Is This Justice?

[freedombecki]

I maintain that the grade of the road was the causal agent of this heinous tragedy. If it had been engineered and maintained properly, the truck's brakes would never have caught fire, fellas.

It's just that simple.

Sorry, but once he got back in his rig knowing the brake pads were burned, he was the cause of the tragedy.

Sorry, Mr. Rat in the Hat, he stopped his truck, let his brakes cool off, and he thought everything would be okay.

The grade on the roads did not improve, because the subsequent grade was bad, too, causing more pressure on an already bad situation.

To guess what this man was thinking is a slippery slope.

I think he really thought he could go on. I don't think he knew a wild ride was ahead, and he certainly didn't go out to kill somebody else.

The underlying, no-nonsense bedrock issue here is a dangerous highway that is unfit for big rigs to travel, and it was not closed to big rigs before the tragedy.

 

[Wicked Jester]

I maintain that the grade of the road was the causal agent of this heinous tragedy. If it had been engineered and maintained properly, the truck's brakes would never have caught fire, fellas.

It's just that simple.

His criminal negligence came into play once he got back in that truck, and continued driving after his brakes had already caught fire.....Once you decide to take a many ton weapon down the road, full well knowing your brakes are already toasted, you become a criminal. It's no different then a drunk driver getting into a car, and plowing somebody to death. No different than loading one bullet into a cylinder, spinning it, cocking it, and firing at someone elses head, in hopes that it's not the chamber the bullet was put into.

That driver chose to play russian roulette with his brakes. Unfortunately, because of his gross criminal neglect, other people died.

 

[Rat in the Hat]

I maintain that the grade of the road was the causal agent of this heinous tragedy. If it had been engineered and maintained properly, the truck's brakes would never have caught fire, fellas.

It's just that simple.

Sorry, but once he got back in his rig knowing the brake pads were burned, he was the cause of the tragedy.

Sorry, Mr. Rat in the Hat, he stopped his truck, let his brakes cool off, and he thought everything would be okay.

The grade on the roads did not improve, because the subsequent grade was bad, too, causing more pressure on an already bad situation.

To guess what this man was thinking is a slippery slope.

I think he really thought he could go on. I don't think he knew a wild ride was ahead, and he certainly didn't go out to kill somebody else.

The underlying, no-nonsense bedrock issue here is a dangerous highway that is unfit for big rigs to travel, and it was not closed to big rigs before the tragedy.

It doesn't matter how long you let them cool off, once those pads heat up they're shot. If he didn't know this, then he was unqualified to be driving at all.

And just so you know, if a trooper pulls over a truck and sees any evidence of heating on the pads or the drums, the truck is redlined until the defect is repaired.

 

[westwall]

There is still not enough info in the article to decide if 3 1/2 years is appropriate. Did the driver know he had bad brakes and neglected to have them fixed? Was he drunk? We don't know the specifics.

I think I covered this in my p.s. to the opening post. If the driver knew he had bad brakes and neglected to have them fixed, we are getting out of the area of plain negligence and into the area of gross negligence - but we are still in the civil arena, not criminal. I think if he was drunk, that would have been mentioned in the article.

But I did have the same thought as you here - the article is a little sketchy as to the justification for the seven year sentence. Still in all, absent proof that the truck driver did this intentionally, so long as it was an accident, I do not agree with criminal prosecution.

BTW - I know the judge who imposed this sentence. He was a young d.a. back in the early 1990's and we had to deal with him in our court. He was what we called a Mad Dog D.A. - very uncompromising, very ego driven, very unreasonable. Easy to see why he is now on the bench . . . . but that's another issue.

Hi George, I have driven the Angeles Crest Hwy several times and no truck driver in their right mind would ever use that highway. Highway 14 is 25 miles away and significantly safer for a big rig. I don't recall there being a runaway truck ramp but I don't think one would be neccessary as it is a fairly shallow ascent and descent.

