
The day I accidentally killed a little boy - sjcsjc
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-42309681
======
treyfitty
Ever since I became a father (2 months ago), I've been seeing the world as a
dangerous and an ugly place. This is confounded with the fact that, a month
ago, I came to find out that my brother was bullied in HS and was never the
same.

My brother has been out of high school for about 9 years now, but It took me 6
whole years to consider the possibility that something was wrong. I was in
undergrad and focused on my studies, and then moved to NYC, so my time wasn't
really spent at home with my brother, which should __never __be an excuse when
it comes to family. But I let it be. Until my child was born.

9 years ago, my brother dropped out of high school and started seeing a
therapist with the help and support of my dad. Both of them hid this from me
until a month ago. The details of his high school days weren't revealed, but
my brother has spent 9 full years dreading human interaction. I scolded him a
year ago for not wanting to come to my wedding, and a month ago, begged him to
come celebrate Christmas with my in-laws so that he can meet his nephew. He
didn't end up coming, and that's when my dad finally revealed the details of
the past 9 years.

It doesn't have to come to death to point out our primal fears as fathers. I
used to be ambitious for the sake of being ambitious, but the arrival of my
son, confounded with the revelation of my brother, has lead to a change in
perspective. Everything can change in an instant, and contrary to the popular
opinions of HN, the largest changes in our lives are beyond our control. The
utter powerlessness of not being able to rewind to 9 years ago to be there for
my brother gets at me. As does my fear and uncertainty of the life my son will
be subjected to.

~~~
lsc
I think that the lesson of the article is not that weirdos or strangers make
the world a dangerous and ugly place, but that we, the regular people who vote
for and move to areas with zoning densities that make public transit
impractical, who commute long distances in cars, make the world a dangerous
and ugly place.

Every time we get into a car, we are choosing to take a risk not only with our
own life, but with the lives of everyone else near the road. I mean, we kind
of choose that by continuing to live in areas where our density makes public
transit less practical, but there's a lot to be said for just taking the
responsibility of driving a lot more seriously, and treating driving as
something risky, and taking steps to drive less.

~~~
Aloha
I don't think this is the argument the author of the article was trying to
send at all. This accident could have just as easily happened in a dense urban
core, as it could have in suburbia.

The message was something else - sometimes, bad things just happen to people,
and there is little you can do about it other than move on, and learn from the
experiences.

~~~
jablan
The likelihood of death is proportional to speed [1], and the speed is lower
in the urban cores. The math is super simple, and let's stop trying to justify
bad urbanistic (essentially, political) decisions blaming it on the bad fate
instead. [1] [http://www.copenhagenize.com/2012/11/the-85th-percentile-
fol...](http://www.copenhagenize.com/2012/11/the-85th-percentile-folly.html)

~~~
thomastjeffery
Speed is the most quantifiable factor in a collision.

It is also very controllable.

That is why it gets the focus that it does.

The trouble is, it's easy to get distracted by speed as a coefficient in
collision intensity, and not pay attention to what causes that collision in
the first place.

People often think that because speed is such an important factor that they
shouldn't drive faster to help traffic flow, or even that they should block
faster traffic. Those actions are very likely to _cause_ collisions, which is
more important than the factor they are trying to minimize.

The likelihood of a collision causing death is just as proportional to mass. A
semi hauling a trailer cannot stop in a short enough distance to prevent some
collisions, and can be deadly even at very low speed. Even so, we realize the
impracticality of reducing mass, so we focus on speed instead.

The real problem we need to focus on is collision prevention, not collision
mitigation. Let's stop ignoring the reality of "bad fate", and do _real_ work
to minimize it's occurrence instead.

~~~
sliverstorm
Reducing speeds is a form of collision prevention, is it not? A typical car
can just about stop on a dime at 15mph, and a pedestrian has more time to
react.

There's a whole slew of other pedestrian-friendly street design that we could
& should adopt as well, but that doesn't make speed any less of a valid
approach.

~~~
hermitdev
Speed, in of itself, is not dangerous. What is more dangerous on highways is
differential speed. i.e. if you're driving 60 mph when the traffic around you
is doing 80 mph, you're the problem. Probably exponentially so if you're
driving slowly in the "fast" lane. While rarely enforced, most states in the
US have laws that require you to pull to the right if you're impeding traffic
(usually defined as holding up +2 vehicles behind you) - even if you're doing
the speed limit. Yet, these laws are rarely enforced, just like "No Trucks
Left 2 Lanes" is never enforced in & around Chicago, despite being posted
every mile or so on I 294.

