Hoovey689

iTrader: (16)

Did driving the speed limit cost a 79-year-old man his life?

On June 15, 2009, 79-year-old Andrew Cavanaugh was t-boned on the passenger side of his 2004 Buick Century while driving through an intersection and subsequently died from injuries he sustained in the collision. Both Cavanaugh and the driver of the 2003 Toyota Camry that struck him, 71-year-old Jacqueline Stinson, were travelling at the posted speed limit of 25 mph at the time of the accident. The only problem was that the stoplight on Cavanaugh's end of the intersection was timed to require a minimum speed of 30 mph for a driver to safely make it through before the light changed from green to red. Investigators found that Cavanaugh had just three seconds to make it across four lanes of traffic. To make matters worse, he wasn't wearing his seatbelt.

Cavanaugh's daughter, Shanon Baker, has since filed a lawsuit accusing Pinellas County, Florida as holding the blame for her father's death. While the light is maintained by the Pinellas County Highway Department, its duration was calibrated by the Florida Department of Transportation when it was first installed in 1998. Since that time, there have been no other reported incidents as a result of the light's timing, and Pinellas County intends to fight Baker's lawsuit.

http://www.autoblog.com/2011/01/21/d...-man-his-life/

DustinV

It amazes me that in this day and age some people still refuse to wear a seatbelt. That's the first thing I do when I enter any car because it makes me feel safer.

IS-SV

Sadly no seatbelt used, combined with crappy side impact protection of the Buick contributed to the death.

mmarshall

It's hard to tell how much difference wearing a seat-belt would have made in this particular type of accident. We have to assume, from the article (though it does not explicitly state it) that the door(s) apparantly did not pop open, and that he was not ejected from the car. As his Buick was a 2004 model, it probably (but not definitely) had side-impact airbags. On top of that, new side-impact regs went into effect, back in 1997, that improved protection in T-Bone accidents, even without side airbags.

So, as I see it, though I offer my condolences to Cavanaugh's daughter on the loss of her father (and to the family/friends of the other 71-year old driver killed in the Camry), I don't see much grounds for a lawsuit here, especially considering that most states (including FL, as I understand it) have mandatory-use seatbelt laws, and he was unbelted. Unbelted, of course, you drive at your own risk......although, as I stated above, I'm not sure that actually having a belt on, in this type of accident, would have made that much difference.

Why the 71-year-old Camry driver, though, who (apparantly) WAS belted, and had both the belt and an air bag, was killed at only 25 MPH is an interesting case. Without more details of the crash itself, I'm not sure I have a good answer for that one.

mitsuguy

iTrader: (2)

approach every intersection as though the other cars are not going to stop...

that being said, the most dangerous way to go through a stop light is when the light has just turned green, and you are traveling at the speed limit, and to make that even worse, when there are multiple lanes and the other lanes have not proceeded through the intersection yet...

Och

iTrader: (3)

This article discusses a very serious problem. There are many intersections here in Brooklyn where very wide roads are being crossed - ie 6 lane parkways with two service roads separated by alleys, and often with view obstructions - train posts, trees, buses and trucks, etc. I saw a number of accident, and several times narrowly escaped an accident while crossing those. Often enough you get stuck behind a turning bus/truck in the middle of intersection, and by the time you get to the service road, your light is already red and people on the service road start moving without realizing you're still crossing the road.

IS-SV

Most 04 Buicks even with side airbags had marginal side impact safety ratings so sad result is not a big surprise.


btw, Did Camry driver die? (I did not rad that)

mmarshall

You mean marginal as far as Federal Standards go? All vehicles, of course, sold in the American market had to meet the '97 standards, which were put into effect some seven years earlier.


Sorry....you're correct. I misread that part of the article.

(Still got somewhat of a cough left over from the surgery, and that sometimes affects my concentration)

Speck102

I don't see how a seatbelt would have made such a huge difference in a side impact. Either way, I have seen this from time to time, where a yellow is timed too short for a particular intersection. Lately (in the last ten years) most of the ones that were that way have been fixed around here, but you still see it from time to time. The city or county needs to be responsible for people's safety since they control the traffic lights, and should be held accountable. The accident would have happened whether or not he was wearing a seatbelt.

This also brings up the argument of people getting sued when a burglar gets injured in their home/establishment because they had a code violation which allowed him to get hurt. They are punished, and so should the city who had a traffic light violation. If it will make them feel better, the city can give the old man a citation for no seatbelt, but they still have to pay for their screwup.

IS-SV

I meant "marginal" (crappy=not providing adequate protection) as rated by IIHS. Meeting the letter of the law doesn't necessarily make a car safe, it just means it meets regulation. More specifically the 97 standards have long been known to be inadequate in providing safety from (fatal) side impact collisions such as this one. Premium car companies exceeded those standards years ago.

lamar411

Would not wearing a seatbelt matter when getting hit at 25 miles an hour? Still no matter what seatbelts are a must.

tex2670

This all looks like smoke and mirrors for someone looking for a payout by suing someone else looking for answers. You mean to tell me that going 5mph slower than the timing of the light is the difference between being slammed into by a car going in the other direction? How was the Camry up to 25mph already if the light just turned green? There's a lot of fact missing here, and I highly doubt that any significant blame lays with the DOT--that's just where the $$ is.

TOPSECRTIS

iTrader: (4)

I'm sure their age had something to do with their death. RIP to both drivers.

daelo74

Don't care about seatbelts or whatever, all I see is two 70 year olds on the road and that scares the crap out of me.

TOPSECRTIS

iTrader: (4)

Like the South Park episode?