Survival on the road.

I'm sure everyone has read about the drunk vs family in a mini-van in Ohio. For those that haven't see here...

http://www.nbc24.com/news/news_story.aspx?id=80019

Scenarios like this are a nightmare and I do NOT want to MMQB this family. I can't imagine what they are going through.

I would like to think that there would be something that I could do different to improve the outcome were I ever to face a similar situation. I honestly don't think there is much that could have been done differently.

None of us is ON 100% of the time when we're driving. We all take our eyes off the road for a moment from time to time especially with six kids on-board so let's just assume that the dad saw the other driver coming and attempted to dodge the oncoming car. It appears from the footage I watched that, other than slowing down or stopping, the mini-van had no where to go due to guardrails.

While I don't think any normal vehicle would have spared them all I can't help but wonder if the number of survivors would be different if the family had been something other than a GM mid/mini-van. See this if your not familiar with GM mini-vans...

http://www.iihs.org/ratings/rating.aspx?id=66

Is there anything the ETS family can think of that I/we could do differently to improve our own families odds???


My wife and I will be keeping the Griffin/Burkman family in our prayers.

The brand of vehicle is not the blame here. The focus of the blame needs be directed entirely on the drunk driver...

NY Times has a pic of the MVA aftermath and it is clear that any brand of minivan would of suffered a similar fate.

There isn't much that's going to go head-on with an F-350 and win.

It happened on a ramp? How much room do you have to maneuver? Not much.

It would be interesting if someone from the area would keep us posted on the results of this. I would suspect that this wasn't the killer's first time drunk in a vehicle.

Even if you were totally focused on your driving, surroundings, weather, road conditions, and watching ahead, when someone comes at you at a high rate of speed, about all you can do is try to get out of the way. And if there's no place to go...

The sad thing is that the killer will probably spend minimal time in jail, despite the fact that this is worse than having a couple of joints in your pocket or having consensual sex with a teenager.

He'll be out there soon, aiming for someone else. Him and quite a few more like him. This is America... it's an entitlement, isn't it?

Sue

"The police said that several people tried to alert them about the driver of the pickup truck"

I've tried to report drunk or dangerous drivers only to annoy the dispatcher who took my call. Last time I called on someone we drove right past a state highway patrol car and I told the dispatcher the car number and blew my horn when I went past and the patrol car never moved.

I didn't comment on the drug thread that has been going on for a few days but this shows why drugs are still illegal, even the legal drugs like alcohol and nicotine take too many lives, imagine how many more would be lost if other drugs were made legal and people would 'just a little bit, I'm not impaired' justify to themselves before driving like they do now with the legal drugs.

People laugh at me because I don't drink beer or wine, but if I ever did since I don't have any tolerance built up for it I would be impaired at well below than the legal limit. The social drinkers who only hit the bar for a couple drinks every now and then after a hard day at work are very dangerous because they don't have the tolerance built up either so they get impaired at less than the legal limit.

Wife read the comments on one of the stories, the guy in the f350 had previous DUI's and was friends with the bar owners so he wasn't stopped, and will only server 40 years for taking five lives, IMHO it should be at least 40 for each or take the average lifespan minus the age they each were and add those up to make his sentence.

I wasn't attempting to "blame" the Astro but I wondering out loud if a more robust vehicle would have changed the numbers any. One more of my children surviving would be worth the world to me. I can't imagine a production vehicle that would have spared the entire family.

And we agree... the drunk driver is to blame.

One of the reasons I (very hesitantly) started this thread is that we commonly talk about how to survive natural disasters, bird flu and mall shootings but we rarely discuss things as common as MVAs.

Crash ratings are based on weight class. A smaller van like that is in a different weight class than an F350, so even if it had a perfect crash test rating it wouldn't have mattered much. The heavier vehicle is the one that usually wins, especially if it's significantly heavier (like in this case). This is why I won't ever use anything smaller than a large car as my daily driver, and usually I stick to larger SUVs. You can call me a gas guzzler or whatever you want, but when it comes to my safety and my families safety I frankly don't care what you call me.


With that said, the best way, in my opinion, to avoid serious accidents is to take classes in defensive/performance driving. The experience you gain in difficult driving situations can help you keep your cool in a driving emergency and possibly avoid an accident. I think every teen should go to one of these courses. Drivers ed only teaches you how to drive in normal to good conditions, it doesn't teach you what to do when things go wrong.

Some accidents aren't survivable, despite seat belts and air bags. You can tip the odds in your favor with mass, that's why we pay the price (in purchase price and gas) and my wife drives a Suburban as the "Mom taxi". We know several people who were the sole survivors or significantly less injured than others in the same MVA by being belted in their Suburban. It may socially and enviromentally irresponsible in the grand scheme, but it's what I can reasonably do to prospectivly protect my family.

It's smart planning to drive that Suburban, not irresponsible at all, IMHO.

Look at the governor Jon Corzine of NJ. Hit a guardrail at over 90mph in a Suburban and still survived. Not only that, he wasn't even wearing his seatbelt. Sure, he was lucky, but I'm sure being in a Suburban made a huge difference.

"... imagine how many more would be lost if other drugs were made legal..."

Not necessarily, I suspect. All the people who want to use drugs are using them now. What legalization might do is reduce the push for newer members of the club. If legalization took the profit out of it, would the current pushers still be pushing?