I do not remember if big rigs are prohibited on the ACH but they should be if they aren't. It's tragic for all concerned but at some point stupidity has to be punished. Mother Nature does it by killing the offenders, we put them in jail.

Please note this is based on pretty much zero info, just a good working knowledge of the road involved.

 

[Wicked Jester]

"Post crash inspection revealed that 5 of the 10 brakes either weren't working or adjusted properly. The 5 working brakes showed signs of overheating and cracking"

Christ, he only had half of his brakes working BEFORE he even entered that road. He was criminally negligent long before he began driving that road.....Had all his brakes been working properly, that crash would have never happened.....He had to know he only had half his braking power, to stop a loaded 25 ton double decker car hauler.

There are no excuses.

 

[Rat in the Hat]

"Post crash inspection revealed that 5 of the 10 brakes either weren't working or adjusted properly. The 5 working brakes showed signs of overheating and cracking"

Christ, he only had half of his brakes working BEFORE he even entered that road. He was criminally negligent long before he began driving that road.....Had all his brakes been working properly, that crash would have never happened.....He had to know he only had half his braking power, to stop a loaded 25 ton double decker car hauler.

There are no excuses.

So in addition to deciding to run on burned shoes, he also didn't do a proper pre-trip inspection when he started driving that day.

But it's all the road's fault.

 

[Wicked Jester]

"Post crash inspection revealed that 5 of the 10 brakes either weren't working or adjusted properly. The 5 working brakes showed signs of overheating and cracking"

Christ, he only had half of his brakes working BEFORE he even entered that road. He was criminally negligent long before he began driving that road.....Had all his brakes been working properly, that crash would have never happened.....He had to know he only had half his braking power, to stop a loaded 25 ton double decker car hauler.

There are no excuses.

So in addition to deciding to run on burned shoes, he also didn't do a proper pre-trip inspection when he started driving that day.

But it's all the road's fault.

Exactly!...As a class A certified professional driver, he is fully responsible to ensure that truck is safe....There is no way in hell he didn't know he only had half his braking power.

 

[RadiomanATL]

I'm gonna blame global warming on the road too.

 

[Harry Dresden]

Road Safety Audits

A Road Safety Audit (RSA) is the formal safety performance examination of an existing or future road or intersection by an independent, multidisciplinary team. It qualitatively estimates and reports on potential road safety issues and identifies opportunities for improvements in safety for all road users. The FHWA works with State and local jurisdictions and Tribal Governments to integrate RSAs into the project development process for new roads and intersections, and also encourages RSAs on existing roads and intersections.
The aim of an RSA is to answer the following questions:

• What elements of the road may present a safety concern: to what extent, to which road users, and under what circumstances?
• What opportunities exist to eliminate or mitigate identified safety concerns?

Public agencies with a desire to improve the overall safety performance of roadways under their jurisdiction should be excited about the concept of RSAs. Road safety audits can be used in any phase of project development from planning and preliminary engineering, design and construction. RSAs can also be used on any sized project from minor intersection and roadway retrofits to mega-projects.

i dont know what its like in Texas.....but i have noticed in this State....if there is a safety concern with an intersection or a road,and people have voiced their concerns.....usually it takes a death or two before something is done about it.....

 

[Harry Dresden]

The road grade caused the damn fire. The road grade guidelines submitted by the professional safety engineer were ignored by the criminally-negligent manager of the road building process.

You fellas can go on and on and on, but that still does not excuse the State of California from building a road with a grade that is guaranteed to cause someone's brakes to catch on fire.

Hell, no wonder they got so many fires in California. They have asshole grades on their roads in the mountains where this ignominy occurred.

One million of you can rant at me and yell and holler, but the fact remains: that man's brakes were set on fire because nobody built the road to where its grade would prevent forest fires by not causing peoples' brakes to go gunnysack.

I'm still right. You should not allow bad grades to exist on public roads that cause the brakes to go gunnysack and burn up.

ok....the road grade caused the fire......who still proceeded on, knowing .....he just might have a nice brake problem?......his journey should have ended right there.....

