the law, they feel sorry for them, because being an idiot they have nothing, so they let them off. But let an upstanding citizen of means get caught up in a technicality that was never envisioned, when the law was written, and some pipsqueak prosecutor trying to make a name will prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law. A law which should never have existed in the first place!

I'm done now.

[grego]

Old Dog, you are right on the money! Don't stop there, more people need a dose of common sense and reality.

People don't look at things these days beyond the surface, headlines, or sound bites. Heaven forbid they should actually think about something or dig into an issue to see the real problem. Gee, let's make a law.....yeah, that will take care of everything. What about those people who break laws every day....speeding for one, isn't that against the law? Or using/selling illegal drugs. Does the law change that behavior? Without quoting tons of statistics, I'd say whatever laws exist certainly haven't changed those behaviors much.

In my humble opinion, all laws like this do is make these "do gooder" types feel all warm and fuzzy so they can go off and push more regulations that do nothing more than tie up our legislative process amongst other things. Or, create more opportunities for the lawyers to go out and sue someone, particularly those who have been responsible enough to accumulate some reasonable amount of net worth.
Aryl

On the other hand, I also suspect that insurance companies are strong proponents of a law. That way they might/will deny coverage for anyone involved in an accident while braking the law, if not the liability coverage, then perhaps the comprehensive coverage.

Ok, enough from me....for now.

[Tommy]

• We would seldom need seatbelts if all drivers drove safely and defensively all the time.
• All drivers don't drive safely and defensively all the time.
• Mandatory restraint systems and seatbelt laws attempt to compensate for the fact that many drivers don't drive as they should.
• I doubt we will be any more successful in stopping many drivers from texting and checking mail than we have been in getting them to drive safely.
• As with mandatory restraint systems that beep endlessly if you don't use them, I believe the ultimate solution lies in technology rather than changing human behavior.
• I think all cars should have a dead zone around the driver in which cell phones and similar devices will not work.
• If the driver wants to pull over, slide over to the right side and send a text, that's fine with me.