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A limo crash in New York has killed 20 people. The vehicle sped downhill towards an intersection of two highways, hit a stop sign, and crashed into a parked SUV. Two nearby pedestrians were also struck and killed:
[Read the latest: A passenger expressed concern about the limo shortly before the crash.]
The 17 friends had all piled into a white stretch limousine for what was supposed to have been a birthday celebration at an upstate New York brewery. But they never reached their destination. [...] The crash killed all 18 occupants of the limousine, including the driver, as well as two pedestrians, in an accident that left deep tire tracks in the ground and the small town about 40 miles west of Albany reeling.
[...] In an afternoon news conference outside Albany, the State Police offered few details about the accident, though Christopher Fiore, first deputy superintendent of the State Police, said that the limousine had been licensed in New York. Its driver was required to wear a seatbelt; its passengers in the back were not, he said. Only one person inside the limousine apparently survived the initial impact; that person later died after being flown in a helicopter to an Albany hospital.
Stretch limousines are modified after manufacturing and are generally not subject to the same safety regulations that are imposed on the protective structures for passenger cars. Such oversized vehicles have been involved in tragic accidents in New York before: In 2015, a limo carrying a bridal party of eight women crashed with a pickup truck in Cutchogue, N.Y., killing four people.
Further details show that the ride should never have happened:
The modified limo that crashed and killed 20 people wasn't even supposed to be on the road, New York's governor said Monday. On top of that, the driver "did not have the appropriate driver's license to be operating that vehicle," Gov. Andrew Cuomo said. The startling revelations bring more anguish to those grieving the deaths of 20 people in the quaint town of Schoharie. [...] "That vehicle was inspected by the New York State Department of Transportation last month and failed inspection and was not supposed to be on the road," Cuomo said.
A relatively local paper out of Albany, NY — The Times Union — has additional information on the crash. The intersection lies at the bottom of a hill on a road with a 50 mph (~85 kph) speed limit. There have been several accidents there before, some involving tractor trailers.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by ledow on Tuesday October 09 2018, @12:13PM (12 children)
I don't care whether it did or not, or whether it was required to or not - I'm talking about people wearing seatbelts. My comment stands whether you're in a tuk-tuk or an 18-ton lorry.
This is not about a legal technicality when riding in an unsafe vehicle with an unlicenced driver.... this is about NOT DYING.
Taxis all have seatbelts in the UK. Buses often (but not always) have them but must have them if they are used above 30mph during their operation. Coaches, minibuses and anything else carrying children MUST have them.
And where fitted, they must be used.
It's really simple. Buckle up, or die and take your friends with you. At 50mph, you're gonna ALL DIE. How do we know? Look. It just happened. It's just that simple.
"In 1984, the National Highway Traffic Safety Authority carried out a Final Regulatory Impact Analysis on a series of suggested amendments to the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard which sets the standard for occupant crash protection. This included the largest and most comprehensive study of seat belt effectiveness based on USA data. (NHTSA 1984)... The study estimated that three point seat belts were 40% to 50% effective at preventing fatal injuries, 45% to 55% effective at preventing serious injuries and 10% effective at preventing slight injuries... It also compared their results against estimates of seat belt effectiveness at preventing fatal injuries in eleven other countries. The average effectiveness for these other countries was 47.1%."
If those people had been wearing seatbelts, there'd likely be 10 people alive today who instead died. If they'd ALL be wearing seatbelts, it would have likely been even more (because of the effects of receiving an unbelted person to the face at high speed).
And that's just at 50mph, hitting nothing in particular.
Now imagine a 70mph head-on crash with speeds in the 140-150mph difference range.
P.S. Airbags are pretty much useless without a seatbelt too. So even they really need a seatbelt to be of any use to you. Only the US really has "seatbeltless" airbag designs. Most other developed countries have compulsory seatbelt use, 95%+ measured usage of seatbelts across all drivers/passengers, and much higher accident survival rates (the US has twice as many fatalities per vehicle / accident / billion km travelled as the UK does).
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday October 09 2018, @12:49PM (2 children)
I about 90% agree with you, with the engineering caveat that:
momentum and mass being issues, and buses not being very common its unusual for two to collide. I was in a city bus when a drunk guy t-boned it at full speed at an intersection, other than the sound of the car disintegrating (it was essentially destroyed; somehow the driver was unhurt) it was pretty much like driving over a pothole. There was a surprising amount of external damage to the bus but cars are very low to the ground so it didn't matter because most of the guys car would have slid under our feet if he was going just a little faster. I would imagine a head on collision with a little commuter car at highway speed might be kinda rough on the bus driver just due to flying glass and car parts, but if my commuter car weighs 2500 pounds and google claims a typical bus weight is 40000 pounds then if a bus at 70 mph head on collided with my commuter car at 70 mph the momentum ratios imply the bus would decrease in speed to 65 mph, equivalent to a parking lot accident at 5 mph very survivable. Or maybe not; slept late need caffeine. But it would be "of that order" if the bus weighs 16 times as much as my car.
