

Engineer saves man by crashing into him on purpose - allanmac
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2013215629_hero21m.html

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raheemm
That retired guy who got saved sure is a great volunteer - folks like him are
the foundation of a great community.

 _He manages harvesting and marketing for the Mercer Slough Blueberry Farm,
which is run by the city of Bellevue, and he fills the rest of his schedule
volunteering for Special Olympics events, teaching for the Kiwanis Educated
Youth Club and organizing donation drives from local grocery stores._

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mattiask
"Stand back, I know Physics!"

~~~
lkjhygtfrghj
So proof that people who know physics grow up to crash cars.

Kids if somebody offers you Newtonian mechanics - just say no!

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da288
Well if that guy ever applies for YC he'll sure have a good answer to the
"hacking a system" question.

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pak
The exact same thing happened about three years ago in the middle of the
Golden Gate bridge (talk about dramatic!) and apparently the motorist safely
guided the unconscious driver's car across two lanes of traffic to the
divider.

<http://goldengate.org/news/bridge/GoodSamaritan.php>

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paolomaffei
I sometimes love humanity :)

~~~
frossie
Hell, sometimes I even love companies.

The insurance company could have said "hey you chose to be rear ended".
Instead they paid up without quibbling _and_ called him a hero in the process.

~~~
mey
Imagine what the insurance would have had to pay out if Pace had not been
stopped, T-boned a car in an intersection (mentioned in the article) and
killed one or more people. The insurance company would be paying out a bit
more then a smashed window and bent bumpers. Insurance if anyone understands
risk mitigation.

But I agree, they could have been assholes about it, but instead took the
honorable route.

~~~
IgorPartola
I am sure that they thought that it would be a great PR moment. Not that it
should detract from their actions. Now I can place all of their ads and
commercials in the context of their response to this incident.

~~~
VladRussian
"they thought" - that is the key here :)

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suprgeek
An Engineer who can act on his Gut Feel - when the "gut feel" is really his
knowledge and experience coming together, needs to be celebrated. Too often we
ignore the people who make meaningful but localized differences, so I am all
for this story to hit the national headlines.

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astrofinch
I don't understand how this worked. If Pace's foot was still on the
accelerator, wouldn't it be difficult to get his truck to slow down?

~~~
ynniv
Yes. Impossible? No. The force that your car is capable of exerting on your
tires is far less than the engine is capable of producing. You can see this in
performance stats, where 100 to 0 braking always takes much less time than 0
to 100 acceleration. We don't generally quote braking power for cars, but
given the increasing attention to safety it is much higher now than it has
been historically.

Of course, this would not work well if the other vehicle was substantially
heavier (best indicated by the number and size of tires). You would have a
difficult time stopping a tractor trailer with a minivan, possibly causing
your brakes to fail or your tires to melt.

~~~
ynniv
_The force that your car is capable of exerting on your tires is far less than
the engine is capable of producing._

s/less/greater/

I guess people got the gist anyway.

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zdw
There are so many ways this could have gone wrong...

For example, the guy was passed out - the initial impact could have knocked
the other driver's foot off the gas, or cause it to press harder, further
worsening the situation.

Also, if the bumpers didn't match, or if the angle of impact was not totally
flat, you could easily end up in a "jackknife" style situation where the rear
car pushes the front car at an angle causing it to loose traction and knocking
both off course.

Not to write off his quick thinking, but I would be hesitant to try repeating
this.

~~~
enanoretozon
not to mention "Without consulting the passengers in his minivan — "there was
no time to take a vote" — Innes kicked into engineer mode."

more like "Innes kicked into irresponsible mode risking other people's lives
to try something he probably saw on a movie"

~~~
points
Come on. The risk was very low.

    
    
      1. Drive infront
      2. Match the speed
      3. Slowly reduce speed so that the car behind knocks
         into your back bumper at a relative speed of like
         1 mph. Maybe you feel a tiny bump.
      4. Apply brakes
    

Yes it's impressive, but I'd be willing to bet it's not that dangerous at all.
The very very worst case scenario is that you don't match the speed very well
and get rear ended, which is pretty much the best type of crash you can have.

~~~
viraptor
Ways this could fail:

\- breaks are not even across the wheels, he spins and goes right back into
the traffic, guy behind falls over after driving the other way into the
barrier

\- collision affects one of the front wheels of the car behind, that car turns
into the traffic - minivan either separates or gets locked due to collision

\- engine in minivan stalls after collision, break assist stop working, simply
pressing the pedal is not enough to stop both cars

\- due to the shape of cars' front and back, the car in the front gets hit and
one of the wheels get locked, suddenly breaks; the car in the back has enough
kinetic energy to hit and injure passengers sitting in the back

\- ... I could go forever

As in other posts above - I don't want to say it was stupid / bad that he
tried... It worked, everyone's fine, it's great. But for me, my family in the
car is infinitely more important than potential damage that might be caused by
an unknown person in an car that's under no control.

~~~
points
You still seem to be missing the point that the impact velocity is like <1mph
if you do it properly.

If it looks like it's not going to work, you just speed up again...

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phr
Several comments mention the upcoming intersection as if crossing traffic were
likely. It is actually a classic cloverleaf. Search google maps for Renton
Washington and look for highway 167, where the incident occurred, and its
intersection with I-405. I haven't been over there for several months, so I'm
not sure how up-to-date the satellite view is, but it looks right to me.

