[First filed: April 11, 2009 @ 08:43]
Canberra has had it’s first Easter road fatality in at least two years.
The ABC has scant details.
Anyone know where or when?
UPDATED: The AFP have put out a statement:
ACT Policing is investigating a single vehicle collision in Uriarra today (Friday, April 10) which has resulted in the death of a man believed to be in his 20s.
Sometime overnight a sedan travelling southbound on Uriarra Road has left the road, gone through a fence and rolled.
Police were notified of the collision by a passer-by who noticed the incident sometime after the event.
The driver, travelling alone in the vehicle, died at the scene.
ACT Policing’s crash investigation team is currently investigating the incident and would ask that anyone who witnessed the collision call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
FURTHER UPDATE: The ABC are reporting that the deceased is one 25 year old Nathan Thomas of Phillip.
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http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/local/news/general/lonely-death-grim-start-to-feared-long-weekend/1484106.aspx
I hope the death was instant. I wouldn’t have wanted him to be dying alone like that.
I really don’t know how you reach kids like this. Messages relating to common sense precautions for safe driving seem not to reach them; kind of like the Simpsons talking to Santa’s Little Helper.
Perhaps the frontal lobes have not developed sufficiently in some of them. He might not have biologically had enough myelination occur to be capable of avoiding the impulsivity and irrationality associated with the adolescent brain and make sensible driving decisions.
Having said that, I know that there are many responsible young drivers out there. It does give me cause for concern however.
The photo in that Canberra Times article is excellent. A pity about the circumstances though.
He must have been going quick…..Who says speed doesn’t kill?
As sad as it is that someone dies, I’m happy that he only took himself to the other side and no one else during their excessive speeding. They have track days for that….
Could have been a roo.
Granny what’s the point in banging heads against brick walls trying to educate the kids you talk about. Let them go as fast as they want. Those with brains will survive, those without, won’t.
Speed is an addiction so, like junkies taking a fatal overdose, when these youngsters wrap themselves round trees, I can’t feel sorry for them.
Because when the little shits take themselves out they take others out with them – or worse, emerge unscathed while the person they hit is a mangled wreck.
If it could be arranged that they would reliably wrap themselves around a tree, I’d be all for it.
It would certainly give the gene pool a bit of a cleanup.
According to a copper mate, the Pulsars estimated speed was around 160kmh, and the drivers body was found 30 metres away from the car.
Look at it this way – at least he wasn’t speeding in a built up area and having an accident with the wrong place wrong time stereotypical retired couple in a street race.
Well if I had a child who was a little slow to develop some commonsense I wouldn’t want them to die. Being an idiot doesn’t mean you deserve to die.
My condolences to the family.
Not built up doesn’t mean no people. 8:30 am on a weekend, that’s a cycling road.
gertel said :
But chlorinating the gene pool isnt a bad idea…
gertel said :
Oh? So you’d be happy being killed by someone being an idiot? Or just maimed? How about someone from your family? Or a friend? Unless a mechanical fault happened that caused the accellerator to jam on, this guy decided to drive like a dick. Probably not for the first time. Every time they did they threw the dice to kill or hurt themselves or others. This time they rolled the dice and their car.
It truly sucks to have a member of your family killed because of one of these people, and I’m glad that in this case, the idiot concerned just took himself out.
My opinion is that it all has to do with their upbringing. I am not talk about lower class people compared with rich snobs. I mean by usually if your parents gave you the right amount of freedom & taught you right. For example I believe that I was given this type of upbringing (I even come from middle class background) & I have been brought up with driving to the conditions & with what I can handle. With my parents slowing getting me to feel what speed is like & what it feels like when the ABS kicks in, etc.
While J Citizen who is from a rich snob upbringing & whose parents watched their every move & said no to anything of interest to the child. When they end up leaving home & have their own car, will push the car as much as they can, but of course they haven’t been trained properly & first minor incident means they end up in a serious accident.
So we can teach everyone the dangers of speed, drugs & alcohol, but some will never learn
I like the part where you generalised from your own subjective experiences then contrasted them with those of a completely imaginary person. Also, I totally believed the bit where you said you ‘am not talk about lower class people compared with rich snobs’.