Now, yeah, if the bus hit a bridge embankment or a train, everyone dies anyway because no seat belt will save them from that kind of impact, so you may as well not install them. I imagine there's some probably very narrow range of speeds for any collision type where seat belts would be effective for a bus. It seems the range of effective speeds is much wider for cars because most accidents are car-car similar weight.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 10 2018, @12:40AM (1 child)
Physics is ruthless
(Score: 3, Funny) by c0lo on Wednesday October 10 2018, @04:29AM
FTFY
Stop anthropomorphizing Nature, it upsets her when you do that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 09 2018, @01:19PM (8 children)
You are blaming the victims here because they did not put on seatbelts that did not exist, even though you know the seatbelts did not exist?
What is the matter with you?
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Tuesday October 09 2018, @01:36PM (7 children)
I think ledow's point is that the limo should have been required by law to have seatbelts.
The individuals could have chosen to not get into the limo when they discovered it did not have seatbelts.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday October 09 2018, @04:44PM (3 children)
Seat belts interfere with the ability to bang and drink at the back. They also would require properly designing their attachment points, when limos are made via sawzall, pipes, and some sheet metal (look for it if you never did, there is no crashworthiness in a limo).
More to the point, if the whole company was shady, failing inspections, and using unlicensed drivers, the odds of getting actual protection from a seat belt are probably also low.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Tuesday October 09 2018, @05:56PM (2 children)
> Seat belts interfere with the ability to bang...
No, they enable myriad new positions.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Hai on Tuesday October 09 2018, @09:17PM (1 child)
Bringing new meaning to safe sex.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday October 10 2018, @04:02PM
That was a pretty impressive lurk ...
(Score: 2) by ledow on Wednesday October 10 2018, @11:58AM (2 children)
Precisely.
I am blaming a culture that in 2018 thinks it's acceptable not to put on a seatbelt at 50mph in any vehicle, despite having concerns over the speed/safety of the vehicle they are in, when since the 1970's most countries have mandated them and eventually spread their use to virtually ALL instances you can think of.
I am blaming parents who brought up kids who don't feel uncomfortable in a car without a belt. I know I feel uncomfortable without a belt. Even if someone just pulls away while I'm trying to get the belt on having just sat in the car. I am blaming grown adults who can't imagine the physics and just sit quietly in the back texting their concerns to others rather than making them known to the driver and getting him to slow-down.
And I assure you my child has never spent a second inside a car in motion without a seatbelt... not even with "mad grandad" who has no care for his own safety... I've watched him strap her in every time like she was a fragile Faberge egg, even though she's 10 now, and the car doesn't move until she is. No prompting required.
It's not "their fault". But they are also not "blameless". Unlicensed/therefore presumably uninsured/unroadworthy vehicle is what caused the accident. Lack of seatbelt regulation, not buckling up and not saying "Woah, hold on..." is what made that accident kill them.
That limo company has been operating for a while. What if previous customers had had concerns, raised them, reported them, it had been investigated and the company was forced to stop operating like that? Maybe then they'd be alive. And it all depends on someone saying "No, hold on... this isn't right". Which they could have done, and instead the story could have been "19 kids narrowly avoid death after refusing dodgy-limo-firm's unroadworthy vehicle... drivers ends up dying in accident in same limo moments later".
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Wednesday October 10 2018, @02:49PM
Unfortunately these investigations take a ridiculous amount of time, so it will be long out of the top story list when we find out what happened. I hope the limo had a "black box" recording. I'd like to know the limo's speed, and if and when the brakes were applied.
I'd also like to know if the driver was on a phone- talking, texting, browsing, whatever.
I've seen very few pictures of the accident, but one strikes me: the loose wheel. That's not a normal thing in accidents. I have to wonder if the wheel came off first.
Also, the glimpses of the limo look fairly intact, not twisted, crushed, broken open. I'm having difficulty understanding how all of the limo's occupants died, which makes me wonder how fast it was going.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Wednesday October 10 2018, @02:58PM
I forgot to mention: I completely agree with your point about a culture of ignoring seat belts. I don't understand it at all. I always wear one, and feel a strong anxiety if it's not snug. I know several otherwise intelligent educated people who often don't wear them. I've viewed a few YouTube videos of accidents and it's interesting to learn how easily and quickly a car can spin, flip, roll, etc. It's truly amazing that some people survive, but most don't, and many who do are permanently disfigured, disabled, etc. Buckling up is so easy to do; I don't see a downside.