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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.
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!
The other guy's.
They paid the damages to the engineers car and thanked him.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
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.