4 ms·

There's something I don't understand about this crash in particular: It sounds like Marcos' death is blamed on the actions of the truck driver, as well as the

• robnado 3y ago
  It happened to me previously to be surprised by a stopped vehicle on the road. All you need is a large SUV driving in front of you blocking your vision of anything ahead. Then the SUV changes lane suddenly to avoid the stopped vehicle. Good luck reacting in time especially if you don't keep a multi-second separation between you and the car in front.
• lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago
  I might see the truck edging out of a driveway and trust that they're going to properly yield right of way and not make themselves an obstacle. By the time I realize "my" mistake, I might not have enough distance to stop.
  • shakow 3y ago
    Without putting blame anywhere and independently of who has the right of way, don't you just have your preservation instinct kicking in telling you that just giving a bit of brakes is not a bad idea, and that the risk/gain ratio of losing 10 seconds of your day vs. getting killed is not worth it?
    • deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    • robgibbons 3y ago
      In motorcycle safety courses, you're taught to never assume that other drivers can see you, in fact you are encouraged to operate as if you're invisible, and ride accordingly. Growing up, I was told that it's better to be alive than to be "right" as it pertains to right-of-way. You can either insist on continuing because it's your right, or you can brake early assuming they're going to cut you off.
      • shakow 3y ago
        Agreed. An even from a more trivial perspective, I overwhelmingly prefer to lose my right of way and 3' of my day rather than fork out thousands in body job on my car.
      • faeyanpiraat 3y ago
        Unfortunately I saw a video of a similar accident where the motorcycle driver slid under the truck which turned across the road unexpectedly in a similar way, and one of the wheels went over the rider. He survived for a couple of minutes, during which his riding buddy held his hand, and talked to him until the end. Videos like this are quite disturbing but I would make watching some of them mandatory during the driving course. Some people just dont get they are literally driving lethal weapons.
    • lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago
      > don't you just have your preservation instinct kicking in Admittedly, yes; often when I write “I might...” I’m imagining a perspective adjacent to my own. In theory, I’d take my foot off the gas, put it in a lower gear (“manual” automatic), and watch what the guy does (time pending). I doubt I would really not have enough time to stop given how much I pay attention when driving. Still, it takes two to tango, as it goes. The driver who died presumably could have and should have been paying more attention. They’d be alive today if they’d been paying enough attention to stop. And they’d be alive today if the truck driver had been more responsible. Keep in mind, the truck driver was hardly risking their own life; this was a lack of consideration for the safety of others.
    • 8note 3y ago
      Mine kicks in to say that those trucks shouldn't be on the road
    • leoedin 3y ago
      I just don't think it's realistic to completely remove risk of other people's actions while driving down a high speed road. You can't slow down to a crawl every time a vehicle is at the side of the road, or turning across your lane from the other side. Yes, you can drive defensively - but at some point if you're driving at 60mph you have to have some level of trust that other people won't pull out suddenly.
  • slt2021 3y ago
    Do you want to be right or alive? Pick one
    • toss1 3y ago
      Yup I remember my grandfather telling me long before I could drive: "You don't want to be dead right."
      • slt2021 3y ago
        Similar wisdom about arguing with your wife: Do you want to be right or happy? /i
        • CoastalCoder 3y ago
          Another bit of worldly wisdom from (at least) Tom Magliozzi! I wonder which of his marriages taught him that :) * I mean this with all due respect. The world was a better place with Tom in it.
      • martinpw 3y ago
        "Better to be 3 minutes late in the current life than 30 years early in the next"
        • duskwuff 3y ago
          Similarly: "He was right, dead right, as he sped along. But he's just as dead as if he were wrong."
    • lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago
      Respectfully, this is a tired meme and it needs to die. This is a defeatist attitude that just gets in the way of any progress on improving driving culture. I really would prefer I can just trust the other driver.
