Posted on 12/05/2010 7:51:17 AM PST by Dallas59
ROME – A speeding car plowed head-on into a group of cyclists in southern Italy on Sunday morning, killing eight of them, officials said. The driver had been smoking marijuana, police said.
Bent, mangled bikes were strewn about the scene, and the sheet-draped corpses dotted the two-lane road near Lamezia Terme, in the Calabrian "toe" of boot-shaped Italy where the accident occurred.
In addition to the eight cyclists killed, four people were injured, said Gianluca Gioia, a spokesman for ANAS, the agency that runs Italy's state roads and highways. Police confirmed the toll.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Another terrible trageday. It is time for bicycles to banned from the roads.
and all the wasted drivers too.
I’ve told the “it’s no worse than booze” crowd for years, that is no reason to increase the pollution level of the culture.
>It is time for bicycles to banned from the roads.
Nonsense. Ban Italian drivers.
MORROCON NATIONAL of course is buried into the article.
I smoked weed in my youth.
Anyone who says marijuana doesn’t impair judgment and/or reflexes is a liar....and stoned.....
Having said that, this is indeed a tragedy and I hope the many bikers on Freerepublic aren’t as arrogant and irresponsible as the hordes I have the misfortune to run across (I know, poor choice of words) on a regular basis...
I'm surprised a medium sized car did so much damage. I was expecting an evil SUV.
We are so lucky to have you nanny staters looking after us.
This is one area where i side with the “lifestyle” regulators: driving is a privilege, not a “right”. Russia, France and Scandinavia have ZERO tolerance for any alcohol or drugs in the driver’s bloodsteam - it should be the same in the US, as well as a ban on cellphone use or texting while driving. When things like this happen, it needlessly ruins lives; not just of those killed for no reason but for the driver (if they have a conscience of any type) and the families left behind.
Not that it matters. There are just so many permutations of Mohammed, Achmed, Hussein, etc. Of course if the alleged suspect had had a European sounding name, he would have been named.
Nevertheless, if you have been to Italy you must know that Italian drivers should be banned.
“as well as a ban on cellphone use or texting while driving. “
I have a cell phone for one reason only. I’m on 24 hour, 365 days a year emergency call for a Public Utility that I’ve operated for thirty years. If a ban on cell phone use in cars is instituted, I better get an “exemption” sticker for my car! Same goes for Doctors, emergency workers, etc., etc..
Here’s my take (or toke): Let Californica legalize it. If we can get results like this on the 405 it won’t take long to decimate the state. We just might be able to shut the whole mess down, turn off the lights and NOT have to bail out these mutants!
To a large point you are right, driving is not a right, it is rarely taken as seriously as it should be. Actually driving “under the influence” should be zero tollerance, but with a some realistic consideration that having a drink is not drunk driving. That problem of how to honestly determine “under the influence” needs to be cleared up. The current tests, for drinking is crazily too low threshhold brought on by the MADD deep-enders and the pot tests don’t seem to differentiate between toking 10 days ago and just prior to running over cyclists.
This particular incident doesn’t sound like too much pot was the cause. Most tokers I have known tended to slow down
not speed up and tended to be overly cautious. Little doubt that 3rd world driver, narrow curvy European roads, rounding a curve and finding cyclers ALL over the damn road and SOP speeding could have been major factors.
I'm thinking that the pot relaxed his inhibitions just enough to unlease his inner jihadi...
What’s wrong with pulling off the road to text or use a cell phone? One report calls driving while using the hand held phone four times more dangerous than DUI. Thanks only to very surprising physical coordination on my part, I averted by about two feet a head-on collision with a group of teenagers a few months ago who veered into my lane at about 70 mph while the driver was texting; I turned the wheel of my SUV 90 degrees at 60 mph, went down an embankment and am lucky not to have rolled over. I wasn’t angry; and was most happy that they were not hurt.
Why should a human powered 2 wheeled vehicle traveling at 30 MPH be banned from the road but a 2 wheeled motor powered vehicle traveling at the same speed be allowed on those same streets, even though the results are roughly the same: idiot driver doesn’t see either vehicle and runs both over and gives the same excuse? (I just didn’t see them). If you can’t see a cyclist, you shouldn’t drive on a public road that’s designed for public traffic.
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