This guy would still be alive

[Last Mrk]

If he had an iQue.

This Chicago Tribune article tells the story. I would have posted a link to the story but you have to register to view the article.

3-vehicle crash kills man backing up on Illinois 53

By Richard Wronski
Tribune staff reporter
Published January 14, 2004

A motorist who caused a three-car crash and died Monday night on Illinois Highway 53 in Rolling Meadows was driving in reverse against traffic because he missed an exit, state police said Tuesday.

The driver, Zoryan Kucher, 55, of the 1700 block of Dumont Lane, Schaumburg, was a Ukrainian immigrant who had been in the U.S. for about two months and was unfamiliar with the highway, said Trooper Michelle Tufenkjian.

Kucher's car was southbound on Illinois 53 shortly after 5 p.m. when he missed the local-lane exit for the Northwest Tollway, Tufenkjian said. Kucher was in the right-hand express lane when he stopped his car and began backing up to get to the local lanes, she said.

His car was struck by a van, spun around and was hit by another vehicle.

"The drivers tried to avoid hitting him, but there was so much traffic it was unavoidable," Tufenkjian said.

Kucher was pronounced dead at Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge. The other two drivers, a 42-year-old man and a 49-year-old woman, were not injured.

[Bokkie]

Of course it's sad to hear about accidents like that, but sadder still is the reality that it is an all too frequent occurrence. In the UK, I once just missed an exit on the M25 and was tempted to stop and reverse back but commonsense prevailed.

It took another 30 minutes to get back to that point. iQue or not, there is nothing dumber than total stupidity, eh?

[f4phantomii]

No way...that guy would have died even with an iQue.

He'd have been looking down at his iQue trying to figure out why it suddenly wasn't acquiring any GPS satellites and smashed into a lightpost or something.

-Michael

[N2racin88]

:rolleyes:

[Pekkle]

Hey Michael,
What you just said could and can happend to any of us..

[jamminrock2]

Guess we'll all just have to hire chauffeurs to drive us around so we can play with the iQue on the road.

[f4phantomii]

Pekkle,

Yeah....I know.....that was my point....we all seem to have experienced antenna failures.

Mine died the fourth day I had it.

Luckily, my wife was driving the last day, so I was able to fiddle with it and let that sinking feeling in my stomach build, all the while continuing to hold my iQue over the dash and keep answering "No" every time it asked me if I was indoors.

Sigh....I hope my RMA'd unit is truly repaired, lest I too veer off the road and into a ditch....stylus in hand.

-Michael

[jonasolof]

Well not much to add, except that I've been driving through the Ukraine. 40 years ago, all of it. Cars would overtake you where there was absolutely no sight what soever of what was up in front, like on sharp crests. Worst driving I've ever seen and I've been to about 40 countries. I agree, if the man did it, it was because that was the way he would have acted back home.

Some kind of relicensing should be mandatory when you come from places with non-existent tarffic security.

Jonas

[f4phantomii]

We're well off topic now, but I suspect part of the difference in the US is that the number of vehicles per household is much higher than most anywhere else in the world.

I theorize that most of the scary drivers in the US manage to wipe themselves out at an early age in the US, thus keeping the roads clearer for the rest of us.

But I'll agree that any other country I've driven in, the drivers are more agressive (Mexico is the exception).

I know that in Israel, you are legally required to have a working Air Conditioner in your vehicle to help keep down road rage.

-Michael

[Robertp366]

Worst driving I've ever seen in a foreign country was in Boston. ;) There is a reason that Mass. residents were the first to have no fault insurance - it was impossible to tell which idiot was the worst in an accident.

And the road designers were escapees from mental institutions (and I don't mean MIT!). I lived in Lexington, and drove in to Storrow drive on Highway 2. Highway 2 was four lanes; where it ended and joined Storrow drive on the Charles River was a stop light. With TWO laned on the other side. First one across wins.

That was in 1975. I hope something got better since then besides the Big Dig.

Robert

[Bokkie]

Originally posted by Robertp366
Worst driving I've ever seen in a foreign country was in Boston.

I agree. I was there in 1988 and took the hire car through the city and that was scary. I've never raised so many middle fingers and told so many drivers to f**k off in my life! I vowed to myself that when I got back to Joburg 6 weeks later, that I would have the nervous breakdown, the seeds of which were planted on that first day in Boston.:D

[apersson850]

To return to something more related to what this thread started with, I think an iQue in a car could save you from some accidents. If you use it correctly, i.e. as a guide when you don't know where to go.

But since we geeks must check what it makes of everything, we use it even when we know where to go. In these cases, we may fiddle with the iQue instead of paying attention to where we are going.
Then we are violating the first rule of driving: Look where you are going!

[Bokkie]

Anders, that's a good point you make. Another perspective on being distracted whilst riding occured a couple of years ago in France. Some of you might remember that idiotic Tamagochi (sp?) craze that swept the world? It was like a pocket toy that you had to 'feed', take for a 'crap', that sort of thing. A woman driver smashed into a pack of cyclists when that toy bleeped for attention. The idiot lost control in her panic to attend to it and two cyclists were killed because of her utter irresponsible action. I don't know what came out of the court case, but I personally felt at the time that I would collect a 1000 of those toys and stick it in the one place where her mother never kissed her.:(

[jfg]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by jonasolof
[B]Well not much to add, except that I've been driving through the Ukraine. 40 years ago, all of it. Cars would overtake you where there was absolutely no sight what soever of what was up in front, like on sharp crests. Worst driving I've ever seen and I've been to about 40 countries. I agree, if the man did it, it was because that was the way he would have acted back home.

Some kind of relicensing should be mandatory when you come from places with non-existent tarffic security.

Hello jonasolof,as you presumably travel a lot between Sweden & Belgium, you may have heard or read of "ghostriders" on (not only) German Autobahnen. I had my first ghostrider, heading towards me on the autoroute Lausanne-Genève 1974 in Switzerland. That was a damned experience! After my opinion the ghostriders are predominantly elder or drunken drivers.
Joachim

[jonasolof]

That's why you need to have your radio on with Traffic Information and you'd better understand German.A friend of mine had one of tjhose the other day in the Netherlands. I read an article from Spain where kids in discos found it cool to find some poor soul to drive this way and then they'd bet on whether he'd survive.

One more reason not to keep looking at the screen too much.

[apersson850]

In Pakistan, drivers are known to drive in the middle of the road. When they meet someone, they play the chicken race, and finally they divert. To the side of their own discretion. Go figure.

[jonasolof]

I've spent a month in Peshawar, didn't see that. I also went to the NOrth West territories, about the wildest place on earth. People kept their minds sharp. But when travelling in a bus convoy in Afgahnistan meeting drivers certainly yelded. But that was because the convoy was led by a T55 russian tank (1980) which didn't bother about leaving much room on the road.