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Heroic Engineer Crashes Own Vehicle To Save a Life
scottbomb sends in this feel-good story of an engineer-hero, calling it "one of the coolest stories I've read in a long time." "A manager of Boeing's F22 fighter-jet program, Innes dodged the truck, then looked back to see that the driver was slumped over the wheel. He knew a busy intersection was just ahead, and he had to act fast. Without consulting the passengers in his minivan — 'there was no time to take a vote' — Innes kicked into engineer mode. 'Basic physics: If I could get in front of him and let him hit me, the delta difference in speed would just be a few miles an hour, and we could slow down together,' Innes explained."
I'm sure that the insurance guys will love this explanation!
Actually, if you read the article, you'll see that State Farm sent him a thank you letter.
I'm sure that the insurance guys will love this explanation!
They did, they even sent Innes a "thank you for being a hero" letter. There really should be more people like him in the world!
Actually they did; they paid for damages to his minivan and thanked him for his actions (I (gasp) RTFA). He saved them a lot of money, and probably saved a lot of people from getting injured or killed.
Free Martian Whores!
Spoken like a child, rather than a parent. If my son described doing this stunt, I'd chew his ass for it but good. My dad would do the same to me, I'm sure. Being a parent changes at 18 years old, true, but it never really goes away.
The article says he matched speeds. With matched speeds, the impact would have been minimal. He did not use the impact to stop the other vehicle, he used his own vehicle's brakes.
Captcha: harmless
where do you live? and have you ever even driven a car? the first task in engineering a vehicle is to make sure the braking system is stronger than the engine.
$ unzip, strip, touch, finger, grep, mount, fsck, more, yes,fsck,fsck,fsck,umount, sleep
The other guy's.
They paid the damages to the engineers car and thanked him.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
It is funny. This isn’t real life, it’s Slashdot, and things people post here don’t necessarily have to be taken 100% literally.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
As has been pointed out elsewhere, he likely saved them a truck-load of money, as well as the life of someone they insure.
So, if the unconscious guy in the runaway truck had created the expected mayhem and crashed into someone, they would have had to pay out that settlement. And, if he died and had life insurance, they'd have to pay that.
I'm pretty sure this was overall a far better result than would have otherwise been expected. I suspect they would have a hard time finding the engineer at fault -- I'm sure some form of good samaritan law would apply as well ... "yes your honour, I did smash up both cars, but I was doing it to save lives". At least, you'd like to hope that the law would be on his side.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
And more insurance companies like that in the world.
Not those that take your money when times are good (take everyone's money when times are really bad ;) ). But have all sorts of little clauses which they use to not pay out.
e.g. http://acleanbreast.wordpress.com/2010/08/26/sht-theres-a-hole-in-my-coverage-make-that-a-manhole/
Or they delay pay-outs.
Since the law is basically written such that you must avoid hitting the cars in front of you (even if the driver of the car in front does something absurdly foolish like slams on the brakes), the insurance company has almost no choice but to attribute the fault in a rear-end collision to the driver of the vehicle in back.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
lol nice risk analysis you got going there.
"Given what he knew at the time,"
You have no idea what he knew at the time, so don't even try to postulate.
Oh - and never mind that the *facts* of the incident prove you wrong. The "least net harm" was proven to be him stopping the vehicle.
lol
Slashdot, where armchair scientists get shouted down and armchair theologians get modded up.
I used to do martial arts. One of the things you learn is that most black belts get their asses kicked in a streetfight.
A big part of this is because most "martial arts" are pretty useless in a real fight, black belt or no. Giving someone false confidence can be pretty dangerous.
The libertarian solution to the failures of capitalism is to apply more capitalism til the failures are fixed.
I hadn’t considered that possibility, but I went ahead and looked it up.
Washington (where this occurred) is an add-on state. This means that you must get liability coverage, but you can also “add-on” coverage for your own vehicle if you cause an accident.
Fault is determined and the insurance company of the person who caused the accident must pay to repair the damages caused by his accident (liability coverage), however they won’t cover the damage to his own vehicle unless he purchased the additional full coverage.
http://www.insureme.com/insurance/washington-insurance
Now (for the sake of argument), if it had been in a no-fault state, the fault would still have been significant. The driver not at fault wouldn’t be able to file claims against the driver-at-fault for medical costs, because each drivers’ own insurance company has to pay personal injury claims in a no-fault state. However, property damages caused by the other driver can be recouped by suing in small claims court, so if property damage occurred determining which driver was at fault is still necessary even in a no-fault state.
http://accident-law.freeadvice.com/auto/fault-no-fault-car-accidents.htm
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.