 

[freedombecki]

Road Safety Audits

A Road Safety Audit (RSA) is the formal safety performance examination of an existing or future road or intersection by an independent, multidisciplinary team. It qualitatively estimates and reports on potential road safety issues and identifies opportunities for improvements in safety for all road users. The FHWA works with State and local jurisdictions and Tribal Governments to integrate RSAs into the project development process for new roads and intersections, and also encourages RSAs on existing roads and intersections.
The aim of an RSA is to answer the following questions:

• What elements of the road may present a safety concern: to what extent, to which road users, and under what circumstances?
• What opportunities exist to eliminate or mitigate identified safety concerns?

Public agencies with a desire to improve the overall safety performance of roadways under their jurisdiction should be excited about the concept of RSAs. Road safety audits can be used in any phase of project development from planning and preliminary engineering, design and construction. RSAs can also be used on any sized project from minor intersection and roadway retrofits to mega-projects.

i dont know what its like in Texas.....but i have noticed in this State....if there is a safety concern with an intersection or a road,and people have voiced their concerns.....usually it takes a death or two before something is done about it.....

Harry, I lived for 35 years in the Equality State. That would be Wyoming, where the plains meet the mountains, which as I understand it is the Native American interpretation of the name, "Wyoming." You can hardly drive 20 miles without an incline or a decline in elevation which also exists at mile-high altitudes through much of the state.

Here's my unappreciated perspective amongst the lions of the law around here, (and I don't blame anyone for being true to his discipline as he or she knows it):

The reason I slept well last night is because when I worked for Wes Peterson in the Equality State all those years ago, nothing in his personality ever challenged other people very much: he was a quiet, polite, good family man who at first superficial thought, may have made few waves in life. He did, however do one thing with a discipline--Wes took pictures of dead people by the roadside in fatal highway accidents, although he was a full professional civil engineer whose specialty was ascertaining that the highway department was not the cause of highway fatalities, and his specialty wasn't photography, most likely.

One day, I was filing when Mr. Peterson was sitting nearby, and I ran into his macabre pictorial file. He even said I probably would be better off if I didn't have to look at all 179 of them. I had already seen a handful of them, and he was right. They were sickening. But nobody, not even a friend could make me forget what I saw. I am an artist of sorts, and visual images have an impact upon me that I simply cannot forget; the pathetic sight of people laying dead in contorted positions because something went wrong on the road never left me.

I also thought of years of driving through that mountainous state, and I know for a fact that after Interstate 25 was built while I lived there, traffic fatalities as well as car troubles that caused them were seriously reduced between Cheyenne and Casper Wyoming. You could drive between the two cities in any given weather, and in spite of ascending and descending slopes, little pressure was put on your brakes if any after the new road went in.

Also, the city of Chugwater, Wyoming is now located on a 4-mile arc that gently slopes up and down that also have no wear and tear on the brakes of cars and trucks. Unfortunately, the winds do blow harshly in January and February, and the highway department regularly has to close the road down anyway to clear off the mega trucks, which can take up to 4 hours apiece on roads of sheer ice and dangerous high winds. It is not unknown for the roads to be closed for up to a week in times of inclement snow and frozen ice conditions in the middle of the winter.

I'm glad I got to post on this thread last night, Harry. It made me think retrospectively back to the 35 years I had the privilege of living in a low population state that printed a state highway department safety manual entitled "Driver Instruction manual for the state of Wyoming" that started out with late Governor Hathaway's wonderful words, "Every child is a human caution sign" in or around 1969 when I barely passed my first driver's test in the state after glancing through the manual that was used to draw from in creating the state driving test. At first, I thought my dismal performance on the test was on account of trick questions (it had to be in my young, arrogant mind). Now, I know better.

The highway safety engineers in that state are required to have professional licenses to practice as professional engineers, and the laws are specific that if a professional engineer recommends a certain construction behavior that saves a human life on the roads, the construction boss and his crew will make it happen. That can be when the Wyoming Highway Department Managers, who also ruled the roost over Wyoming Safety Patrol Officers, yet listened to their words with regard to highway fatalities. The officers job descriptions included having to wait until the safety engineer arrives to take his macabre photographs of the accident to analyze whether this or that death occurred by bad highway construction methods.