Kids today have been trained to be good consumers, of both good and bad merchandise. Parents think they can overcome peer pressure... well, dream on! Parents rarely even see their kids these days, their influence is rather minimal.

And the killer of that family won't serve any 40 years, that's for certain! The charge is Aggravated Vehicular Homicide. Why not call it what it was: MURDER. He killed them as surely as he would have, had he put bullets into a gun and shot each of them in the head.

I read in the main rag in Las Vegas that the average male murderer served something like five years; the average female murderer served eight. He'll probably be out on the road again before Blast's girls are old enough to vote, with a bottle of cheap whiskey in his hand and his foot welded to the throttle.

Sue

[quote=Eugene...snip...People laugh at me because I don't drink beer or wine, but if I ever did since I don't have any tolerance built up for it I would be impaired at well below than the legal limit. ...snip... [/quote]

IF I'm drinking when I'm out, I limit myself to one drink every 90 minutes or so, and I stop 2+ hours before I intend to head home. On top of that, my wife doesn't drink at all

At home, I'll have a few drinks - per year.

I can't think of the last time I was impaired by drinking - probably college, and believe it or not, I got my drivers license AFTER college.

The Astro is actually a pretty robust vehicle having a solid frame underneath it. It suffers from the design issue as othee vans, mini or nowt, that the driver and passenger sit somewhat on top of the front wheels instead of behind them making the front crumple zones smaller.
But as others have said, its in a different weight class. The Astro shared a lot of basic design and parts with the S series trucks which were 1/4 ton trucks. The 1500 and 150 class of trucks and vans are 1/2 ton, the 2500/250 are 3/4 ton and the 3500/350 are 1 ton so you have a much larger heavier vehicle.

Come live in an older neighborhood now where there are a lot of drug users, the only thing keeping it partly under control is fear of getting caught. The two kids who drove into my house didn't care about hitting my house or that they could have killed me, they only worried about hiding their drugs before the police arrived. Once there is no incentive to prevent them frm doing it they will do it more often and you will see a lot more accidents from it.

If you only have a few per year then your impaired when you do have them because your body is not adjusted to the affects. Your body builds up a tolerance to the affects so that the more often you drink the less it affects you, the less often you drink the more it affects you. The blood alcohol test is a very poorly implemented standard since the amount of alcohol that affects each person will vary.

Yeah - but when I have my "few per year" - you have to take into account 2 things. 1) I weigh a LOT more than most folks 2)I tend to have my one drink, go up stairs, and go to bed, so any impairment doesn't really matter. 3) If I do have to drive, I wait at least 1 hour after my drink

An example - I went to a Christmas party on the 22nd - had about 2 oz of wine (yes, just a splash) and about 6:00pm - handed the keys to my wife, and said - I don't drive till at least 8:00pm

After that I drank water, apple cider, and gasp - diet coke

"...The blood alcohol test is a very poorly implemented standard since the amount of alcohol that affects each person will vary..."

That is very true. CA has a blood alcohol limit of .08%. I have arrested drunks that, based on the field sobriety test, I guessed were maybe a .15%, then a test showed them to be over .30%. Long time drinkers for sure.

The "average" person will burn off .02%/one ounce of alcohol every hour. So theoretically you can drink one mixed drink/can of beer, wait 60 minutes, and your BAC will be zero...

I have an uncle who is the other extreme of the spectrum, he drinks nothing but beer, but has done so for so many years that is doesn't affect him at all. He was also a professional truck driver and his driving skill shows it. We can be raking the hay field and his rows after a case of beer will be straighter and nicer than mine without me ever dribking a drop.
But the majority of people are social drinkers who may have a low blood alcohol level, even a legal one yet their reaction times may be slower since they are not used to it.

I'm looking at more in the longer-term. And I'm not really sure about it (not as sure as the hardcore-antidrug people are...).

There's nothing really that can be done about the current users. Give them their drug(s) of choice and let 'em overdose.

But I am wondering about the coming generation of junkies. Suppose the current pushers lost their incentive to sell?

If there was a perfect way to handle the problem, I would like to hear it.

But I don't like knee-jerk reactions to the problem. What we're doing now is NOT working, and has never worked. Try something else.

Sue

The one way I have never seen really tried is to attack the casual user. The casual user may remain that, and be the profit driver for the dealers, or may be on the way to becoming a more serious user. The person who holds down a professional job, works, and then every once in a while or weekend, recreationally uses drugs. Attack this class of suers, begin locking them up for short periods, long enough to screw up their jobs, education, etc., and they may lose the desire to risk buying and using.

Over the years, I arrested about 30 or so wrong way drivers, all but two of them drunk. They all had one thing in common; on a multi-lane highway, every one of them was driving the wrong way in the left hand (fast) lane. I suspect that in their befuddled little minds they thought that they were in the slow lane. So I try to avoid using the hot lane except to pass, and always take a good look down the road before I move into it...

FWIW, how much you have eaten plays just as big a role as anything else in how much alcohol affects you. Try having two drinks on a full/partially full stomach and then on an empty stomach. Its like night and day.

I think I read somewhere that the largest percentage of drug addicts were prescription drugs addicts. Anyone know if thats correct?

the problem is the innocent people who have to suffer at the hands of the drug users while your giving them their choice.



Thats kind of like saying that since there are murders and rapists the current laws aren't working so we might as well make murder and rape legal so we can stop wasting time and money.