I'd wager, also, that speed itself is rarely the direct cause of an accident.
High speed, though, will make an accident more severe. My bet is that
distracted driving is the #1 cause of accidents. On my daily 2-hour round trip
on Chicagoland highways, I usually see 4-6 accidents each involving >2 cars.
The shear amount of people I see on their phones is staggering. Hard to tell
if it's social media or texting, but you can always tell because their head is
staring at their lap, or they're holding their phones at the top of the
steering wheel for all to see. I also see people with their phones mounted on
their dashes watching movies or TV shows. Playing with your phone while
driving is far more dangerous than paying attention & speeding.

~~~
sliverstorm
_Speed, in of itself, is not dangerous_

Certainly! Falling from great height isn't dangerous either, you know.

~~~
taneq
"It's not the pace of life I mind, it's the sudden stop at the end."

------
Pigo
I can barely bring myself to read stories like this now. I never really
thought about it before my son was born, but there's always this dread you
live with in the back of your mind. This little helpless person has your life
in it's hands. The world and fate is trying to take them out, and if they
succeed you'd never recover. You can learn to live with pain, but I don't
believe you ever get over something like that.

~~~
jfoucher
Haven't read the story yet, don't know if I will. I just wanted to reply to
your comment with a personal anecdote. My eldest son died in an accident when
he was about 2 ½ years old. The dread wasn't there before. I didn't think
anything like that would happen to me. You do learn to live with the pain,
even I sometimes cry for what would have been futile reasons. But I still
couldn't bring myself to enter the church at an acquaintance's funeral. The
pain was too much to handle. It's the guilt that's harder to get rid of.
Everything you could have done to prevent it. Eventually (therapy does help)
it softens a bit. So I don't think it's ever possible to get over something
like that. It's been almost ten years. Maybe in another ten it'll have passed.

Edit: just wanted to add, spend the most quality time you can with your kids.
I resigned from my job when my eldest was 1 year old to be able to spend more
time with him. Best decision of my life in retrospect.

~~~
samch
With respect to your comment about time spent with your child, I was in a
similar boat a couple of years ago: I was weighing the implications of taking
a new job that came with a significant salary increase, but aslo had the
massive downside of having to be in the office and away from my family most
days / evenings (60hrs per 5-day workweek). I vividly recall a conversation I
had with my father who said something to the effect of, “You know, you’ll
never hear somebody on their deathbed saying, ‘I wish I’d spent more time in
the office.’ You do, however, hear many people lament that they didn’t spend
enough time with their family.” That resonated with me deeply, and I
ultimately turned that opportunity away. I’m still not making what I would’ve
made there, but the mornings and evenings I’ve spent with my children have
been priceless.

~~~
petters
Of course no one says that on their deathbed. Many people on their deathbeds
have been retired for more than 20 years.

People in their 20s often care about their career. People in their 80s often
do not. Who's right? It's often a trade-off. The goal is not to be happy on
your deathbed; it's to be happy throughout life.

~~~
rev_bird
I think the idea is that if you're happy throughout life, you _will_ be happy,
or at least content, on your deathbed. The "deathbed life analysis" is the
thought exercise some people use to evaluate the long-term utility of
decisions that seem to have obvious short-term benefits.

------
BearGoesChirp
All the people talking about being unable to handle/comprehend the death of
their child, and especially the one line of conversations about the impact of
losing one child when you have many more, made me think about something. For
most of human history, losing some children was expected. Child mortality
rates for most of our history have been abysmal.

As species, what impact did that have on us? Child abuse has a long history of
being accepted, with child sacrifices in some cultures to forced marriages of
children (not to say any of these events were super common, but there were
cultures in which they were accepted even if not common). Look at 16th to 18th
century and what happened to orphans of single mothers and it is horrible by
modern standards. In some cases orphans were treated as child slave labor or
worse (granted, they would grow out of it if they survived, while with actual
slavery it was for life). Even into the 19th and 20th century we had children
working in factories where dismemberment was all too common.

But around the start of the 20th century, that started changing, and today
harming a child is one of the worse things that a person can do. Many would
quicker forgive an ex convict that killed a rival gang member than someone who
intentionally seriously injured a child.