Not every state regards human lives as important enough reasons to cut through a rock and whittle it down 300 feet to reduce the grade of the road to a level that will not cause the needless snuffing out of a human being whose automobile brakes broke as a consequence of constant driving over roads designed around ignoring the loss of human life and suffering that they could cause.

It's a decision every state has to make for itself--how to align decision-making power for public safety, how much grade to allow for the public to traverse, and whether spending a couple of extra million dollars cutting through hard rock or creating a 4-mile circle around a mountainous town upon which to build a 4-lane highway with double-wide shoulders is the preferred route for people in that state.

Apparently, the professional engineers in Wyoming were as sickened as I was by those photographs of dead people and made the executive decision not to do roads that would result in the necessity for keeping such a macabre file on cases in which the safety issues were so egregious they had a hand in creating the tragedy.

Apparently this is not an acceptable perspective in other states in which the onus is entirely upon the drivers of the cars that go spinning out of control on the state's demonically-acceptable grade elevations that cause brakes to fail and other automobile anomalies that do not occur on properly-engineered roads. I prefer the motive of road construction that is based on the principle that every child in that state is a human caution sign that depends on conscientious adults for his well-being.

My feelings revolve around photographs of dead people whose lives were cut short by someone's failure to plan a safe road situation. Such feelings are surely irrelevant in a state that does not have the words "every child is a human caution sign" written into the motto of the state's driving manual and upon the hearts of the people who live in that state.

States' rights mean you have to live with the state's preference of throwing the book at whomever they deem is MOST responsible for the death. In my mind, that would be who committed malfeasance of building a not safe road. In their mind, it is the victim of what their bad roads did to his truck who received the onus of their book-throwing in a state court of law. It's a state's right to do stupid, and California did just that in its monumental ethics failure in acceptable road design and implementation.

 

[Intense]

Road Safety Audits

A Road Safety Audit (RSA) is the formal safety performance examination of an existing or future road or intersection by an independent, multidisciplinary team. It qualitatively estimates and reports on potential road safety issues and identifies opportunities for improvements in safety for all road users. The FHWA works with State and local jurisdictions and Tribal Governments to integrate RSAs into the project development process for new roads and intersections, and also encourages RSAs on existing roads and intersections.
The aim of an RSA is to answer the following questions:

• What elements of the road may present a safety concern: to what extent, to which road users, and under what circumstances?
• What opportunities exist to eliminate or mitigate identified safety concerns?

Public agencies with a desire to improve the overall safety performance of roadways under their jurisdiction should be excited about the concept of RSAs. Road safety audits can be used in any phase of project development from planning and preliminary engineering, design and construction. RSAs can also be used on any sized project from minor intersection and roadway retrofits to mega-projects.

i dont know what its like in Texas.....but i have noticed in this State....if there is a safety concern with an intersection or a road,and people have voiced their concerns.....usually it takes a death or two before something is done about it.....

Harry, I lived for 35 years in the Equality State. That would be Wyoming, where the plains meet the mountains, which as I understand it is the Native American interpretation of the name, "Wyoming." You can hardly drive 20 miles without an incline or a decline in elevation which also exists at mile-high altitudes through much of the state.

Here's my unappreciated perspective amongst the lions of the law around here, (and I don't blame anyone for being true to his discipline as he or she knows it):

The reason I slept well last night is because when I worked for Wes Peterson in the Equality State all those years ago, nothing in his personality ever challenged other people very much: he was a quiet, polite, good family man who at first superficial thought, may have made few waves in life. He did, however do one thing with a discipline--Wes took pictures of dead people by the roadside in fatal highway accidents, although he was a full professional civil engineer whose specialty was ascertaining that the highway department was not the cause of highway fatalities, and his specialty wasn't photography, most likely.

