I feel for both the child of the family and the driver. It would be bad enough to hit anyone with a vehicle, but a young child would be terrible. That was irresponsible of the dad to let the child out where he did and then to cross the street by itself.
"Bell the hybrid!" If it hadn't been a hybrid, she would have heard the car coming! Frankly, I doubt it would have mattered. When a child is running like that, at best it would be like a deer in the headlights. And you're better off moving if you get hit. Or so they told me after I got run over by a K-Car.
A sad case. My heart goes out to the child who, through no fault of its own, is fated to face life under the "care" of such an (pick as many as you wish) 1. uncaring, 2. irresponsible, 3. negligent parent. What next? Park next to the railroad tracks... a sink hole?
The child isn't a big enough target for the radar. A deer ran across my bow (left to right) and didn't trigger anything. I didn't see it until it was in front of my left headlight.
how often do you read about accidents with pedestrians and they name the type of automobile? and i don't think a hybrid in electric mode is any quieter than a nice lexus et al.
Terrible accident ... a real tragic event. That said, the media reports such events as-if the vehicle has a mind of it's own .... hit by "a 2007 Toyota Prius" ... was there a driver? Unfortunately, in today's climate, the media will report EVERY accident involving a Prius. On the positive side, look how few Prius accidents there are in a week. Quite remarkable.. For a period, the media was down on SUV's ... every accident in which an SUV was involved ... even if side-swiped by another car, it was reported as an SUV accident.
"DATA COLLECTION STUDY: DEATHS AND INJURIES RESULTING FROM CERTAIN NON-TRAFFIC AND NON-CRASH EVENTS" May 2004, U.S. Department of Transportation, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Table IV: Backing Deaths Identified in 1998 Death Certificates By Age Column 1 Column 2 0 Age # of Victims 1 1< 1 2 1-4 40 3 5-9 4 4 10-19 2 5 20-29 0 6 30-39 3 7 40-49 3 8 50-59 6 9 60-69 5 10 70+ 27 11 total 91 It doesn't take a rocket scientist to notice the number of "1-4" year olds is way too high. Just based upon the age bracket size, 5-9 is 'less bad' but prorated on deaths for a 10 year age group, even the "5-9 -> 4 deaths" is way too high. Some of these fatalities are relative body mass and growing skulles but some of it, I suspect, is rate of incidents. I suspect but can not tell from this data that we don't teach our pre-school kids road safety until they go to school ... with fatal consequences. Bob Wilson
Yeah, I would expect those distinctions to be behavioral - and parental... Toddlers have to be watched constantly and should never be "off leash" near any street or driveway. The 70+ bracket is also kind of high - I guess that's a fragility factor, possibly also a reduced ability to hear/see and slower reaction times.
the 70+ factor is something that has happened locally twice in the past few months. one case, a couple came home and apparently had a vehicle partially blocking their driveway. so the wife got out and was guiding the husband in and somehow he ended up pushing her up against the garage.
Any chance Toyota could develop a biofuel-powered car that gobbles up pedestrians and processes them into biofuel? You could probably get a full tank of biofuel from each pedestrian. (disclaimer: this is intended as a joke)
Agreed! I think the Government should institute a program to rid society of all 1-4 year olds to solve this great problem. Should take, oh, about 3 years to get rid of all present 1-4 year olds. Of course, this costs money, expect your taxes to rise. But hey, it's for the kids, so its all worth it, right? ;-)
We have already run that experiment and it continues to fail: Until the Prius, all cars had "halosonic" noise generators ... called engines. They still killed kids, young people, cyclists and pedestrians: Literture Review on Vehicle Travel Speeds and Pedestrian Injuries Doing the same thing and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity. Also, There is no correlation of Prius population and pedestrian deaths. But we do know pickups and SUVs have a higher rate and those vehicles already make much more noise than our Prius. Bob Wilson