I wonder if this is at all tied to drops in child mortality rates.

~~~
JauntTrooper
I think the pain of loss was just as severe, and the past was just more
miserable than we think.

Someday our children and descendants will look back at our time period in
horror at the atrocities we continue to allow happen globally.

300,000 children under 5 die every year of malaria. The extensiveness of the
agony that causes is difficult to comprehend.

~~~
dwaltrip
> I think the pain of loss was just as severe, and the past was just more
> miserable than we think.

Why would the pain be equivalent, despite the vastly different context: life
experiences and expectations, cultural details, worldviews, etc?

To be clear, there are many aspects/phases to the pain of loss. I can imagine
that the initial suffering may be very similar, but that the
integration/processing of the event in subsequent months and years be
significantly different.

That's not to say that, overall, it wasn't worse back then, but I'm guessing
the pain from a single loss event might be noticeably different due to the
vastly different context.

------
jordanmoconnor
I once worked a summer job at a state park in Western, NY. One of the
employees there was a leather-skinned rough type that mostly kept to himself.

One day, I'm not sure how it was brought up, he remarked to me that he once
killed a 22 year-old man in a construction accident when he was operating a
large crane.

It rocked his world, and he was never the same.

I can't imagine living with that amount of regret and anxiety. Trying to fix
it in your head. What could I have done differently? But it never changes, and
you can't undo what you did.

At the same time, there is ultimately forgiveness from both parties, though
there is a lot of grief. Things will never be the same, but staying in the
past is the best way to never move forward.

~~~
danvasquez29
I really enjoyed (maybe not the best word...appreciated) the film "Manchester
By the Sea" for reasons that this story reminds me of. My wife and some
friends who have seen it said it was 'boring' and that 'nothing happened'. To
me, the fact that 'nothing happened' was a very much the point; There was no
grand character arc because for most people you just don't ever come back from
an event like that. There is no major turnaround and everything is all better
moment. You learn to live and maybe find some areas of your life that don't
quite suck 24/7 if you can, but that may be all that's possible. I found it to
be a very 'real' human story that isn't often told well.

~~~
paulcole
> because for most people you just don't ever come back from an event like
> that

Is this even true? I think we tend to assume so but isn't it likely that many
people simply move on with their lives? I mean Laura Bush was responsible for
a fatal car accident and she seemed to do fine.

~~~
yannyu
The article above talks about how many of the author's friends had no idea
that the event happened to her, even though it was one of the most important
events of her life. I imagine it's similar for many people who've endured a
tragedy of some sort. At some point you have to stop talking about it because
it doesn't help and you think that no one wants to hear it. It doesn't change
how much the event has affected the trajectory of your life.

------
oneeyedpigeon
You have to feel terribly sad for everyone involved here. The only place the
blame can rest is humanity's desire to mix very fast, solid vehicles with very
slow, squishy pedestrians in the same spaces. We're way too far down that
rabbit-hole to address it, but hopefully self-driving cars (and less polluting
cars, too) will start to reverse the damage done by the automobile, in the
not-too distant future.

~~~
bryanlarsen
"We're way too far down that rabbit-hole to address it"

That's BS. Sweden has essentially zero pedestrian fatalities annually, and its
overall traffic fatality rate is well under a quarter that of the US.

There are two main components: reducing speed limits and spending money on
infrastructure. Both of these are anathema in the US, but the refusal to do so
is borderline criminal, IMO.

[http://www.visionzeroinitiative.com/](http://www.visionzeroinitiative.com/)

~~~
mattlondon
+1

This seems to be a common excuse from people in the US "Oh yeah - well - _of
course_ you could do <something positive> in such a small place - the US is
just too big for <something positive> to happen!"

I looked up some stats for the inevitable "But the US is bigger than that! We
simply cannot solve this problem!" replies. The EU is pretty big too, but the
fatality rate is _half_ of that in the US despite being of comparable land-
area.

US road fatalities per 1m population in 2013: 104
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_i...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year))
EU road fatalities per 1m population in 2013: 51
([http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-
explained/index.php/...](http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-
explained/index.php/Road_accident_fatalities_-_statistics_by_type_of_vehicle))

~~~
adventured
The distance driven per year per person in the US is twice that of the figure
in the EU.

As an example for the prime driving age bracket, the average driver in the US,
20 to 55 years of age, drives nearly 30,000 KM per year.

In the EU it's half that.

