Looks like the Tell-Tale chip WAS consulted

Ted, This is a tragedy to the victim's family. The fact anyone is involved in a fatal accident is bad enough. The fact that this one happened in a cut and dry 'someone died' case is not new. It happened to a person of stature. There is no guessing of speed that will bring the victim back nor make the accused feel any better. Give this subject a rest and let's move on. Feel free to email me.

. Accidents are always a lot more

Those who don't learn from the mistakes of the past are doomed to repeat them.

I don't agree with "It's a terrible thing let's not talk about it anymore" attitude. I've had terrible things happen to me and I'm more than happy to discuss them. It helps to educate people so that others can change their behavior so that they lessen the risk of terrible things happening to them.

The issue isn't the fact that someone died here. Sorry you can't move beyond that. The issue is how the tell-tale chip in a vehicle can be used to get at the REAL truth of why a terrible accident occurred, not some guesstimate from a police officer who has a ton of bias.

In ANY serious vehicle accident someone is going to be badly hurt or killed. Shall we simply not study these kinds of accidents because to talk about them might "hurt" the victim's family? Or because pointing out that a dead person may have made a slip-up by accident?

For the victim's death to not be completely and totally meaningless we need to learn what we can from it. The one wonderful thing about this particular traffic accident is that because a "person of stature" was involved, the news outlets are reporting every tiny little detail. Thus, we as members of the general public are getting a rare treat - in being able to examine all the stories related to this, we can get the true picture of what happened and why someone was killed, instead of what we usually get on accident cases, which is a 1 paragraph story that explains nothing. Then we can learn from this, and modify our own behaviors so that we have a better chance of not becoming another statistic ourselves. Thus, the death of the person in this accident may save several other people, and thus have some usefulness, instead of being a complete waste, shrouded in secrecy, as it usually is.

Ted

Did you not read where Ted wrote "Janklow deserved what he got..."

I think Ted's point is that in a hypothetical similar case, the tell-tale could conceivably prove that the accused was not speeding and did not run a stop sign, which would shift ALL the blame to the victim.

There are certainly cases in which the fault of an accident is SOLELY on the person who died. We don't want to blame the survivors and hold them financially liable in such a case, do we? Its no less a "tragedy to the victim's family" in such a case, but the end result must be different based on determination of fault.

Ric wrote:

"Always" ????

Perhaps "often" or "sometimes" but certainly not "always".

Hmm... Well, I've yet to have been in a traffic accident or talked to anyone who has been in a traffic accident who didn't tell the story with a few grey spots subject to interpretation. I suppose there are black and white traffic accidents out there, but if so they must be a tiny minority.

Hey, we have people in this group who claim it's a drivers responsibility to look out for other drivers who are BEHIND them - so with that logic, even a rear end collision means some of the blame goes on the hittee, rather than the hitter.

Ted

Come on Ted. It means if you see someone about to hit you from behind, if you can you get out of the way - not intentionally sit there waiting for them to hit you because you know it's going to be their fault. In the insurance and legal businesses, it's called mitigation - and in some situations, the person who has the opportunity to mitigate damages will be penalized for failing to do so (if it's clear that they had the opportunity and didn't take it). No it doesn't mean you get a ticket if there was nothing you can do, but you might as well be as aware of the surroundings so you can to take evasive action when possible to avoid your own involvement in a time- and money-wasting mess if for no other reason, insurance and leagl issues aside. Also called defensive driving.

Bill Putney (to reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address with "x")

If you live in a contributory negligence state, if you are the victim of an accident and the jury finds that you contributed to the accident, you are awarded nothing unless you can prove that the other guy had a "last clear chance" to prevent the accident. Other states use comparative negligence where if the victim is also at fault his award may be reduced by the percentage he was negligent.

Hmmm.. Sounds like your _agreeing_ with my statement:

"..Accidents are always a lot more grey than people want them to be..."

I brought up the rear-ending accident because I suspected that when I disagreed with Art Begun's statement "...certainly not "always"..." that Art would use a rear-end collision as an example of a _common_ accident that is never the fault of the person in the front. (in an attempt to disprove my statement about grey accidents)

But you (and Art) obviously disagree that rear-end collisions are such an example.

Thanks!

Ted

And so here we have an example of the legal framework being adjusted to reflect the idea that both people involved contribute to an accident.

Q.E.D.

Ted

It has been this way for decades. Contributory negligence was the original system. Sometimes it was ridiculously unfair to the victim so they came up with comparative negligence.

states

accident.

The point here that I don't see anyone making but that I think is important is that Janklow's speed is irrelevant... lots of people drive 75MPH every day safely. It was missing the stop sign, not the speed at which he was traveling, that contributed to the incident.

I do find it interesting, however, that despite the protests of the cops that frequent RAD and a.l-e.traffic, the speed estimate *was* off by about 10%... not an insignificant amount. I'd also be willing to bet that this unfortunate incident was categorized as "speed related" for statistical purposes despite the fact that Janklow should not have been moving *at all...*

This raises the question, how many incidents have been categorized as "speed related" when the speed was mis-estimated to show a driver was "speeding" when he really wasn't?

nate

(deliberately *not* x-posting to the other groups mentioned above, no need to start yet another long, pointless flame war)

Isn't this part of the airbag module? You'd have to get to the module and remove it. Could be obstruction of justice or similar if there is a crime and you are intentionally removing evidence.

You'd have to pretty sneaky to do that. Is it possible? Maybe. Of course if it is an isolated module/circuit you could just disconnect it but would probably lose the benefit of your airbag too. Pull the fuse maybe?

The box is not you though so it does not share in your Constitutional protections here. Remember the Constitution says, "No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime...." It doesn't say "No person and his property...." Other features of your car or even the skid its tires leave on the pavement may also be used as evidence.

I think the most questionable part of this discussion is the accuracy of the info obtained from the box, and whether or not the information is used to provide a proper reconstruction of what happened..

Note that the module in Janklow's car was used by an accident reconstruction expert hired by the DEFENSE, not the prosecutor or police. Does anyone think that the defense would have spent the money to get this data if they had thought it might _harm_ their side? It's a pretty good bet that the prosecutor wasn't allowed to get access to this.

Whall, I'd stack the accuracy of the electronics in the box against a police officers estimate made after viewing the collision any day. If the air bag module is not accurate, the bag may not deploy in a collision, which leaves a huge liability hole for the automaker. I think it's a pretty good bet that the module is a lot more accurate than most non-engineers would give it credit for.

Ted

If the defense had access to it, then the prosecution would have had access to it.

Perhaps it is, but I'd need more supporting information on the accuracy of the box AND how the raw data is used to be convinced.