24 August 2010

Ohio makes it to prime time

Gory videos guarantee that at least.

My own theory is something like suicide or a major chemical induced snap.

I suppose it's possible he decided to see if his car would clear the overpass and miscalculated the approach, but it doesn't look much like anything other than a death wish driver for a couple reasons.

1) Seems to be speeding up or at least not attempting to slow down. No brakes. Brake lights go on briefly when the car...what's left of it, is airborne. It's not simply a case that the lights don't work. They did. The brakes were never used.
2) Seems to be headed/aimed right at the guardrail/bridge.
3) Did it right in front of a cop. Maybe that's a panic move to swerve, but the reaction steps after that don't suggest panic. And even at 100+mph you'd notice a cop up ahead of you. Or just plain notice a car in the way.
4) Decides to "pass" off road style in a spot with the least amount of maneuvering room
5) Was ejected from the car, suggesting no seat belt. If you were going to try to kill yourself in a car wreck then using the safety features is kind of cheating. Being ejected probably helps if the alternative is being smashed against a concrete bridge abutment by a ton of twisted metal moving at a high rate of speed, if you want to live. But that's a pretty lucky outcome.

I've driven at 100+ mph before, and had to do plenty of weaving in contained highway spaces to do it (I think it was a 50 mph zone). That's not quite the dumb part to be driving fast, though that can be dumb, I admit.

It's more the other factors. I don't care how dumb or hormonal a 19 year old is, at 7 am, you don't do that with that kind of traffic that you'd end up trying to pass on the shoulder/berm, much less ending up off-road in the spot with the least amount of maneuvering room right before a bridge. That looks more like a deliberate act than road rage or teenage stupidity when all the factors are at work at once. Maybe it will turn out he lost control of a car at high speed at a very inconvenient time for the car and himself. Or something else was going on (drugs, etc).

Either way, I guess we should be glad he's still alive and importantly that nobody else was hurt.

Update: interesting context

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