You would expect fatalities to increase meaningfully when you double the
distance driven per person.

~~~
kmm
The relevant statistic is fatalities per billion vehicle-kilometers, which
attempts to even out that discrepancy, and leads to the same conclusion. Using
this metric, the US still has twice the fatality rate than the UK.

> In the EU it's half that.

I'd like to see a source on that. I think the average American drives about
30% more.

~~~
adventured
The link/pdf below says 13,000km per driver in the EU. Other sources indicate
11,000km or 12,000km. Any of those work reasonably for this comparison.

[https://www.adac.de/_mmm/pdf/fi_nutzen_pkw-
verkehrs_europa_f...](https://www.adac.de/_mmm/pdf/fi_nutzen_pkw-
verkehrs_europa_faltblatt_englisch_1115_238337.pdf)

The US figure is around 22,000km per person for 2017.

In Sweden for example it's closer to 12,000km per person.

There's a dramatic gulf between the distance driven in the US and most
everywhere else.

The passenger vehicles per capita are also reasonably over twice that in the
US as in the EU (driving is far more distributed and common per capita).
Around 263m passenger vehicles in the US, and 250m in the EU, with the EU
having ~743 million people.

If you double or nearly double the distance driven per year, and significantly
increase the share of the population that drives, it's not far off to expect a
doubling of fatalities vs what you see in the whole of the EU. In fact, I
might expect worse than that, as if you're pulling so many km driving, you're
probably likely to be driving more often under increased stress and inclimate
weather circumstances, driving at times when you perhaps should not be etc.
(due to no alternatives). The risk of a bad driving outcome likely accelerates
with such substantial increases in km per capita. If you take the US figure on
up to 50,000km per capita, I would expect to see an even greater acceleration
of fatalities per capita.

~~~
tombrossman
I agree that fatalities can be expected to rise as miles driven rise, however
these two data points are not so closely linked. For example, driving ten
miles in western Kansas on I-70 at midday is not the same as driving ten miles
in a metropolitan area filled with shopping centers, with the sun low on the
horizon ahead of you and a dirty windshield.

There are many, many variables which complicate the study of traffic safety
and my hat is off to any traffic engineers able to deliver meaningful results.
It does happen, but it's far more complicated than tracking per capita miles
driven (not that you were making this specific argument, just pointing out the
obvious).

~~~
dsfyu404ed
>but it's far more complicated than tracking per capita miles driven (not that
you were making this specific argument, just pointing out the obvious).

x2. A drunk driver going off a cliff is uninteresting since it's a known
problem with known solutions (regardless of your personal opinion on how
adequate the implementation of those solutions is).

Stuff where no party did much that was unreasonable is what's interesting
because those tell you what edge cases cause the system to fail.

------
osullivj
25ish years ago I was driving my Toyota MR2 along the Cowley Road in Oxford on
a Sunday morning, heading for an out of town supermarket, to pick up some
groceries. Two teenage girls ran out from behind a bus that was waiting at a
stop on the other side of the road, right into my path. Those who've been in a
road traffic accident will know that time slows down the instant you know
things are out of control. I stood on the brakes, the anti-lock braking kicked
in and I slowed rapidly enough for the first girl to evade my bumper. But not
the second. She went up and over. There was an almighty thud as she hit the
roof, then rolled down the back, over the spoiler and onto the road. I jumped
out of the car and ran back. The girl I hit was bloodied and confused. Her
unscathed friend helped her to the side of the road, and I accosted passers to
find someone with a mobile phone; they were rare in those days. Someone made
the 999 call, and I moved my car off the main road and on to a side street,
where a bystander congratulated me on not doing a runner (1), and offered a
badly needed cigarette. An ambulance and police car turned up sharpish.
Fortunately the girl I hit suffered cuts, bruises and shock alone. Not one
broken bone. The police breathalysed me, and found me clear. I'd had a couple
of pints the night before in the local, but it hadn't been a big sesh, so I
was sober as a judge. Nevertheless, I was badly shaken. I drove home instead
of going to the supermarket, and headed to my local for a large Scotch and a
pint to calm my nerves. Some weeks later I was summonsed: the injured girl's
mother was suing me. In British civil law, the driver is always culpable in an
accident involving a minor, even if sober and below the speed limit, which I
was. There was no need for me to turn up in court, as no facts about the
accident was disputed. Compensation was awarded, the insurer paid up, and the
matter was closed. Moral of the story: there but for the grace of God, don't
drink & drive. Thought: who is culpable when it's a self driving car? Lasting
impression: the brief few millisecs when I knew I was going to hit a child,
and there was nothing I could do about it, were terrifying.

~~~
rev_bird
>In British civil law, the driver is always culpable in an accident involving
a minor, even if sober and below the speed limit, which I was.

This seems like a weird construct, particularly given that minors do such
stupid things. Two of them, together, literally ran into traffic, and the
default is "blame traffic"?

