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.
So he was playing like a game of chicken while driving? At that speed? 🤦
So sorry for the victims, that’s horrible
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.
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.
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).
140 is not very fast in some countries. In Germany, a farming vehicle will pass you at that speed.
Fine, but this was in England, where there are speedlimits everywhere and there is an ocean channel between it and the closest place without speedlimits.
Ambulance could take 30 minutes to get to your house. But even if you imagine a magic ambulance that gets there in 5, that’s 5 extra minutes a person is potentially not breathing.
I would have called an ambulance because they have sirens to get through traffic and go fast, and can start treatment as soon as they arrive, plus you can give emergency aid yourself until they arrive, instead of driving.
However, I acknowledge that my local paramedics are closer than my nearest hospital, and traffic is a greater factor than distance in Los Angeles. It might pan out differently on empty roads in the middle of nowhere.
I also know from my spouse’s several life-and-death medical crises that it’s hard to stay calm. Which argues against driving but explains the choice. I’ve run into a Code Blue and taken over, because I knew my spouse’s very specific needs were being missed. I would never do anything like that normally, but I did bring him back, so yeah, you do what you need to do.
I’m glad your wife is okay, and you didn’t crash into anyone.
In my case the hospital on the local military base (which I have access to) was likely to be faster to access than the paramedics, it was one of those cases like you mentioned where sometimes we can be faster than an ambulance. I did not have traffic to contend with due to the time of day there were only a handful of other people on the roads. Glad you were able to help your spouse too, they’re lucky to have you!
I would have called an ambulance because they have sirens to get through traffic and go fast
When I was dying from a rattlesnake bite we were told to drive, in a life or death situation like this the ambulance takes too long.
Take your one size fits all approach and shove it up your privileged ass.
You make a reasonable point then torpedo any potential for upvotes in that last sentence.
Fair enough, fortunately upvotes don’t pay my rent or I’d have to find a bridge to live under. It’s just frustrating to do deal with people who can’t imagine that others might have different needs than their own and insist everyone fits into their quick and easily defined box.
If the cops are reasonable they would initiate an escort.
Given they’re reasonable that is.
Look, ma, I’m on IV!
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.