One day, I was filing when Mr. Peterson was sitting nearby, and I ran into his macabre pictorial file. He even said I probably would be better off if I didn't have to look at all 179 of them. I had already seen a handful of them, and he was right. They were sickening. But nobody, not even a friend could make me forget what I saw. I am an artist of sorts, and visual images have an impact upon me that I simply cannot forget; the pathetic sight of people laying dead in contorted positions because something went wrong on the road never left me.

I also thought of years of driving through that mountainous state, and I know for a fact that after Interstate 25 was built while I lived there, traffic fatalities as well as car troubles that caused them were seriously reduced between Cheyenne and Casper Wyoming. You could drive between the two cities in any given weather, and in spite of ascending and descending slopes, little pressure was put on your brakes if any after the new road went in.

Also, the city of Chugwater, Wyoming is now located on a 4-mile arc that gently slopes up and down that also have no wear and tear on the brakes of cars and trucks. Unfortunately, the winds do blow harshly in January and February, and the highway department regularly has to close the road down anyway to clear off the mega trucks, which can take up to 4 hours apiece on roads of sheer ice and dangerous high winds. It is not unknown for the roads to be closed for up to a week in times of inclement snow and frozen ice conditions in the middle of the winter.

I'm glad I got to post on this thread last night, Harry. It made me think retrospectively back to the 35 years I had the privilege of living in a low population state that printed a state highway department safety manual entitled "Driver Instruction manual for the state of Wyoming" that started out with late Governor Hathaway's wonderful words, "Every child is a human caution sign" in or around 1969 when I barely passed my first driver's test in the state after glancing through the manual that was used to draw from in creating the state driving test. At first, I thought my dismal performance on the test was on account of trick questions (it had to be in my young, arrogant mind). Now, I know better.

The highway safety engineers in that state are required to have professional licenses to practice as professional engineers, and the laws are specific that if a professional engineer recommends a certain construction behavior that saves a human life on the roads, the construction boss and his crew will make it happen. That can be when the Wyoming Highway Department Managers, who also ruled the roost over Wyoming Safety Patrol Officers, yet listened to their words with regard to highway fatalities. The officers job descriptions included having to wait until the safety engineer arrives to take his macabre photographs of the accident to analyze whether this or that death occurred by bad highway construction methods.

Not every state regards human lives as important enough reasons to cut through a rock and whittle it down 300 feet to reduce the grade of the road to a level that will not cause the needless snuffing out of a human being whose automobile brakes broke as a consequence of constant driving over roads designed around ignoring the loss of human life and suffering that they could cause.

It's a decision every state has to make for itself--how to align decision-making power for public safety, how much grade to allow for the public to traverse, and whether spending a couple of extra million dollars cutting through hard rock or creating a 4-mile circle around a mountainous town upon which to build a 4-lane highway with double-wide shoulders is the preferred route for people in that state.

Apparently, the professional engineers in Wyoming were as sickened as I was by those photographs of dead people and made the executive decision not to do roads that would result in the necessity for keeping such a macabre file on cases in which the safety issues were so egregious they had a hand in creating the tragedy.

Apparently this is not an acceptable perspective in other states in which the onus is entirely upon the drivers of the cars that go spinning out of control on the state's demonically-acceptable grade elevations that cause brakes to fail and other automobile anomalies that do not occur on properly-engineered roads. I prefer the motive of road construction that is based on the principle that every child in that state is a human caution sign that depends on conscientious adults for his well-being.

My feelings revolve around photographs of dead people whose lives were cut short by someone's failure to plan a safe road situation. Such feelings are surely irrelevant in a state that does not have the words "every child is a human caution sign" written into the motto of the state's driving manual and upon the hearts of the people who live in that state.

States' rights mean you have to live with the state's preference of throwing the book at whomever they deem is MOST responsible for the death. In my mind, that would be who committed malfeasance of building a safe road. In their mind, it is the victim of what their bad roads did to his truck who received the onus of their book-throwing in a state court of law. It's a state's right to do stupid, and California did.