Woody Mann-Caruso said :
Thanks, I had thought of using names like B Stanhope & J Smyth. But only thought of that afterwards.
There is always the possibility that he chose to go off the road at that point.
RatsNest said :
Well Rat, It depends on whether the “genes” for being a bit of an idiot are worse than the “genes” for being a callous twit with a bent for eugenics.
deye +1 – sadly this is often the case.
Rabble said :
Indeed, and the wider picture hints at possibly not wearing a seatbelt, as post #9 informs that the poor driver’s remains were found (ie thrown) some considerable distance from the car.
I vaguely recall a 1990s quote from the director of safety at Mercedes-Benz, who stated that a significant proportion of single-vehicle fatalities in Germany were intentional, and this was a subject that no one involved in road safety wished to discuss publically. I can’t remember the specific figure now but it was at least 30%, and possibly 50%.
Growling Ferret said :
Not sure where your ‘copper mate’ got those figures, but they are far from correct.
i drove past the wreck with my family about 7.30 am….just assumed it was a stolen car…it was a mess and we did comment to our travelling companions via uhf that it looked bad. We probably should have stopped and checked….but then our weekend would have been ruin too… condolences to the family.. There was alson many cyclists riding back and forwards past by that stage… so i am suprised it took so long to be investigated.
xyro said :
and this is what surprises me about people in canberra. Not. You had a UHF radio? you could have called it in on the emergency band, don’t you people think? The driver may still have been alive, but you couldn’t ruin your weekend?? you probably should have stopped and checked? wouldn’t you want someone to do that if it is you in the accident? and perhaps the driver had managed to extricate themselves from the vehicle, crawled away and listened to cars and cyclists going by, dying. You were able to discuss it on the radio, but didn’t want to stop and check? Unbelievable.
If you had the time to see it, discuss it and drive on, you had the time for one of you to get out and check. I would have, and so would have countless others I know. But it all seems to be someone else’s problem. I hope that someone has the decency to stop if i am ever in an accident. I would hate to think that they discuss it with their mates and drive on….
Aeek said :
Would be nice if some of the cyclists on the roads out there realised cars used the roads as well. For the most part the cyclists are pretty good, but more than once I have seen some pretty dodgy stuff with cyclists on the wrong side of the road. Oddly enough, on the downhill sections where they can generate some proper speed.
Seems it’s not only speeding motorists with a death wish.
xyro said :
If you are being serious, that is appauling. You and the people you were travelling with should all be disgusted with yourselves for possibly contributing to this persons death by not wanting to get involved. The person could’ve been alive at that stage. Not just you, but every party who travelled past the scene and couldn’t be bothered to check.
How can you be surprised it took so long to be investigated when you along with many people these days couldn’t be bothered to spend 30 seconds of your time possibly helping someone else out. If it in fact had been a stolen car, as you assumed it had been, 30 seconds is all it would’ve taken to stop and grab the number plate.
Pray that when you roll your car on a deserted highway that the first 200 parties to pass you don’t have your attitude.
Driving in via Canberra Ave between Qbn and Fyshwick this morning, it was rainy and foggy with poor visibility. Traffic was cruising along about 70km/h.
As I got to the top of the small rise I had to brake sharply to avoid a cyclist. Full lycra gear. No lights on. One a road with a CYCLE PATH RIGHT NEXT TO IT!
Some of these cyclists are just morons.
And Xyro, that’s pretty damn poor form.
And Xyro, that’s pretty damn poor form.
As are comments that suggest that the driver deliberately crashed.
Thumper said :
I wasn’t even bothering to touch those comments. I do have a big issue with people who tell us that “they saw the accident, but didn’t investigate” for fear of ruining their weekend. going to do some work – need to calm down a bit.
I do have a big issue with people who tell us that “they saw the accident, but didn’t investigate” for fear of ruining their weekend. going to do some work – need to calm down a bit.
Actually, they didn’t say that they didn’t stop for fear of ruining their weekend, they said they didn’t stop because they assumed (as presumably many other people in cars and on bikes) that it was a stolen car, and that there was no one in it. I know next time I drive past a wreck I will be looking to make sure that there is no one in it, but I can totally understand how on a bright weekend morning that would not even occur to you.