Really Bad Car Accident Caught On Camera

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I agree. The video does show her waving her hand out the window right before the crash. So she was awake and alert to some degree.
Given her history of mental illness and her previous driving record, I wonder if she somehow thought she could "thread the needle" and dodge through the traffic crossing the intersection. She might have even sped up to attempt it.
 
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Another possibility is that the accelerator got stuck, or the Drive-By-Wire system malfunctioned.
Is that a known problem with that car? I doubt it. If you are going down the road in an urban area and your car is accelerating without your input, I would expect you are standing on the brakes. It's your life for God's sakes! I doubt that it only happened at the last 100 feet to the intersection such that she had no time to react.

When all is said and done, we can speculate all we want, but from what little is shown we will never have more than an opinion of what happened.
 

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Is that a known problem with that car? I doubt it. If you are going down the road in an urban area and your car is accelerating without your input, I would expect you are standing on the brakes. It's your life for God's sakes! I doubt that it only happened at the last 100 feet to the intersection such that she had no time to react.

When all is said and done, we can speculate all we want, but from what little is shown we will never have more than an opinion of what happened.
I didn't state anything as a fact or opinion, just a couple of possibilities. It was just a thought that came to mind. All mechanical things can jam, and all electronics and software have bugs that can cause malfunctions. That's why we get recalls and updates.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, there's no excuse for the loss of life and damage she caused, unless something happened out of her control.

Other than that, I generally agree with you. Until there's an investigation and trial, all the facts contributing to the crash are unknown.
 

The Automation Guy

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I checked Google maps and the road she was traveling on into the intersection has a speed limit of 45mph. However it is a stretch of road with no side access (no businesses or driveways) due to the contour of the land (there is a drop off on the right side of the road). There is also a relatively straight section of road for about 650m (4/10th of a mile) that goes downhill towards the intersection where the crash occurred. It's a total of about 950m (6/10 of a mile) from the previous intersection to the intersection where the crash occurred - all of it downhill. You can see the intersection where the crash occurred at the bottom of the hill in the image below. We are looking the same direction that the car would have traveled.

All that to say that I'm sure the average speed in this section of road is above the 45mph speed limit. 90-100mph is still extremely excessive, but I can see were a "mad" or aggressive driver could easily obtain these speeds on this stretch of road, especially in a luxury vehicle with power to spare.
Road street view.png
 
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wittaj

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Now reporting she isn't expected to survive and is on life support while they assess her organs for transplant.
Slipping into a coma at the outset was probably a blessing for her. Medical professionals with experience in burn wards have been saying that she was almost certainly in far worse condition that initial news reports indicated, with very little chance of survival. Even if she did live, she would never again have led a life that resembled anything normal.

At least Anne Heche's bad behavior didn't result in the deaths of innocents, and her donated organs may actually save some lives.
 

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Steve P

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I checked Google maps and the road she was traveling on into the intersection has a speed limit of 45mph. However it is a stretch of road with no side access (no businesses or driveways) due to the contour of the land (there is a drop off on the right side of the road). There is also a relatively straight section of road for about 650m (4/10th of a mile) that goes downhill towards the intersection where the crash occurred. It's a total of about 950m (6/10 of a mile) from the previous intersection to the intersection where the crash occurred - all of it downhill. You can see the intersection where the crash occurred at the bottom of the hill in the image below. We are looking the same direction that the car would have traveled.

All that to say that I'm sure the average speed in this section of road is above the 45mph speed limit. 90-100mph is still extremely excessive, but I can see were a "mad" or aggressive driver could easily obtain these speeds on this stretch of road, especially in a luxury vehicle with power to spare.
View attachment 136100
She hit 130 mph according to the latest release. Pressed accelerator and was actively steering the vehicle in the last seconds before impact.
 

Sybertiger

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She hit 130 mph according to the latest release. Pressed accelerator and was actively steering the vehicle in the last seconds before impact.
I am still going with my original supposition: she was in a manic phase and somehow thought she could thread the needle and steer between the other cars through the intersection, i.e. "If I go fast enough, I'll dodge between those cars!"

This latest information would tend to reinforce that.
 

J Sigmo

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I don't think she would have thought she could "thread the needle". Too many cars bumper-to-bumper in that intersection. As sad as it is, it appears that she may have done this on purpose, but her plans to kill herself were thwarted by the amazing safety systems and design of the Mercedes.

Having said that, I cannot judge her regardless of what we find out. To judge someone, you must be able to put yourself in their place and then say that you would have done things differently. And that's absurd because nobody can ever put themselves in someone else's place. If you could successfully put yourself into someone else's place, then you would, by definition, do everything exactly as they did.

This is what is usually referred to as a "tragedy". If it turns out that she did do this on purpose, and was capable of realizing that she would kill and injure others, then it's a lot like any other mass murder incident. Almost always, it turns out that mental illness was the root cause. I can't offer any sage advice about how to positively prevent these things, but better discernment of and treatment for mental illness seems like at least part of the answer.

As in most cases, even now I have too little information.
 

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Any word on when the US will get a crack at Universal health care again?

in AU we get 8 free visits to a Psyc a year, just walk into a hospital for help if you need it, I'd like to believe it's catching stuff like this before it goes too far.
 

Sybertiger

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First off, liberalism is a mental disorder. Second, can we afford to provide treatment to nearly half the American population? Wouldn't it be better to appoint conservatives to assist them with their daily decision making? :rofl:
 
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