Becky, You are too caught up in your cause to see the full picture. You make great points, we have all been around and have seen strange things in our time. You are defending Someone who was Negligent, regardless of the road condition. You fail to acknowledge that. There are thousands of hazardous roads across the US, either by poor construction or environmental conditions, that is more reason for caution, than excuse.

 

[jillian]

Becky, You are too caught up in your cause to see the full picture. You make great points, we have all been around and have seen strange things in our time. You are defending Someone who was Negligent, regardless of the road condition. You fail to acknowledge that. There are thousands of hazardous roads across the US, either by poor construction or environmental conditions, that is more reason for caution, than excuse.

you are being far to kind to her. she is intentionally sticking to a false premise despite having been corrected repeatedly.

that doesn't require patience and kindness...it deserves derision and scorn.

like this...

 

[Intense]

Becky, You are too caught up in your cause to see the full picture. You make great points, we have all been around and have seen strange things in our time. You are defending Someone who was Negligent, regardless of the road condition. You fail to acknowledge that. There are thousands of hazardous roads across the US, either by poor construction or environmental conditions, that is more reason for caution, than excuse.

you are being far to kind to her. she is intentionally sticking to a false premise despite having been corrected repeatedly.

that doesn't require patience and kindness...it deserves derision and scorn.

like this...

Not like she has to navigate the BQE everyday

 

[jillian]

Becky, You are too caught up in your cause to see the full picture. You make great points, we have all been around and have seen strange things in our time. You are defending Someone who was Negligent, regardless of the road condition. You fail to acknowledge that. There are thousands of hazardous roads across the US, either by poor construction or environmental conditions, that is more reason for caution, than excuse.

you are being far to kind to her. she is intentionally sticking to a false premise despite having been corrected repeatedly.

that doesn't require patience and kindness...it deserves derision and scorn.

like this...

Not like she has to navigate the BQE everyday

i hate that road. i try to avoid it whenever possible.

it's not that... it's that, for some bizarre reason, she refuses to accept the fact that the guy's BRAKES WERE ON FIRE and he kept going... which made him criminally culpable.

so i figure it's intentional or she's really that stupid. either way, she's managed to steer the thread away from any reasoned discussion while people feed her need for attention, no matter how negative.

i hear a lot of 2 year olds are like that, though.

 

[George Costanza]

you are being far to kind to her. she is intentionally sticking to a false premise despite having been corrected repeatedly.

that doesn't require patience and kindness...it deserves derision and scorn.

like this...

How about this . . . .

In most states, the concept of contributory negligence has been replaced by the doctrine of comparative negligence. I know you know the difference, but for those who do not: under a contributory negligence theory, if the plaintiff contributed in any way to the accident, he/she would be barred from any recovery. With comparative negligence, that is no longer the case. In a comparative negligence jurisdiction, the fault of both the plaintiff and the defendant is assigned a percentage and is compared. If the plaintiff was 10% at fault and the defendant 90%, then the plaintiff's recovery and the defendant's liability is apportioned accordingly.

I think the bad condition of this particular road clearly contributed to this accident. For example, if the truck had been driving along a flat stretch of straight line, desert freeway, it is much more likely this would never have happened. I am sure the steepenss of the grade was a contributing factor here combined with a lot of other things about the road.

I don't think Becki is saying the truck driver is without fault. I think all she is doing is pointing out that there might be another factor here that contributed to the accident. As you well know, in any, major personal injury case involving a vehicle collision, if there is anything at all wrong with the road, the road department will be joined as a party defendant on the theory that whatever was wrong with the road contributed in some way to the accident.

Now - the extent to which the road contributed to the accident in this case is another matter. It may have been very slight. It may have been nonexistent. And the company's decision to route this driver on that particular road certainly plays a part in the whole picture. That's not the point of my discussion here. The point of my discussion is that, I think Becki's contribution to this topic is legitimate and valid and I think that she does not deserve the treatment she has been getting on this thread.

