Posted on 01/28/2005 8:36:41 AM PST by robowombat
OK personal rant here... ROADS DON'T CAUSE DEATHS, DRIVERS CAUSE DEATHS
You expect us to buy that story? :D
And properly paid for risking his life,
as he should be
I can understand wanting to bury her with respect and honor, but obsessive compulsive behavior leading to the death of another is not the right method to dignify her.
The city should be worried about getting sued. The family has already hired an accident reconstruction expert and is having an autopsy done (probably to prove that she was still alive when she plunged through the ice and therefore suffered horribly).
Don't get me wrong, from facts as presented in this story, the town (or whatever entity had responsibility for maintaining the road) is probably guilty and should be sued and pay for this wrongful death.
Most Maine roads have standard width lanes and wider shoulders than similar roads in other New England states. The paving does tend to be pretty poor, though.
"OK personal rant here"
If the road hangs of a ledge, and the ledge collapses, you could also blame the ledge. But not the road...never the road.
So apparently she had no responsibllity to adjust her driving for the conditions of the road? As I read it, she lost control and went through a wall and then into the quarry. Maybe I'm wrong here, but people are responsible for their own actions. If the implication is that the 'entity' should have cleaned the roadway then I guess that every accident that happens in inclement weather will bring about a lawsuit against the government for not cleaning the roads.
I saw nothing in the article that indicated that the road collapsed. She actually went through a wall and then into the quarry. Sorry about the rant, there are cases where the 'government entity' may be at fault, but we all know that 99.99% of vehicle accidents are caused by poor driving.
From the story (again, I must emphasize that my comments are based on what's in the story), it sounds like this is a very dangerous road, the city knew of this danger, and did nothing to correct it.
I agree that individual drivers have responsibility for their actions. If the deceased drove recklessly or otherwise behaved negligently, that should be a factor in judging legal responsibility.
Entities, like this city, should also be held responsible when their actions or lack of action, causes death or injury.
"She actually went through a wall and then into the quarry."
Yeah, I know - I should have indicated that in some way in my post but I was taken up with my own cleverness (heh). Ultimately I agree with you - there's way too much blaming the government in this country. Too much expecting the government to fix things. Its a side-effect of a democracy - people vote for those who will give them things. Which is weird because they give up their money to get those things. So lets revise it: insecure people vote for people who will take their money and spend it for them. Sounds more accurate, no? YOu know, I think I got off on a rant there! :)
Actually my rant was caused by my previous Representative Dickey Gephardt. Every time he was up for re-election, he would come to the district for a photo op in front of a sign on State Hy 21. There is a large billboard set up and calls it 'Blood Alley' and lists the fatalities on the road. He would always stand with the mayor of one of the towns on Rt 21, whose wife died in a single car accident there. What they never mention is that she had been drinking. Apparently Rt. 21 isn't straight enough for drunk drivers.
With the tens of billions the Feds spend on pork barrel nonsense every year, you'd think they could come up with some transportation dollars to improve/fix/reroute exceedingly dangerous roads like these.
Maybe the cat was dear to her. People can get very close to their pets.
What am I missing? If the car skidded off the road, went over a cliff, into a quarry, and sank in 105 feet of water -- why is debris scattered in the road?
When a car is upsidedown skidding over a precipice it leaves debris.
"You expect us to buy that story? :D"
Mox nix to me, it is the truth. You likely never heard of "Giant UDT Duckfeet", "addict spear guns and homemade power heads" or "The Skin Diver" magazine (was originally an outlaw publication, changed their name a bit, then trended PC & yuppie before going under a few years ago) from those days either? Being sport divers (free diving spearfisher types) the only time we ever used tanks and regulators was when ice diving or for salvage work.
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