There was a sidebar story in the Gannett Star yesterday with the headline, “Lawyer: Cause of Yale crash mechanical”.
*sniff* *sniff* What’s that smell?
First of all, what is some asshole lawyer doing pretending to be an automotive engineer? There’s no indication that any engineering study was done of the accident to which the story refers. Just this shyster’s assertion that it was mechanical failure, not driver error.
Then,
Police say Ross was driving the U-Haul carrying beer kegs through a tailgating area when witnesses saw the vehicle turn a corner and speed up, striking [Nancy] Berry [who died as a result of her injuries] and injuring [another] woman. The truck then crashed into other U-Haul vans in the lot.
So,
1) Does the “Yale undergraduate” who was driving the truck have a lot of experience driving rental vehicles that aren’t his own? Particularly trucks, which don’t drive like cars?
2) Does this whole incident smell ever so slightly of “Audi” and “Toyota”?
NHTSA famously called such incidents “sudden accelleration incidents” (SAIs), and P. J. O’Rourke even more famously called them “sudden unintelligence incidents” (SUIs), noting, “Yes, the dumb buggers stepped on the gas instead of the brake.”
Absent an engineer saying, yes, the accellerator got stuck, I suspect the accident was due more to driver error than mechanical failure. But since the story doesn’t say, there’s no way to tell one way or the other. Ah, here we go, here’s the FULL story that the Star did not give us. It includes the following paragraph:
New Haven police said their investigation will include a forensic review of the rented U-Haul truck, a review of witness statements and other work before they can determine whether anyone should face charges. The truck was impounded as part of the investigation.
So in other words, the student’s shyster is in fact attempting spin and damage control before the vehicle has even been inspected by engineers. Typical.