cars: an absolute menace, time to curtail them.

This story speaks for itself (note especially that this happened on a
PEDESTRIAN CROSSING)

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems...5/s1631952.htm

Burns victim Sophie Delezio has been hit by a car in Seaforth in
Sydney's north.

The accident happened as Sophie was being pushed in a stroller across a
pedestrian crossing on Frenches Forest Road around 4:00pm AEST.

The five-year-old has been flown to the Sydney Children's Hospital in
Randwick and is being treated for critical injuries to her head, chest
and legs.

Police are appealing for anyone who witnessed the accident to contact
them.

Sophie is one of two children who suffered extensive burns in December
2003 when a car crashed into a childcare centre at Fairlight on
Sydney's northern beaches.

AndrewJ wrote:
This story speaks for itself (note especially that this happened on a
PEDESTRIAN CROSSING)

( Someone just sent me a similar link.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,19034982-2,00.html

Will we ever wake up to the real cost of our car culture? The aus.cars
morons are talking about it - but they really don't get it...One of them
wanted to know what make of car it was!!??


--
..dt

Cripes, what are the odds of that? Poor kid.

gplama wrote

AndrewJ Wrote:
This story speaks for itself (note especially that this happened on a
PEDESTRIAN CROSSING)


Yes - this is nasty stuff.

Something that comes to mind was "who pushed her out into an unsafe
crossing?". I'm not finger pointing here, just wanting to state the
first thing that came to my mind when reading this.

I cross a ped crossing over a slip lane about two times a day. It
amazes me how many cars fail to stop or acknowledge the ped crossing at
all - If I simply trust the fact that cars _should_ give way to me then
I'd die about three times a week - this is no exaggeration. (I kind
of enjoy standing there venting at top note in front of an entire
intersection of cars who know I have every right to be going off my
nutter at the driver... a great way to let off steam..).

Anyways - I guess we can never assume people/cars/bikes/things will
always do as they should, and being prepared for when they don't can be
the difference between a near miss and something much worse....

According to the ABC news broadcast, she was in a pram/stroller on
the crossing, with one car stopped. Another car came through without
stopping, and hit the pram. The first car probably obscured the
pedestrians from the driver of the second car. I'm not trying to make
excuses - drivers are clearly obliged to stop at a crossing when any
other vehicle is stopped there - just trying to understand how it came
about.

I don't have the same experiences as you with zebra crossings. If
I want to force the issue as a pedestrian, I step out onto the first
white stripe and wait until I've made eye contact with the first
oncoming driver. They nearly always stop for me once we both know
we've seen each other. Then it's a matter of using the first car as
a buffer from others in the same lane, and picking my way across
making eye contact with cars in each additional lane.

The latest good news is that Sophie's head injuries are not so bad
as first thought. She is off the critical list, though expected to be
in intensive care for a few weeks.

--
beerwolf (remove numbers from email address)

dtmeister wrote:

Will we ever wake up to the real cost of our car culture? The aus.cars
morons are talking about it - but they really don't get it...One of them
wanted to know what make of car it was!!??

He has probably already read the current Open Road[1], where the NRMa
trots out four things that contribute to road deaths and injuries. Yep,
car make and model was one of them. Same old NRMA. Just can not getr the
message that it is the nut behind the wheel every time.


[1] And to think we waited three minutes for the postie to come up our
street and deliver it before we went off on our bicycl;e ride. sheesh.

"TimC" wrote in message
...

But another car stopped for them to cross the road. Our idiot
overtook said stopped car. I've heard of this happening quite often.
Fortunately never seen it.

It's happened to me, though in my case it wasn't a pedestrian crossing, it
was a traffic light. I waited till the walk sign came on, then waited for
the oncoming car to stop, then stepped out. Then the car behind beeped its
horn and swerved round the stopped car. If a stopped car AND a red light
aren't enough to make a driver realise there's a reason for stopping, what
is?

Liz

Resound wrote:

I'm sure
I'm not the only one here who's more wary of Commodores than, say,
Camrys.


You don't ride much in the outer inner west of Sydney do you?

Parbs.

On Fri, 05 May 2006 17:19:08 +0000, TimC wrote:

But another car stopped for them to cross the road. Our idiot
overtook said stopped car. I've heard of this happening quite often.
Fortunately never seen it.

I'm fairly sure I know which road this was on (or rather, which of the two
pedestrian crossings it was). Basically you've got a downhill one lane
road, which then goes to two lanes, and about 100m later has a road come
in from the left. Just after that is the pedestrian crossing. If you were
stupid, and unobservant, it'd be easy to not realise the car in front was
stopping until the last minute, then flick left to get the free lane and
go around.

A flight path of 18m sounds like a reasonably quick hit. I wouldn't be
surprised to find out it's someone whose idea of driving well is to push
that right pedal as hard as possible on the straights.

--
Dave Hughes |
Brooker's Law: "The wackier the project, the easier it is to fund."

On Sat, 06 May 2006 09:49:08 +1000, Resound wrote:

Well while the car itself generally doesn't contribute to accidents
(barring exceptionally poor visibility or vehicle dynamics) certain
personality types do tend to gravitate to certain vehicles. I'm sure
I'm not the only one here who's more wary of Commodores than, say,
Camrys.

There are a lot of Camrys driven by people who want the cheapest newish
family car they can get - ie, driving is a chore, and they don't want to
think about it. There are also quite a few company Camrys. Commode
drivers are often very pushy and aggro - bogans basically - but unless
it's a real ****box they don't want panel damage. Give them a filthy look
that says "your panels, my cleats. Wanna play?" and they give you some
room. I've seen too many Camry drivers who make the Volvo stereotype look
good, and they scare the crap out of me.

--
Dave Hughes |
Congratulations. Astronomers have detected pressure waves whose frequency
is something like 57 octaves below middle C in the core of another
galaxy, but you've found a lower tone than that. - Steve VanDevender

cfsmtb wrote:

Oh for fcuks sakes, after all her poor mum and dad have been through!
Are the police investigating this?!?


An 80yr old driver has been charged

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems...5/s1632109.htm