Darryl Anderson was drunk behind the wheel of his Audi SUV, had his accelerator pressed to the floor and was barreling toward a car ahead of him when he snapped a photo of his speedometer. The picture showed a car in the foreground, a collision warning light on his dashboard and a speed of 141 mph (227 kph).
An instant later, he slammed into the car in the photo. The driver, Shalorna Warner, was not seriously injured but her 8-month-old son and her sister were killed instantly, authorities said. Evidence showed Anderson never braked.
Anderson, 38, was sentenced Tuesday to 17 years in prison for the May 31 crash in northern England that killed little Zackary Blades and Karlene Warner. Anderson pleaded guilty last week in Durham Crown Court to two counts of causing death by dangerous driving.
As a Canadian, I read 141 and thought, “141 km/h is pretty fast, but that’s not international news fast.” Then I saw it was mph!
Driving that fast on a closed course while sober with complete focus is dangerous. Yet this guy was drunk and texting on public roads.
“Sometimes mistakes happen," he said. "But I’m not a bad person.”
AFAIK, no mistakes happened, those were all choices. And by making those choices, yes, you are a bad person.
Bro killed two people, one of them a kid, and he’s actually saying “No one’s perfek 🤪!!!”
I agree these where choices, and he should be held accountable for them. I disagree that they make him a bad person, because a person may not have the understanding of what those choices can result in. I agree that he is not a good person, but I agree because he is refusing to take responsibility for his choices.
Edit: And upon reading the remainder of the article, I agree he is not a good person, because he clearly did understand what those choices could result in. Shooting video while driving, let alone at those kind of speeds, and while drunk? I can’t think of any excuse or explanation that could mitigate that.
This is literally the afluenza teen defense that got Ethan Couch zero jail time for killing 4 people and seriously injuring 9 while drunk driving.
This guy is too poor to drive drunk and actually has to face consequences for his actions.
Anderson lied to police, saying a hitchhiker was driving at the time of the crash.
Prosecutor Emma Dowling said a roadside breath test showed Anderson was nearly three times over the limit driving after drinking. An empty vodka bottle was found in his car.
Witnesses later reported that he had been driving dangerously for 20 miles (32 kilometers) and his phone showed he had been sending text messages.
At a police station, he told officers he had driven into the back of a car.
“Sometimes mistakes happen," he said. "But I’m not a bad person.”
Sometimes mistakes happen!!!??? My dude, you murdered two people out of sheer recklessness and negligence and then lied about it. You don’t get to excuse your behaviour by saying “oh, I’m not a bad person…”
Take some fucking responsibility. Although, I guess if you were capable of taking responsibility for your actions you wouldn’t be on your phone while driving double the highway speed limit and drunk off your ass.
Reading this, he was probably still very drunk when he said it. Doesn’t make him any less of a POS.
Also, alcohol generally makes someone tell the truth, so I’m guessing his only remorse is I got caught.
PSA: your local fire precinct (in the USA, probably England too) can do a car seat installation and fit check for you. Strap your kids in, and strap them TIGHT. It can be very easy to install a seat improperly, I had mine checked when I was a new parent until I was confident I had it right.
Before anyone flames me for victim blaming I am 100% not blaming the mother. It is quite possible that at those speeds the child would have died regardless, and the driver deserves every day in jail that he spends.
I’m almost 100% certain that a 141MPH impact absolutely destroyed everything that the car seat was attached to. There was an accident posted on reddit a couple years ago (from either L.A. or Texas) where a guy was going something like 120MPH and hit stopped traffic on the highway. His vehicle completely sheared off the upper half of the car he hit first and then shot over several vehicles before hitting a building probably 30 yards off the side of the freeway. A car traveling that fast carries an insane amount of energy.
Energy goes up with the square of velocity. A car going 140 MPH has 4x the energy of a car going 70. Assuming a 3,000 lb car, there was about as much energy in the car as 1.4 lb (.64 kg) of TNT, but applied in a single direction, much more efficiently than an explosion would. Modern cars are impressively safe, but there probably wasn’t much left.
Edit: He was driving an SUV, ~5000 lb, so closer to 2.4 lb (1.1 kg) of TNT. It’s a miracle that anybody survived.
But take into account that the woman was also driving at certain speed when he hit her. If she was driving at 100MPH then his speed relative to her was just 41MPH
You should not strap them TIGHT, but you should make sure they’re not loose. Too tight is a thing and can result in additional pressure/exertion, which leads to bending of parts, fraying, and stripping of components, ultimately making things less safe. The key is to be just right.
Why can someone even drive a car that can go that fast on public streets? Countries should enforce speed limiters on vehicles brought into their country for roadway use. It may not prevent drunks from driving, but it could slow them down and prevent some deaths and injury. People don’t even need to be drunk for these speeds to be dangerous.
Because every time government tries to limit vehicles there is a very loud roar of whataboutism and mah freedom.
At a certain point we need to prioritize people’s safety over “vroom vroom”. 200+ km/h is nearly double highway speeds. Children dying from speeding crashes should be much more important than somebodys ego and desire to speed.
If children dying from mass shootings isn’t enough to move these obstructionist-types, then nothing is.
As a driving enthusiast even I agree with this.
However, people will just work around any limiters that get set like we already do.
Many cars and motorcycles already have speed limiters—often 130-150mph.
From this month it is already happening in Europe, with caveats.
https://www.theregister.com/2024/07/11/speed_limiters_arrive_for_all/
That’s not a limiter, just an alert that you’re going over the posted limit
I said, with caveats.
There are four options available to manufacturers according to the regulations. The first two, a cascaded acoustic or vibrating warning, don’t intervene, while the latter two, haptic feedback through the acceleration pedal and a speed limiter, will.
That implementation of a speed limiter is not a hard limit though.
So how would a cop catch up to someone who bypass their limiter? Or respond to hostage situation in a timely manner? Or get to another unit who needs assistance?
I think it would just be better to fire cops who abuse their power.
So how would a cop catch up to someone who bypass their limiter?
A lot of (sensible) municipalities have banned high-speed chases by police since they’re so insanely risky to bystanders. Nothing wrong with cops not being able to speed dangerously, even if it means perps sometime escape (to be caught later anyway since their identities are usually known).
How would these work exactly? Where I live max speed on freeways is 70mph and 25mph on residential streets. You can definitely still kill someone using a car limited to maximum legal speed.
He’s saying that if the car in the article was speed limited, it would’ve hit the back of that poor girl’s car and dented it, instead of ruining people’s entire lives
You can certainly kill someone going the maximum legal speed in a place where the speed limit is much lower. But the likelihood of injury and death still does increase with the increase in speed. So if, say, 5% of accidents involving someone going 70 are fatal, but 10% if the person is going 90 (these are made-up numbers), then if cars are not even able to go above 70, you end up saving lives.
I doubt there’s significant difference.
One of those speed limits is designed for a location where cars are unlikely to hit a human directly. Another location can have a child randomly run into the street. 70 and 170 are both death sentences.
Speed limiters in cars that don’t dynamically adjust to actual speed limits are useless and only exist to check the boxes for idiot voters disconnected from reality.
I’m sorry but this isn’t “world news” to me. Random drunken tragedies are hardly something useful to keep me informed on what is happening in the world.
It can be useful for people to see how other countries handle crimes like this one.
I’m from the US and if this happened here depending on what state he was in would determine whether he got a slap on the wrist or jail time. Also if the judge was corrupt or a shitty person he’d get a slap on the wrist(see rapist Brock Turners case).
So it not completely useless. At least I don’t think so.
