Auto Accident at SANE Conference Kills One

Several people have submitted news from SANE 2004 that a car crash involving several Free Software developers has killed one and injured two others. Richard Stallman was in the car earlier but apparently had been dropped off prior to the accident.

Comments

In case of /. effect

[Anonymous Coward]

Report as of 10:56 EDT:

Car accident details

There have been a bunch of rumours about a car accident involving some free software folks today. Since there seems to be no central place for all information I am trying to gather all information here.

If you have any other information please drop me an email at wichert@wiggy.net

All mentioned times are in CEST (UTC +0200).

• There has been a car accident returning from a trip to bring Richard Stallman (RMS) from SANE 2004 to Paris. (confirmed by several sources)
• they collided with a truck which merged onto their lane while driving in fog (unconfirmed)
• Exact time of the accident is unknown. It was on the morning of September 30th before 09:00.
• Richard Stallman was dropped off in Paris and no longer in the car (confirmed by Rop and Richard).
• At the time of the accident Hans Bakker (mclightje), Edwin Hermans (madeddie), and Sebastian S. (webmind) were in the car. (confirmed).
• The car belongs to Rop Gonggrijp, who lent it to the travelers. RMS was staying with Rop during SANE. (confirmed by Rop)
• Hans Bakker (photo, homepage) did not survive the crash. (confirmed by girlfriend)
• Edwin Hermans has a broken hip and has been transfered to a different hospital for surgery. Sebastian is (or was by now) in surgery for broken bones but is not in critical condition.

Bad information

• This Yahoo France accident report is from another accident which occured later and the car was traveling in the wrong direction

Press

• Webwereld (Dutch)
• NedLinux.nl (Dutch)

Re:In case of /. effect

[Anonymous Coward]

As reported by Webwereld, the site http://www.ne2000.nl/ has been switched to black after the loss of Hans Bakker.

Re:In case of /. effect

[boa13]

The Yahoo France accident report appears to be the correct one, but it is missing one line, the time of the accident: 30-09-2004 06:48, which is consistent with what is reported by Wichert. The time you see on Yahoo (13:50) is the time the road was cleared, and the traffic jam dissolved.

All other informations in the accident report (highway, location, direction, vehicles) is consistent with what has been reported here.

The fog condition is not unlikely early morning in that area, at this time of the year. Unfortunately, many others have died in similar crashes (sometimes dozens of cars crashing one after the other).

Here's a more complete and hopefully stable URL to Infotrafic web-site: http://www.infotrafic.com/perturbations.php?Region =NORD&AC=1774966287.

(Note: it appears that when Infotrafic is under heavy load, they redirect to a single summary page of traffic condition around Paris - try again later, then.)

Coralize it first!!!

[hacker]

For those that want to see this article, please use the Coralized version:

http://www.wiggy.net.nyud.net:8090/tmp/accident/

Site is slow: text of the site

[Saib0t]

Car accident details

There have been a bunch of rumours about a car accident involving
some free software folks today. Since there seems to be no central place
for all information I am trying to gather all information here.

If you have any other information please drop me an email
at wichert at wiggy dot net

All mentioned times are in CEST (UTC +0200).

* There has been a car accident returning from a trip to bring Richard
Stallman (RMS) from
SANE 2004 to Paris.
(confirmed by several sources)

* they collided with a truck which merged onto their lane while
driving in fog (unconfirmed)

* Exact time of the accident is unknown. It was on the
morning of September 30th before 09:00.

* Richard Stallman was dropped off in Paris and no longer in the car
(confirmed by Rop and Richard).

* At the time of the accident Hans Bakker (mclightje),
Edwin Hermans (madeddie), and
Sebastian S. (webmind) were in the car. (confirmed).

* The car belongs to Rop Gonggrijp, who lent it to the travelers.
RMS was staying with Rop during SANE. (confirmed by Rop)

* Hans Bakker (photo,
homepage)
did not survive the crash. (confirmed by girlfriend)

* Edwin Hermans has a broken hip and has been transfered to a different
hospital for surgery. Sebastian is (or was by now) in surgery for
broken bones but is not in critical condition.
* This appears to be the traffic report for the accident, as taken
infotraffic.

30-09-2004 13:50 ACCIDENT MORTEL à ASSEVILLERS (80) sur A1 (sens SUD-NORD)
ENTRE PERONNE ET ROYE
Debut : 30-09-2004 06:48
VICTIMES : 1 TUE(S)
VEHICULES EN CAUSE : 2 POIDS LOURD(S), 3 VEHICULE(S) LEGER(S)
OBSERVATIONS :SENS PARIS LILLE, SORTIE CONSEILLÉE A29 SAINT QUENTIN
.BOUCHON DE 4 KM.
Evenement termine depuis 30-09-2004 13:50

Translation:

30-09-2004 13:50 DEADLY CRASH at ASSEVILLERS(80) on A1 highway (SOUTH-NORTH)
BETWEEN PERONNE AND ROYE
Start: 30-09-2004 06:48
VICTIMS: 1 KILLED
VEHICLES INVOLVED: 2 TRUCKS, 3 CARS
OBSERVATIONS: DIRECTION PARIS LILLE, EXIT RECOMMENDED A29 SAINT QUENTIN.
TRAFFIC JAM 4 Km (2.5 miles)
Event stopped since 30-09-2004 13:50

Those are people who died, died...

[WormholeFiend]

Also, John E. Mack was killed earlier this week after being hit by a drunk driver while crossing the street on foot.

Shocked

[pigeon]

I knew Hans, the guy who died in the accident. I was very shocked, I met him only recently, and I just discovered that there was a picture of me on his site. Last time I spoke he told me he wanted to join geekcorps or something similar, to do something useful for the world. It pains me that that won't happen.

Re:"From the turn down a glass dept"

[CdBee]

I believe the tradition is that a glass used to remember a lost friend may never again be used for a lesser purpose. It is placed upside-down, so it cannot be refilled.

The phrase is used in many places, among them, Edward Fitzgerald's translation of the 10th-century Persian poetry of Omar Khaiyyam.

The Russian tradition of smashing a shot glass after a toast stems from the same source

Eye witness report

[anticypher]

I saw this accident scene this morning. Driving back from Paris to Brussels, there was a large traffic jam which took about 20 minutes to get through. The accident occured just after a rest stop, just after the point where the rest stop traffic merges back into the autoroute. Since its where I usually stop for a rest about an hour north of Paris, I can imagine they either stopped for a rest and were merging back onto the autoroute, or else they got caught in a bunch of trucks scooting around someone merging slowly. Lots of accidents happen at the far end of rest areas. It was pretty foggy this morning, its that season.

There was quite a bit of heavy equipment on the scene, a mobile crane on the slip road, and a bucket-crane truck with a dump truck picking up what was left of the one truck's load, it looked like scrap metal. There was the cab and remnants of a trailer, very shredded, on flatbed trucks on the slip road. There was obviously a fire, since parts of the guard rail were burned, and the asphalt was scorched. There were some Pompiers (firefighters) and about a dozen Gendarmes from the B.E.A (Bureau d'Enquetes Accidents) standing around, but they had obviously finished all of their report gathering by 10:30 AM when I passed.

I know Rop, and I've probably met the others at various linux/hac-tic/2600/CCC/EC patent protest events. My heart goes out to the families and loved ones of those involved, and here is wishes for a speedy recovery for the injured. This accident affects all of us in the techie, hacker-in-the-good-sense-of-the-word, and linux scenes here in Europe. Lets remember Hans for the good things he accomplished in his life.

the AC