~~~
CalRobert
Blaming traffic is appropriate.

For most of history it was very normal for people to run in to the street. It
was a place for horses, carts, donkeys, people, and livestock, and more than
that, it was a place for socializing _and_ transport _and_ commerce.

Then, a few wealthy folks showed up in their automobiles and said "GET OUT OF
MY WAY OR I WILL KILL YOU" and oddly, we sided with them.

[https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2012/04/invention-
jay...](https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2012/04/invention-
jaywalking/1837/) has more.

------
thr0waway2a7
My wife was involved in a similar accident except the victim was an elderly
lady. My wife was driving very carefully, not speeding etc.

One of the things that I observed whilst we endured the aftermath is the lack
of support for people in this situation and what a taboo there is around it.
It felt as if there was no 'right' to sympathy or support due to the asymmetry
of experience for those involved. It's even difficult to find the right
language without it being pejorative. 'Hit and killed' implies some kind of
intent or that there was some kind of choice.

------
ZeroGravitas
This is one of the reasons I started commuting by bike. I was hit by a car as
a child and I thought I'd like to reduce the chance of that happening again.

From that perspective I find it weird every time bikes come up here there's
someone complaing about bikes going too fast or ignoring the rules or digging
out the last time someone got killed by a bike, often a years old story. Kids
getting killed by cars isn't even a news story, just a part of life.

~~~
bkor
> This is one of the reasons I started commuting by bike. I was hit by a car
> as a child and I thought I'd like to reduce the chance of that happening
> again.

I commute by bicycle in the Netherlands (good infrastructure). I've been hit
(all different occasions) by two cars, one scooter, one moped as well as
another bicycle. In every single case I had right of way and didn't notice the
other one doing something strange and unexpected. Unexpected as in: car making
a right turn while I'm going straight (=right of way) without the car using
their indicators or slowing down to make the turn.

It's been quite a while since the last accident, hope it stays that way. It
also sometimes happens I make a mistake without this resulting in an accident.
It's good that a mistake doesn't always result in an accident.

------
Xeoncross
Such a sad story.

> "The voice said in this very biblical, Old Testament, angry way"

Is this what people consider "biblical"? An angry person? I've spent years
reading the Pentateuch, writings, and new testament and I don't see this voice
(I assume she means "God") as angry at all.

Quite the opposite actually, as the narrative is [to the Jews] about God
restoring them despite their rebellion and sin and [to the Christians] about
God giving us his son despite our hatred and sin.

> "Then about 10 years ago I went to Israel on a trip. I'm Jewish and I went
> with my rabbi and other people from the temple that I belonged to. While I
> was there I took a Hebrew name, Bracha, which means blessing."

I assume this "voice" was the guilt that plagued her creeping into anything
that mattered. It's sad the torment that we can inflict onto our own minds. It
sounds like she was able to overcome it.

~~~
phkahler
>> Is this what people consider "biblical"? An angry person? I've spent years
reading the Pentateuch, writings, and new testament...

No, it's the old testament god. The one who punished Adam and Eve, the one who
decided humanity was such a disgrace he flooded the world to purge them - that
angry god.

~~~
Xeoncross
Is God not able to try and judge people just as we do? If someone murders
another, humanity has long believed it ok to imprison or execute them for
their crimes. I fail to see how an all-knowing God is not qualified to make
the same judgement.

> "Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and
> that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
> The LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in
> His heart.. ...and the earth was filled with violence. - Genesis 6:5-11

That aside, there are more as many acts of mercy in these stories than
judgement. The idea of an "Old Testament God" and "New Testament God" is
rejected by all the Jews and Christians I know.

The New Testament is rejected by most Jews. Yet, even without this "merciful
God" of the NT, we can see from the Old Testament writings that they regard
God as one whos' "Loving kindness and mercy endures forever".

~~~
rnd33
> The idea of an "Old Testament God" and "New Testament God" is rejected by
> all the Jews and Christians I know.

