http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2010/...crash.html

Quote:Had Lora Hunt been eating a sandwich or dialing her cell phone instead of polishing her nails when she struck and killed a motorcyclist, she would not now stand convicted of reckless homicide, her lawyer contends.

I am more impressed by the size of the man on her right.


WAIT, I just read a bit of it. She killed a motorcyclist. Now I take offense since I am one, those *!*#@&#@ CAGERS!

I am a pedestrian. Pedestrians don't even tend to wear helmets.

If you hit someone while talking on your cell phone, it should be life in prison.
...Whether they die or not.
I walk everywhere within reason, but I have almost been hit by a motorist on several occasions. EVERY TIME the driver was talking on her freaken' cell phone.

I once got distracted and rear-ended someone, so I know it's perfectly possible to just not see something, even when only distracted for a second.

What was I doing? I looked out my right-hand window at a sign. It was only for about 2 seconds. When I looked back, someone had stopped at a redlight and despite slamming on the breaks, couldn't stop in time. I hit them hard enough to push them all the way through the intersection. The other car had no injuries (other than stress) and my car, the girl in my passenger seat hit her head on the radio and twisted her ankle in my door's handle. (She was laying on her back, sideways in the seat.)

I was extremely lucky not to have seriously hurt anyone.

tl;dr - Short distractions can be deadly when operating a ton or 2 of machinery at high speeds.

I've been driving for 14 years without so much as a close call caused by me. I have, however, narrowly avoided people that have almost rear ended me at stoplights or tried to change lanes right into the side of me. I've also been almost-flattened by cars or pedestrians not paying attention to where they're going when bicycling around in Nagoya (Japanese drivers are very bad at obeying red lights and crosswalks).

You have to drive/ride defensively to avoid accidents. "It wasn't my fault" usually means you weren't paying attention either.

Quote:"I thought, 'I can do it quick and I can do it with both hands on the wheel and I can stay on the road.' So I got the polish out."

That's why people say that human stupidity is infinite.

I am from and used to live in Chicago for a long time- where this happened. People drive fast- very fast on the interstates especially. There is also the mentality that whatever I need to do for myself I should do- that is, answer cell phones, eat, paint nails, apply lipstick, etc.

After living in Japan (Fukuoka) for over a year, I'm not sure which place I'm more scared of- Japanese drivers regularly run red lights way past the point where they turn red. Every morning when I biked to school I had to stop at a light where, on average, 3-4 cars went through a clearly red light every time it changed. Many times cars would still be coming through the crosswalk when the walk signal turned green. That's scary. What happens when a kid sees that green man and starts walking, only to get flattened? It almost happened to me at a different intersection- I was a couple feet away from getting flattened by a semi truck that came through a very red light while waiting to cross the street. The other lane had stopped completely when a semi came flying through the light. It was totally unbelievable and scared the shit out of me.

Be careful in Chicago, but be careful in Japan too- the conditioning you received growing up doesn't always apply in Japan (green man=walk). Had I not looked to the right before walking on the walk signal I wouldn't be here.

re: captal - Apparently that's a common phenomenon in Japan? I did not know this: http://www.japantoday.com/category/crime...n-in-aichi (going by the comments on that article)

I like this one:

"Gambling is illegal in Japan until you get on the roads, then you gamble with your life."

Kind of corny, heh. They're also right that cops in Japan do absolutely nothing. I'm trying to recall if I ever saw a cop pull someone over for speeding... I don't think so.

Yeah I never cross anything without looking for people running red lights - I just assume they will, as I've heard of many fatal accidents where the person hit the gas when their light turned green, only to have a car side impact them at full speed through the light.. Same thing for one way streets, always check both ways because people turn the wrong way down them all the time. I have ridden my bike the majority of my life, and it really makes you defensive as can be because you are totally exposed and have no protection other then being defensive.

Now where's nest0r with some sciencey links about this - I know there is some startling data out there about the amount of lowered perception our brain processes when driving with cell phones and such....