Here's the news story.

BTW - it was a single car accident - the victim's car never impacted another car - but it was gruesome - about 10 miles north of my house.

It'll make you think twice before eating strawberries again...Freakin' Mustang owners...

 

how does the eating strawberries come into play with this subject?

 

Oxnard is one of if not THE largest producers of strawberries in the USA.

I used to live about 20 miles from where that incident happened.............but I moved 4 1/2 years ago.

 

okay, thanks for the info!

 

Quote from the story:

"McIntyre said her youngest brother's death had a tragic effect on her parents. She said the accident was so horrific and violent that some of her brother's body parts were strewn over a strawberry field where his car crashed."

Quote - Beatles:

"Let me take you down, 'cause I'm going to Strawberry Fields.
Nothing is real and nothing to get hung about.
Strawberry Fields forever."

"Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see.
It's getting hard to be someone but it all works out.
It doesn't matter much to me."

The California Strawberry Festival

 

The thing that I find odd about this story is that it appears that the girl was held partially responsible for the boy's death. That is ridiculous. It was the boy's choice to race, and the boy's failure to control his vehicle. I think she should have been prosecuted for racing, but the boy's death has nothing to do with it.

 

The person responsible for that kids death is the kid himself. If he hadn't been racing that girl he would have just waited and raced someone else. You rolls the dice, you takes your chances.

 

Not to sound callous or too harsh, but I don't get how she is charged for this either. Wreckless drving yes, but it sounds like she was the better driver. Maybe she is the next Danica Patrick??

I do feel bad for the victims family but did she run him off the road or something?

Nick Hogan had a similar sentence but the victim was in his car, did the other racer in that situation get any jail time?

In a way they were botrh victims, they were driving mustangs.

 

It's all about how California laws relate to street racing. In an effort to curb the amount of street racing and the number of fatalities associated with same, whether to a race "participant" or an innocent bystander, every driver involved in a race is held equally responsible for all damages and injuries, whether their car was directly involved or not.

Sure, you can say that if she had refused to race him that perhaps the next car would have, but she wouldn't be on the hook for his death then, would she. And that is the whole point to the way the law is written and enforced. I'm just surprised they didn't impound and crush her car. They do that pretty regularly around here.

 

Wow. Didn't know that about California.

Yet another reason I'm glad I live on the east coast.

 

I think feeing the scene of a deadly accident is a crime in any state.

BTW - I rode my motorcycle this morning to work (6:30am) and it was 87 degs out...How's the weather back east anyway? Got your XF all bundled up for the season?

 

LOL, now don't take it all personal.

We got 2 inches of snow today. The SRT isn't bottled up for the winter yet - that'll happen next month. But I sure wasn't driving it and exposing it to all the salt and other de-icing chemicals they put on the road around here.

 

Certainly not because you like that authorities in your area turn a blind eye to street racing fatalities?

Yeah, I fully realize that's not why but almost make it sound you like fully condone street racing.


I lived in Michigan for 28 years, spent 2 in Indy and have been in SoCal for 19. Every winter I wonder why it took me so long to get out here and away from the winter snow and summer humidity. Cops out here can crush moron's cars all day long - I'll never go back to that lousy weather.

 

I don't fully condone street racing, but I am an advocate of it - within reason. I'm sure I'll catch a lot of flak for that, but so be it.

I am definitely an advocate of higher speed limits, tougher driving tests, and yanking people's licenses for lack of driving skill. Perhaps I'm crazy, but I think driving should be challenging enough that people want to pay attention rather than fiddling with their stereo, talking on the phone, doing their make-up, or reading their email! Sheesh. But as it is, we are forced to drive at speeds far less than the roads are built for (highways are routinely designed for 85 mph) and it bores the crap out of people. It also takes longer to get places, so people insist on making use of that time in other ways - aside from paying attention to the road! This causes more accidents, and the DOT reduces the speed limit some more, further exacerbating the problem.

Can you tell that's a hot button topic for me?

 

Street racing "within reason" is a tough thing to regulate. While I agree that two cars running wide open on an empty freeway is reasonably safe, too many people (way too many, in fact) are racing on surface streets with cross streets. It's not that uncommon for someone to pull out of a cross street and right into the middle of an impromtu race - not a good thing.

As for stricter driving tests, I'm all for it. Top Gear just did a piece on drivers in Finland and why that country has produced more WRC Champions than any other, and why they have more F1 Champions per capita (an amusing statistic, but still) than any other country. It takes 3 YEARS OF TRAINING before you can get a drivers license in Finland and you have to be able to control a power slide before passing, among other maneuvers that most Americans would probably consider professional stunt driving! When I moved to California 19 years ago I had to take a brief written exam and nothing more to get a CA license. Since then I just give the state a few dollars every few years and they happily renew it, with no clue whether I know how to pilot a motor vehicle or not. And from the behavior I regularly see on local roads, most people around here take driving as a passive activity. Many seem to be unaware that there are even other vehicles on the road with them.

Having spent a fair bit of time on various road courses, it's also painfully obvious that most drivers have far less talent behind the wheel than they think they do. They tend to run out of talent long before their cars do. I'd rather they keep that sort of activity on the track though, not on public roads.

 

I agree. That's why I mentioned the tougher driving tests. I love the bit about Finland.