      • kelnos 3y ago
• toast0 3y ago
  We don't have enough details from the article to determine fault in this particular collision. I'm not familiar with that particular highway, but there are a lot of US highways where (legal) prevailing speeds are 40 mph or higher and there are driveways from which unprotected left turns are permitted. I think including details specific collisions is probably a distraction. Regardless of fault, this type of collision happens; and does the estimate of 200 lives / year justify the cost of adding underguards on trailers? (and rightful grumping about poor quality of statistics) That's separate from a policy to eliminate driveways on highways above a certain speed, or provide separation of directions to eliminate left turns, or a nationwide 25 mph speed limit, or a separate road network only for large trucks, or whatever proposal you have to reduce the speed of collision here. FWIW: Here's a street view of US-281 where it enters Hidalgo County, and the posted limit is 60 mph: https://www.google.com.mx/maps/@26.0843029,-97.8616537,3a,75y,290.17h,82.69t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1shILL7OkizzVzyTAEHgLzgg!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu https://www.google.com.mx/maps/@26.0843029,-97.8616537,3a,75... Again, we don't know where the collision took place, this is just where I happened to look on the highway where it's roughly paralleling the Rio Grande. A speed limit of 60 mph on a well paved, two lane highway through a rural area is consistent with my expectations. Closer to McAllen, TX, where the article says the deceased works, it's two lanes in each direction with a center turn lane, and a speed limit 55 mph. https://www.google.com/maps/@26.1518933,-98.1911449,3a,75y,205.61h,94.77t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sc0wbxkC9E4hv9nnb9uKlQA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu https://www.google.com/maps/@26.1518933,-98.1911449,3a,75y,2...
  • kayfox 3y ago
    Looks like the accident happened here: https://goo.gl/maps/9HPbr3D43EKgbgZ6A https://goo.gl/maps/9HPbr3D43EKgbgZ6A
• massysett 3y ago
  > But don't we normally consider drivers responsible for crashing into objects towards which they're travelling? No. If you are traveling a highway at posted speed and have a green light, and someone makes a left turn across your path, you’re not responsible if you can’t stop in time. The turning vehicle must yield to all oncoming vehicles close enough to be a hazard. Similarly no, you are not responsible if you hit a truck that simply pulls straight out onto a street with no regard for the oncoming vehicles, which have the right of way.
  • wldcordeiro 3y ago
    Bigger vehicles love utilizing "physics right of way" to get what they want and it sounds like that's what happened here. Even pick-up truck drivers do stuff where they basically put you in situations where you give them what they want or they run into you and take no damage. Big vehicles on the road are an absolute problem at all levels.
  • sokoloff 3y ago
    That position is commonly held (and matches common sense), but I think doesn’t match the law. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VvRPzvh-ZOE&t=100 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VvRPzvh-ZOE&t=100 as an example that I recall watching with some outrage. Less outrageous is the requirement in many jurisdictions for vehicles to avoid collisions when possible and providing a general principle that a vehicle with the right of way but still having the last clear chance to avoid a collision is at fault for failing to do so.
  • AdamN 3y ago
    That would probably be no-fault in most US states (meaning both people are at fault). Basically unless you are hard stopped, each driver has some fault in any given accident.
• kelnos 3y ago
  As a sibling noted, we don't have enough information about the crash to know. Marcos might have believed the truck driver saw him and would stop and wait until he'd passed. He was driving on a highway; many highways in the US -- even those that are not divided and seem pretty smallish -- have speed limits of 50mph and higher. Sure, it's possible that Marcos could have done something to avoid the crash, but that doesn't mean it's his fault. But I think it really just doesn't matter whose fault it was. Regardless of whether or not the crash itself was preventable, the death was preventable, if these trucking companies would spend a measly $127 per trailer to help protect drivers of normal-sized vehicles. People are fallible. We know this. The entire point of vehicle safety is to acknowledge that people will screw up, and to minimize the injury and loss of life when it happens. (And I don't find it remotely persuasive that $127 per trailer is a huge burden on their "razor thin" margins. If they're not making more than $127 in profit _per haul_, the entire trucking industry would be unsustainably pointless.)