 

[Intense]

you are being far to kind to her. she is intentionally sticking to a false premise despite having been corrected repeatedly.

that doesn't require patience and kindness...it deserves derision and scorn.

like this...

How about this . . . .

In most states, the concept of contributory negligence has been replaced by the doctrine of comparative negligence. I know you know the difference, but for those who do not: under a contributory negligence theory, if the plaintiff contributed in any way to the accident, he/she would be barred from any recovery. With comparative negligence, that is no longer the case. In a comparative negligence jurisdiction, the fault of both the plaintiff and the defendant is assigned a percentage and is compared. If the plaintiff was 10% at fault and the defendant 90%, then the plaintiff's recovery and the defendant's liability is apportioned accordingly.

I think the bad condition of this particular road clearly contributed to this accident. For example, if the truck had been driving along a flat stretch of straight line, desert freeway, it is much more likely this would never have happened. I am sure the steepenss of the grade was a contributing factor here combined with a lot of other things about the road.

I don't think Becki is saying the truck driver is without fault. I think all she is doing is pointing out that there might be another factor here that contributed to the accident. As you well know, in any, major personal injury case involving a vehicle collision, if there is anything at all wrong with the road, the road department will be joined as a party defendant on the theory that whatever was wrong with the road contributed in some way to the accident.

Now - the extent to which the road contributed to the accident in this case is another matter. It may have been very slight. It may have been nonexistent. And the company's decision to route this driver on that particular road certainly plays a part in the whole picture. That's not the point of my discussion here. The point of my discussion is that, I think Becki's contribution to this topic is legitimate and valid and I think that she does not deserve the treatment she has been getting on this thread.

Hey, Trucking is highly Dangerous, therefore, highly Regulated. Who's advocating right now for giving Illegal's a free pass on Licensing and Insurance, in California? To what end? This Driver either did not have the skill and experience needed to be behind that wheel, or the care, either way it is negligence. Nothing on you or Becky, just on the kind of world you are trying to open Pandora's box to.

 

[freedombecki]

you are being far to kind to her. she is intentionally sticking to a false premise despite having been corrected repeatedly.

that doesn't require patience and kindness...it deserves derision and scorn.

like this...

How about this . . . .

In most states, the concept of contributory negligence has been replaced by the doctrine of comparative negligence. I know you know the difference, but for those who do not: under a contributory negligence theory, if the plaintiff contributed in any way to the accident, he/she would be barred from any recovery. With comparative negligence, that is no longer the case. In a comparative negligence jurisdiction, the fault of both the plaintiff and the defendant is assigned a percentage and is compared. If the plaintiff was 10% at fault and the defendant 90%, then the plaintiff's recovery and the defendant's liability is apportioned accordingly.

I think the bad condition of this particular road clearly contributed to this accident. For example, if the truck had been driving along a flat stretch of straight line, desert freeway, it is much more likely this would never have happened. I am sure the steepenss of the grade was a contributing factor here combined with a lot of other things about the road.

I don't think Becki is saying the truck driver is without fault. I think all she is doing is pointing out that there might be another factor here that contributed to the accident. As you well know, in any, major personal injury case involving a vehicle collision, if there is anything at all wrong with the road, the road department will be joined as a party defendant on the theory that whatever was wrong with the road contributed in some way to the accident.

Now - the extent to which the road contributed to the accident in this case is another matter. It may have been very slight. It may have been nonexistent. And the company's decision to route this driver on that particular road certainly plays a part in the whole picture. That's not the point of my discussion here. The point of my discussion is that, I think Becki's contribution to this topic is legitimate and valid and I think that she does not deserve the treatment she has been getting on this thread.

Hey, Trucking is highly Dangerous, therefore, highly Regulated. Who's advocating right now for giving Illegal's a free pass on Licensing and Insurance, in California? To what end? This Driver either did not have the skill and experience needed to be behind that wheel, or the care, either way it is negligence. Nothing on you or Becky, just on the kind of world you are trying to open Pandora's box to.