How many Jews and Christians do you know? How many theologians do you know?

I could just as easily state that it is abundantly clear that the Old
Testament and the New Testament are written by completely different people at
completely different points in time.

Are you saying that all acts of cruelty by God in the OT are acts of
judgement? And what kind of judgement is that? The story about Sodom and
Gomorrah basically tells us that:

A) Any kind of sin can be punishable by death. B) Collective punishment is OK,
including innocent men, women and children.

~~~
Xeoncross
> Any kind of sin can be punishable by death

"For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through
Jesus Christ our Lord. - Romans 6:23

You don't see sin as a big deal, but God does.

> including innocent men, women and children

That's the problem. What innocent people? All of Sodom and Gomorrah were doing
some really, really bad things like burning children alive and torturing
people.

> And the LORD said, “The outcry of Sodom and Gomorrah is indeed great, and
> their sin is exceedingly grave. “I will go down now, and see if they have
> done entirely according to its outcry, which has come to Me; and if not, I
> will know.” Then the men turned away from there and went toward Sodom, while
> Abraham was still standing before the LORD. Abraham came near and said,
> “Will You indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? “Suppose there
> are fifty righteous within the city; will You indeed sweep it away and not
> spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous who are in it? “Far be
> it from You to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so
> that the righteous and the wicked are treated alike. Far be it from You!
> Shall not the Judge of all the earth deal justly?” So the LORD said, “If I
> find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare the whole
> place on their account.”... ...Then he said, “Oh may the Lord not be angry,
> and I shall speak only this once; suppose ten are found there?” And He said,
> “I will not destroy it on account of the ten.” - Genesis 18:20-32

------
ericbrow
I heard a neighbor kid get hit by a car. A bunch of us were outside playing
tag, heard the tires screech and the thump. The kid was an impulsive type, and
the lady who hit him was our lunch room monitor, a very very sweet and kind
woman. The kid was shooting across the road to check the mailbox, even though
his mother had just told him she already picked up the mail. Other than the
screech and thump, the only other sound I remember was our lunch room lady
wailing when the paramedics stopped trying to revive him. We were half a block
away observing, but is was like she was right next to me.

The kid was a grade or two below me, so I wasn't really friends with him. 40
years after the fact, that event still sticks with me.

~~~
tombrossman
When I was about seven I remember a boy named Simon who I used to play with,
who told me how he liked to hide in the bushes beside the road near our houses
and jump out in front of cars as they approached. I was too young to
comprehend how messed up he was (he was one of those 'bad' kids who kept
getting in trouble in school) and I went along with him to watch. He urged me
to try it first but I knew better, and hid in the bushes while he did it.

I didn't yet understand how completely insane the situation was. The first
couple cars just swerved or honked and went past without stopping, but a lady
driving a VW Beetle was slower to react and slammed on her brakes, skidding
and swerving and barely missing him. I can remember seeing him run out in the
road, facing her with his arms out and an excited look on his face.

The lady driving was completely beside herself, screaming and crying as she
ran over to him, demanding to know what was going on. Simon confessed and also
told her about me hiding nearby, and I remember being terrified as she grabbed
his arm and ran over to me, still shouting and sobbing all at once. She was
(understandably) just completely out of control and she marched us up the road
to our houses to tell our parents.

I wasn't allowed to play with Simon again and I think that was the day I
realized that cars and driving were deadly serious, and nothing to joke around
with. For me it was mostly seeing the reaction of the lady driver and trying
to comprehend why she was so upset. Looking back on it, I feel sorry for her
and for Simon's parents, because they must have had a hell of a time raising
him. Strange the things you remember from childhood, but fortunately most
people turn out OK.

------
lasermike026
Cars are the 2nd greatest engineering blunder only second to nuclear weapons.
Cars are inherently dangerous. Every time you drive you risk killing someone
or yourself. We must work to eliminate cars from the world, at the very least
cars driven by humans. I am completely serious. There are the pollution issues
too.

~~~
lolsal
You don't think the benefits that automobiles brought to the world are worth
more than "2nd greatest engineering blunder"?

