Hazards - A recent happening

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Just a [soft] little wake up reminder that I got the other weekend….. Take from it what you will, flame if you must.....

I was in the car with some passengers and I was doing just over 110 on the Hauraki plains. Just cruising, plenty of time to slow down if a car on the horizon looks like a copper, nice long road with no side roads, just a couple of fences, hedges, and long farmer driveways etc. A speed which I’m sure 95% of people on this site would deem perfectly acceptable.

Then a very young girl ran out onto the road from behind a hedge.

agreed... this is the kind of accident that fucks with your head for a long time...

there should be some kind of 'responsible parenting' law in NZ for this kind of thing... & not only should it apply in the country, but any toddler playing on main roads... gone are the days of street soccer/touch rugby etc

too many cars, too many idiots, too many deaths

[FROSTY:Me]

Metric--dude do we really want yet another law that gives the nanny state more control of our lives.??
Im a responsible parent --my son climbed out of his bedroom window when He was put to bed for a nap --and wandered off up the road --age 2 and stark naked.
What would I have done different ??--nothing
We do our best but sometimes its fatal

[Finn]

Im a responsible parent --my son climbed out of his bedroom window when He was put to bed for a nap --and wandered off up the road --age 2 and stark naked.
What would I have done different ??--nothing

Dude, buy your kid some clothes. No wonder he tried to find some new parents.

[scumdog]

that's amasing ...

texting with gloves on... (I assume they had gloves - right??)
texting while riding (which controls weren't they using?)

and a bonus point for sheer stupidity...!

Next time - hunt them down and give them earful. The life you save might be theirs... or it could be yours...

Yep, where is Darwin when you need him at times like this??

BTW Good avatar MDU, have any others noticed the significance??

[terbang]

How do you figure Squeak was doing the appropriate speed at the appropriate time? If he'd been going 10k slower and OBEYING THE SPEED LIMIT therefore NOT engaging in an illegal act, he would have been able to avoid the situation with even more ease. And if he had identified the potential hazard of the hedge AND slowed down to, say, 80k then it would have been a complete non-event.

Have another read of what I said and you will notice the word cognite now relate it to the difference between 110k and 210k and I did not discount luck. Its a lot to do with recognition and subsequent reaction time/distance and the ability for the vehicle to manouvre at that speed. It appears that Squeak had all of this on his side at 110 K thus enabling him, as he has said, to move to the other lane and avoid. So the logic of his speed being appropriate remains tight because an accident was averted and I did not discount luck ther .. I aint taking the piss and I aint a LTSA pussy. I do have a good understanding of the human & machine factors of high speed flight in close proximity to the ground "see and avoid" concept twas my job for a while and also did it in the night time as well (luck was also involved there as well) which, apart from not being on a road and having no speed limit, it is not much different to the "see and avoid" in a car or motorcycle (same physics). Believe me your safety logic between 210K and 110K is fundamentally flawed and the only bit I agree on is the luck.
When an accident happens it is a series of events that causes it which it is often referred to as an error chain. When all the links in the chain are connected (including the ran outta luck one) then an accident will happen. Breaking one link (our intervention) in that chain will avert an accident and that occurs often, in our environment, by the appropriate management of speed.

Short of putting my little ones on a leash I cant see any other way in giving kids 100% supervision and certainly hope, that if/when they stray onto the road, all other factors are in their favour and that it is not in front of some twat, who relying on good luck, believes 210Ks is as appropriate as 110K on a public road.

[madboy]

...some twat, who relying on good luck, believes 210Ks is as appropriate as 110K on a public road.

I never said 210k was as appropriate did I? Or did I? I don't remember! But in this particular example if squeak was doing 210k he would have been miles up the road before the kid ran out. So IN THIS case 210 would have avoided THIS potential crash by a much bigger margin than he did at 110k.

Of course, he might have run into the farmer who crossed the road on his quad without looking, 10k up the road, but cos he was travelling at 110k he arrived minutes later when the farmer was stopped in the middle of the paddock eyeing up his favourite sheep and posing no road hazard whatsoever.

[scumdog]

I never said 210k was as appropriate did I? Or did I? I don't remember! But in this particular example if squeak was doing 210k he would have been miles up the road before the kid ran out. So IN THIS case 210 would have avoided THIS potential crash by a much bigger margin than he did at 110k.

Of course, he might have run into the farmer who crossed the road on his quad without looking, 10k up the road, but cos he was travelling at 110k he arrived minutes later when the farmer was stopped in the middle of the paddock eyeing up his favourite sheep and posing no road hazard whatsoever.

Okaaay, this whole post was a piss-take, right?...right??

[madboy]

A piss take? Hell no... I genuinely believe that 210k is safe! Particularly lane-splitting in the wet with high winds in the midst of a pig chase during rush hour.

[Goblin]

I guess sometimes shit happens, but do your best to avoid stepping in it. Keep them eyes open and that brane thinking…

Good skills Squeak....

Shit does happen....often. On my way to Te Puke today I took the back road around Lake Rotorua(Hamurana). Over the years I've learnt to trust my instincts on the road and as I was approaching the Hamurana bridge, I thought, "ya never know what's around the corner!" Well I was only doing 100km/h but backed off and came round the blind left hander and there was a surveyor with his little wheel IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FARKING BRIDGE!! NO signs out or any kind of warning. I grabbed a handful of brakes and JUST missed him as he RAN off the road! I yelled at him to put some FARKIN signs out but doubt he heard me under my lid. It seems that EVERY time I think 'ya never know what's around the corner'...something happens. Then on my way home-via the Kaimais-I came up behind two cars doing 80km/h but was a double yellow line, could have passed them both but thought again....then whadya know? A cop was coming the other way....so it seems I have a built in detector too. Also had a good play up & down the Kaimais with a guy on a brand new Apriliahhhh....then stopped at Oko to find out he'd just bought it yesterday

[pritch]

When I was about 16 and on my first bike (1954 AJS 500cc Single)

Now that takes me back, my first bike was a 1954 AJS 350.

Driving along a suburban street where the houses are above the level of the road needs care. I was driving a bus one day and a kid (maybe seven or eight years old) came shooting out onto the road on a skateboard going like the clappers. He had a nice steep driveway and could get real good acceleration.

I missed him but it was only good luck really

[metric]

Metric--dude do we really want yet another law that gives the nanny state more control of our lives.??
Im a responsible parent --my son climbed out of his bedroom window when He was put to bed for a nap --and wandered off up the road --age 2 and stark naked.
What would I have done different ??--nothing
We do our best but sometimes its fatal

frosty - dunno man - its a tough one... if something had happened to him, you'd be devastated... yeah I guess I haven't really thought about it like that