Posted on 12/14/2003 11:31:21 AM PST by hawkeye101
Edited on 05/07/2004 6:40:36 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Parents who let young children operate motor vehicles like this should be prosecuted to make examples of their negligence!!
Nonesense. I was licensed (in Iowa) at 14 and got the Engineering degree later.
But I do agree that an understanding of weight, friction, kinetic energy and the rest are important, and part of every good drivers training course. But behind the wheel experience is the ultimate teacher. What does scare me is all the pretty young things driving around in their new jellybean cars who clearly have no training at all.
Agreed, but the problem here seems to be allowing them to play on a hilly public road. No excuse for that, without guarding that road at both ends.
If the children hadn't been killed, I would suggest whoever allowed it should be prosecuted. As it is, they have punishment enough
My kids have ridden motorcycles since they where about 8 and 9 yrs old. Bumps and bruises are all part of a physical, demanding sport. The only time my son has gotten hurt badly enough to go to the ER was when he was collieded head-on with another motorcycle, ridden by a guy in 20s, who was barefooted, wearing no helmet, and probably drunk. My son was in an small area with other kids his age, riding in a clockwise circle, and this guy came in recklessly full speed from a blind area. My son clearly tried to avoid the impact; the other guy didn't know what happened. I was there within 60 seconds, and carried him back to his horrified mom. He rides with good safety gear, which absorbed most of the force, but his leg was cut through the body armor, and the only place he refused to wear padding (!!) was his arm, and his elbow was fractured.
Just like anything else in life, this equipment is only as safe as the people who operate it. My son could get killed riding his bicycle if he was operating it in a foolish manner.
If I had a farm or other property, my son and daughter have earned my trust, and I'd let them ride on our property. They wouldn't ride on public streets.
My son has been shooting rifles and pistols since he was about 5 yrs old. "BB" guns at first, and later real weapons. (He ended up defending the 2nd amendment against his leftist, anti-gun teacher when he was in the fifth grade, by grabbing a copy of the constitution from the classroom library, but that's another story.) It's all part of the same argument. Lots of folks think that parents like me who introduce firearms, motor vehicles, and so forth to young kids are irresponsible. However, I think that there are a larger number of parents who won't spend time with their kids, won't communicate with them the risks, dangers, and responsibilities that go along with becoming adults, and who fail to teach them safety.
Blame these parents for not supervising their kids, if you feel you have enough information about them from these news reports, but don't blame all parents who SAFELY teach their kids how to grow into adulthood, how to accept adult responsibility and accountability, using such "toys", tools, and weapons as one means to that training.
Most of all, I grieve for these parents horrible loss. My daughter is now a 14 year old sophomore cheerleader, and member of a renowned school choir. That's two activities that take her from her dad's control, and it scares me to death. She'll be singing in Russia next year (...oh boy), she's running all over to different school games (mostly with adult supervision, but occasionally, and unavoidably with younger adults or teenagers driving, and that scares me more than seeing her on a jet-ski or motorcycle. Both of my kids (now 14 and 16) have cell phones, and we keep tabs on them like they were still 5 (or so my daughter claims).
God Bless these families, with peace, and the eternal comfort only He can give.
SFS
I think nobody should listen to a word the phony, abusive, hypocritical Dr Laura says, but unexplainably, they do
Both her father and brother were in near death accidents not of their fault.
Her dad's leg was badly shattered.
Chances are your kids will suffer more severe injuries if they continue to pursue risky behavior.
I pray that they stay safe.
I'm teaching my son to drive now and I demand the most severe defensive driving.
Children who grow up on farms in that area learn to operate equipment at younger ages than that. It's not the kids fault they were playing on the road, it's the parents.
The roads there are not freeways, throughways, boulevards or city streets. Except for the occasional "farm to market" paved road, they are high quality gravel roads with deep ditches, capeable of safely handling 50-60 mph very light traffic, usually spaced one mile apart, which give access to these large parcels of private property used for farming. There is no need to go on any of these roads to snowmobile as the best snow is found OFF the roads since the roads are plowed.
So the mystery here is why the girls were on this country road. That article does not give this information, but we can guess maybe they were going being farms. Their parents should have absolutely prohibited even crossing the road. Maybe they did.
Actually, from a physical point of view, the two are identical (assuming the collision is truly head-on and not off-center or tangential). Think about it- after this inelastic collision, there will be no net movement of the point of impact in either case. On each side of the point of impact, the mass of the car will decelerate from 50 mph to 0 mph.
If the choice were between a bridge abutment and a parked car of the same make and model, the choice would be easy-- the net effect of the latter would be to take one car going 50 and one going 0, and smash them together so both are going 25 mph. (Law of conservation of momentum).
Likewise, if the other car were a semi-truck of much greater mass than your car, the abutment is the right choice. If you hit a truck head on, you not only decelerate from 50 mph to 0, but end up going close to 50 mph in the opposite direction. The effect is the same as hitting an abutment at 100 mph.
Note that energy is not conserved in this kind of collision, only momentum. This is an inelastic collision, and much of the kinetic energy is converted to noise and thermal energy.
-ccm
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