~~~
billmalarky
I imagine ambulances save more lives than automobiles take.

~~~
amch
Seems pretty easy to quantify - it looks like there are ~37K motor vehicle
deaths in a given year [0] and "Approximately 6.2 million patient transport
ambulance trips occur annually." [1]

Ambulances would need to save their passengers' lives <1% of the time for them
to "break even" so to speak.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_i...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year)

[1]
[https://www.nhtsa.gov/staticfiles/nti/pdf/811677.pdf](https://www.nhtsa.gov/staticfiles/nti/pdf/811677.pdf)

~~~
fenwick67
Many many ambulance trips are non-emergency.

Even the emergency trips, it's difficult to say whether the person would have
died if they didn't have an ambulance.

Overall this would be pretty hard to quantify.

------
perfmode
I was hit by a car when I was 7 years old. It was a hit and run. I was thrown
into the air. Luckily, I only bruised my shoulder blade.

It was certainly my fault I was in the road, chasing a frisbee.

I can understand why the person would have run away from the scene.

I wish there was more forgiveness in society.

~~~
wffurr
"Chasing a frisbee" should never put one at risk of death. The fault isn't
with you; it's with the driver (going too fast to stop for a running child)
and the traffic engineer (built an unsafe street next to housing / parks /
etc.).

~~~
bargl
I respectfully disagree. There is a reasonable requirement that as you're
passing someone on the street if they aren't in front of you it's not your
fault. You as a human have a blind spot at which point you can't be reasonable
expected to stop.

They should have definitely stopped after hitting someone.

Fault could be the drivers if they were speeding, the person was standing in
the road (not entering at a perpendicular), drinking, etc.

This is why you should have a dashcam for your vehicle. I always ALWAYS watch
side yards and such for children (my mom called them snipers). I drive down
the middle of the road when people aren't around (more distance between parked
cars and my bumper) but no one is perfect and the Fault isn't always the
drivers.

~~~
wffurr
The driver is always the one operating the heavy, dangerous vehicle around
vulnerable people. That puts the standard of care directly on the driver, as
the one choosing to put everyone around them in danger for their convenience.

------
rasz
>"In 2003 there was an accident at Santa Monica Farmers Market. An elderly man
had ploughed into a group of people with his car and lots of people had been
killed and injured. It was just carnage, it was a terrible scene. People were
on the TV screaming that this 86-year-old man was a murderer"

86-year-old driver crashing into people IS murder, and not an accident. Lack
of vision, pretty much no reflexes, cramps, aching limbs/joints, sclerosis. We
(my family) took my great-uncles car keys away before he turned 80 because it
was becoming apparent he has trouble with basic tasks, like backing
up/parking/or even remembering to signal. Letting person this old drive is a
gross negligence.

~~~
quadrangle
manslaughter ≠ murder

------
gadders
That article is actually the transcript of a BBC World Service Podcast. If you
want to, you can listen to the lady tell her story in her own words [1]. Just
a terribly sad story for all involved.

[1]
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p05t5z1b](http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p05t5z1b)

------
jackhack
Well written - it shares a glimpse of the grief of an accidental death and the
impact on two families.

This is but a small glimpse of what many soldiers suffer ('shellshock') after
being required to deliberately kill.

A good reminder to have compassion for those around us. Everyone carries
burdens. Some much greater than ours.

~~~
24gttghh
'shell-shock' is literally the aftereffects of a concussive blast rattling
your brain around in your skull; itself is usually diagnosed under the broader
umbrella of PTSD, which one might also end up with after having to kill
another person.

~~~
falsedan
Think you'd struggle to find many people who've suffered a concussion from an
accident then going on to develop PTSD.

~~~
24gttghh
No struggle at all: [https://www.npr.org/sections/health-
shots/2016/09/26/4950747...](https://www.npr.org/sections/health-
shots/2016/09/26/495074707/war-studies-suggest-a-concussion-leaves-the-brain-
vulnerable-to-ptsd)

~~~
falsedan
This seems to only be relevant to people already at risk of PSTD (troops). I
think it says, having a concussion makes these troops more likely to develop
PTSD. But troops are already likely to develop PTSD! This biases the control
group.

