I was a first responder to this fatality accident last night. Both lone drivers died. The tan car (had his flashers on, we don't know why) was traveling over 90+ m.p.h. according to a witness and the blue car was making a left turn. Tan car goes around a 3rd vehicle backing out of a private driveway/ Tan car then collides with the blue car who turned in front of the tan car. No skid marks. I suspect neither driver saw each other. RIP to both male drivers. One had his seatbelt, the tan car driver did not. Unknown alcohol or drugs. Slow down folks, not worth your life. The blue car is a 14 Cruze and the tan is a 14 Malibu. The speeding car was the tan car. Blue car somersaulted 100 feet several times. http://sanangelolive.com/news/crashe...n-angelo-crash

 

So sad. Thanks for the reminder. You r right, it's not worth it.

 

sapd911 thanks for sharing. i just posted a similar incident thread. we all need reminders that awful things can happen if we're reckless and even if we aren't.

 

I have LONG felt (and have posted on this subject a number of times) that one prerequisite to Drivers' Training and getting one's license should be for any Student-Driver to have to spend at least one or two nights at the emergency room of the nearest hospital, preferably on a Friday or Saturday night when many people are out drinking/partying, DUI/DWI, and/or drag-racing. That way, they would see first hand, for themselves, right in front of them, the direct results of stupidity and negligence behind the wheel.....and probably be far less likely to try it themselves when they got their license.

 

90 in a 50 is beyond stupid ... this is very unfortunate. OP I applaud you for the line of work you've chosen. Def takes a special person to be able to handle these situations.

 

I'm all for that, but you know just as well as anyone else here, that a majority of those kids would think "That's not going to happen to me, because I know how to drive fast but still be in control." They aren't thinking about the deer jumping out in front of them, or some other condition outside of their control. It's just sad. There was an incident with some kids from my town 4-5 years ago; drunk teenager going 100mph on a narrow 2 lane road. Severely injured himself, and killed his friends. I'm it's got to ruin your life to know you did something like that...

And it's got to be heart wrenching on people like the OP who have to see the effects of these kinds of incidents first hand.

 

Yes, that's true to an extent, but if even a minority of kids get the message, realize (like me and some of my friends did at that age) that they are not invincible, and adjust their driving habits accordingly, IMO it would be worth it.

 

Yep sad deal, they had to cut the older male in the Cruze out. There was a car seat in the back and my stomach cringed, luckily no child was in the vehicle. Airbags, no airbags, no seatbelt, seatbelt, didn't really matter on this collision. The amount of force probably was enough to kill both of them. Sad deal as two families are grieving now.

I was amazed at how far car safety has become. The driver and passenger areas were mainly intact.

 

Interesting. Last night I didn't witness a car crash, but a bus was pulled over on the freeway engulfed in flames. 14 Police, Fire and Medic vehicles were on hand. Crazy

 

I'm probably going to be unpopular for saying this but I think a speed lockout or limiter should be installed on cars driven by new drivers. I was young once, I've hit obscene speeds on quiet lanes and on highways and looking back that was an incredibly stupid thing to do.

When you're young, you feel invincible, and reaching 100 mph was just a matter of pressing hard on the throttle. Add alcohol to the mix and the most prudent young driver can end up doing dumb things. Driving isn't a right, it's a privilege, a hard earned one at that.

 

Doesn't need to be installed. It can be done with facial recognition software and speed limiting software in the car's ECM. Not hard at all, but will never happen. If I had the option to give my teenaged progeny a key which would limit acceleration and top speed, I'd be all for it. Make my IS-F drive just like a Yaris. Simple to do with software controls.

 

Wouldn't even need the facial recognition (as you alluded to later in your post). High-powered cars have had "valet keys" for years. IIRC the one for the corvette uses the cylinder deactivation functions of the ECU to turn it into a 4-cylinder. The Hellcat has a "Normal" key that shaves 207hp. No reason there couldn't be a "Teenager" key where you choose to limit top speed to say, 70mph, and select power/torque curve C (kind of like a tuning chip with multiple maps, just going in the other direction). Then you just need to keep an eye on your own keys, and you're good.

Some folks already do similar things to this, sans the separate key.. There's a tuner for the BMW 335i where one of the maps leaves the wastegate open all the time, effectively disabling the turbos. The result is a perfectly driveable car with horsepower in the mid-100 range. Fuel economy goes up a touch, too.

 

And today's computer-saavy kids wouldn't be able to figure out a way to override the programing? Some of these kids today can even get past NSA and CIA firewalls.

I'm not saying that you are incorrect by any means....You probably know a lot more about programming than I do. But I raise the issue simply from what even high-school and younger kids today are sometimes been able to do....these kids are sharp.

 

many of those computer-savvy kids follow the speed limit.

 

I want facial recognition software to prevent my key from being taken and used instead of the low power option. Another thought is to have a required access code for all users to limit performance to their limits, but again this is easily subverted by using someone else's code. So facial recognition would be about as ideal as you can get to ensure the car's limits are set appropriately and not usurped.

I'm actually a little surprised Lexus hasn't already done this. As risk averse as their attorneys are, I expected they would require demonstration of ability to unlock performance levels by now, especially with the LFA, IS F, and RC F. All of these cars will get their owners in a lot of trouble very quickly should they attempt the idiotic or impossible, and we're already seeing advanced stability controls in an attempt to bring higher performance levels to a less-skilled driver at lower risk. It would seem trivial to add a horsepower limit and require demonstration of skill to "unlock" higher power/performance levels with software.