I am willing to take my lumps for my multiple shortcomings when I see what that road grade caused in the photograph shared below by someone who saw what I deducted about a road that would inflict this problem on somebody else:
​

You see a bad driver incapable of making a rational decision who deserves separation from his family and a long time in jail to think his bad decision over, and I am not discounting the value of justice at street level.

I see in the same picture, a failure to plan a reasonable grade on the road by those who constructed this road many years ago, and zero correction from maybe a possible hundred years' (or fraction thereof) of the road's existence. I suspect this is not the first fatality caused on the road by brake failures. If the construction department were caused to think in terms of human safety by being forced to replace the man's truck and pay a price to thefamilies of the two people who died on account of earlier decisions made with economy, not safety, as the uppermost decision to build this unsafe road, a subsequent correction might occur. A lack of conscience means to me, it is not a problem and is not going to be a problem in the state into eternity, that is, until the mayor's or the governor's or even the president's kid dies on that ill-constructed road.

Since nothing was done to correct the road except to put up a warning sign, likely nothing will be done to protect innocent people from getting killed on the road in the future.

People who do not learn from history's lessons are likely to repeat the same mistakes, over and over.

Sorry for being so corny as to disturb the people who post here. Please don't let me be the cause for nagging your conscience nor that of civil engineers in another state.

Professional engineers? I'll nag away. Words of correction mean something to these erudite gentlemen of mathematics and science. They really mean nothing here to me except my willingness to take neg reps for the privilege of having the freedom of speech I love and cling to as benefactor of something my ancestors in this country bestowed upon me on or around the era of 1775-1790.
​

 

[George Costanza]

you are being far to kind to her. she is intentionally sticking to a false premise despite having been corrected repeatedly.

that doesn't require patience and kindness...it deserves derision and scorn.

like this...

How about this . . . .

In most states, the concept of contributory negligence has been replaced by the doctrine of comparative negligence. I know you know the difference, but for those who do not: under a contributory negligence theory, if the plaintiff contributed in any way to the accident, he/she would be barred from any recovery. With comparative negligence, that is no longer the case. In a comparative negligence jurisdiction, the fault of both the plaintiff and the defendant is assigned a percentage and is compared. If the plaintiff was 10% at fault and the defendant 90%, then the plaintiff's recovery and the defendant's liability is apportioned accordingly.

I think the bad condition of this particular road clearly contributed to this accident. For example, if the truck had been driving along a flat stretch of straight line, desert freeway, it is much more likely this would never have happened. I am sure the steepenss of the grade was a contributing factor here combined with a lot of other things about the road.

I don't think Becki is saying the truck driver is without fault. I think all she is doing is pointing out that there might be another factor here that contributed to the accident. As you well know, in any, major personal injury case involving a vehicle collision, if there is anything at all wrong with the road, the road department will be joined as a party defendant on the theory that whatever was wrong with the road contributed in some way to the accident.

Now - the extent to which the road contributed to the accident in this case is another matter. It may have been very slight. It may have been nonexistent. And the company's decision to route this driver on that particular road certainly plays a part in the whole picture. That's not the point of my discussion here. The point of my discussion is that, I think Becki's contribution to this topic is legitimate and valid and I think that she does not deserve the treatment she has been getting on this thread.

Hey, Trucking is highly Dangerous, therefore, highly Regulated. Who's advocating right now for giving Illegal's a free pass on Licensing and Insurance, in California? To what end? This Driver either did not have the skill and experience needed to be behind that wheel, or the care, either way it is negligence. Nothing on you or Becky, just on the kind of world you are trying to open Pandora's box to.

WTF do "illegals" have to do with this thread? I have been away from it and have not read all of the posts - is some moron deflecting the issue of the OP? It would appear so. How do you know the driver in this case didn't have the skill or experience to operate a big rig? Are you just assuming this because there was an accident? And, once again, what does being an illegal have to do with anything?

 

[Tank]

And the company's decision to route this driver on that particular road certainly plays a part in the whole picture.

That didn't happen.