~~~
lotharbot
Grady Way is just a few hundred feet north of I-405, and it's a fairly busy
(traditional) intersection.

Also, the concrete median the truck had bounced off of ends just before Grady
Way. It's likely the guy would've either crossed traffic at Grady Way or moved
into oncoming traffic. Either way, there's a high likelihood of serious injury
or fatality stemming from an out-of-control vehicle moving through that
intersection.

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jeza
Not wanting to discredit Innes' quick thinking. Though this kind of incident
does show the danger of policy favouring roads and more driving over mass
transit/public transportation. The greater the number of cars on the road, the
greater the odds that someone will have a lapse of concentration,
consciousness or make some kind of error. It was lucky that someone was able
to intervene in this instance, but in other instances there's nothing much
anyone could do. Short of designing cars that stop when the driver is
unconscious (trains have had technology to ensure the driver is conscious for
some decades now).

~~~
Tichy
That's why I don't like driving: because it is other people's mistakes that
can destroy my life.

~~~
jonhendry
On mass transit, you only have to watch out for the nutters who shove people
in front of oncoming trains. :)

(I'm a big fan of public transit, and use it every day. But I always look
around me when the train is approaching, or get my back to the wall.)

~~~
jeza
Not really a problem in this part of the world. Though I do like to stand a
safe distance from the edge as a train rolls in. There have been a few
incidents where mothers with prams forgot to put brakes on the pram has rolled
onto the track as train came on. Though both instances I recall had a lucky
ending. It doesn't help that the platforms which were build in the days when
railways were fully staffed are built slopping towards the track for drainage.

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stretchwithme
Awesome. I also like the way State Farm stepped up and paid for the damage
incurred by rescuing this guy.

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cryptoz
This is an incredible story. But I think it's important for everyone to
remember the context of who this hero is.

He manages the F22 fighter jet program at Boeing. That means that he's in
charge of building gigantic killing machines that are only built so that they
can be used to kill or threaten to kill human beings.

This man did an incredible thing on the road and I'm not trying to diminish
that. But he's not a 100% good person: he works with weapons fully knowing
that his work has probably resulted in many deaths of innocent people.

Edit: Hey downvoters, I'm being totally serious here. Please reply to me and
we can have a discussion; downvoting my opinions silently (because you
disagree? or you think I'm trolling? or you don't like what I'm saying?) is
rude and not good for the community.

~~~
WalterBright
Without effective weapons, many will die. Nobody picks a fight with someone
who can effectively fight back.

~~~
sharjeel
Thats why every country should have nuclear weapons. There would be so much
deterrance that nobody would go for war!

~~~
Dove
In spite of the sarcasm, it's actually a good argument.

Warfare before the advent of nuclear weapons was a devastatingly bloody
affair, with death tolls in the hundreds of thousands. And warfare these days
in which only one side or neither has nuclear weapons is much the same.

But when two nuclear powers fight? There are skirmishes. Proxy wars. Posturing
and arms races and diplomacy and . . . very little bloodshed. For all its
terror and danger and struggle, the Cold War did _not_ wipe out an entire
generation of young men the way previous World Wars had. As violent and bloody
a past as India and Pakistan have had, once they both went nuclear, they
settled down. They still fight, but it's limited. Neither side wants it to
escalate out of control.

That is the nature of strategic weapons. Nobody wants to pick a fight with a
country that has ICBMs or B-52s. Heck, countries that have them don't want to
pick fights with _each other_. What could they hope to win that would offset
the staggering losses they could incur?

As they say, an armed society is a polite society. It scales right up to
nations.

Raptor is such a weapon. Not because of the casualties it could inflict -- it
can carry only a paltry eight missiles, or a couple medium bombs -- but
because of what it does to an air force.

The Air Force periodically goes out for large force exercises -- where they
get a huge number of jets together in the air, and act out something as close
to a real war as they can. The last few years Raptor's been going to those,
and its numbers are astonishing. They match up Red with tons of 4 or 4.5 gen
fighters against Blue with a few 4 gen fighters and a few Raptors. And Blue
wins. With a kill ratio like 180-0 or 241-2. [1]

Nobody wants to pick a fight with that.

There are two ways to get a country to resolve its conflicts with you
peacefully. One is to trust in their good nature and dislike for bloodshed.
The other is to make fighting _not an option_. The second route is more
reliable in my opinion, and strategic weapons accomplish it.

If you hate war, you should love Raptor. Just sitting on the tarmac, it saves
lives. American lives, yeah, but Chinese or North Korean or Russian lives too.
It prevents war and _forces_ people to pursue peace.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-22_Raptor#Service_history>