You're confusing 'increases the likelihood of' with 'causes'. If you could
demonstrate that peple who suffer a concussion then develop PTSD when non-
concussed members of their group do not develop PTSD, then I'd accept the
claim that concussion causes PTSD.

~~~
24gttghh
Does it seem unlikely to you that a concussive brain injury would cause
lasting effects on a persons well being?

------
GIFtheory
This story reminded me of how this morning, while commuting via bike to work
in the rain, I was tailgated by an SUV. If I had slipped and crashed on some
wet leaves, I probably would have been crushed to death, and (in a just world)
the driver would be guilty of 4th degree murder. Yet we both carried on with
our day as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. This is insanity. Why
does US society tolerate such casually reckless behavior on the roads?

------
NotCamelCase
Wow that was a strong read. Granted that they are quite at the opposite ends
of 'accidental kill' spectrum, it immediately reminded me one of my favorite
movies, In Bruges {SPOILER AHEAD!} where we see a _hitman_ who accidentally
kills a little boy struggling with his life to overcome his "mistake". I get
teary eyed every time I watch it..

~~~
dnate
Such a great movie. You might want to put a spoiler warning on that though.

------
erik_landerholm
I have 4 boys under the age of 12. I would say I think about one of them dying
(accident, sickness, murder...so many ways it can happen...) multiple times a
day. I know that sounds morbid, and it probably is, but my brain does it on
its own...not a lot of control over it.

Nothing on earth scares me more than the idea of having to go on living
without one of them. Having 4 increases my odds that I might have to. It
terrifies me on a daily basis! Yay, Parenthood!

I can’t watch movies that involve kids being sick, hurt, etc. which is
fine,,,,not the reason I watch movies, but I literally cannot. I will turn off
the tv or leave the room. I’m a giant baby, basically!

~~~
thriftwy
On the other hand, having more of them decreases your odds that you will face
losing all of them. Imagine how parents live who had just one child, who died.

~~~
nxc18
There have been studies on this. Your life (well, chance at ever being happy
again) is effectively ruined by the death of one child, regardless of how many
you have.

You never stop loving or missing the one that died.

~~~
erik_landerholm
It’s terrifying. The other day my youngest started crying and screaming cuz
his stomach hurt (ended up being gas or upset stomach that lasted for 4-5
hours). My brain instantly went to “well that’s it...”...it almost always goes
through worst case first.

I literally can’t imagine how hard it is on parent’s whose kids are actually
sick, suffering so badly, and then may end up dying. I don’t know...I’m not
sure I’m made of stuff strong enough to deal with that.

~~~
sjg007
You take it one day at a time and try not to overthink it. You are also a lot
stronger than you think you are.

------
arca_vorago
"People thought they knew me but I didn't talk about probably the most
significant event in my life." really speaks to me and my experience and
isolation as a combat vet. I highly suggest two things for others with ptsd,
which is what is most likely; cannabis as medicine, (self)cognitive behavorhal
therapy exercises. For those who aren't away, advances in immersion c(e)bt
with VR have been showing major promise for the desensitation and coping
process, and is one of the reasons why I'm ready for VR to advance a
generation or two.

"The way of the warrior is the resolute acceptance of death" ~ Miyamoto
Musashi

------
thescriptkiddie
There is a truly sickening amount of victim blaming going on in this thread.
People need to take a step back from your selfish perspectives and realize
that there are real consequences when we try to make ourselves feel better by
saying "it can't be helped" or "there's nothing you could have done". It's not
the little boy's fault that he got hit, nor is it nobody's fault. The fault
belongs with the driver who hit him, with the road engineer whose design
encourages negligent driving, and the society that prioritizes convince for
motorists over basic safety.

There is not such thing as an accident.

~~~
t3rmi
This discussion boils down to should the kid(or all kids) have been monitored
a bit more? If so would it have affected him negatively in his later years?
Blame game or not this discussion has a lot of merit.

------
cyberferret
My parental nightmare story - Many years ago when my youngest son was about 2
(he is 14 now), we were on family holiday and had just checked in to our hotel
room which was on the 6th floor of the complex.

Exhausted from the travelling, we all decided to take a nap on the huge king
sized bed. To this day I don't know what it is, but something snapped me awake
mid-nap, and I looked across to see that my younger son had woken up, got out
of bed, ambled across to the window, climbed on the ledge, and had cranked the
lever, and was pushing the window open.

I leapt out of bed, and crossed the distance to the window faster than Usain
Bolt, and grabbed him a split second before he plummeted out. I discovered
that the window was (a) unlocked, contrary to hotel policy, and (b) the little
safety bracket that would have prevented the window opening more than about 6
inches, was missing.

I reported to the manager, and the moved us to another room immediately, with
better window security & safety.

To this day, I sometimes snap awake in my sleep with my brain screaming "OMG -
I have to get [younger son's name] away from the window". In a kind of reverse
blame, I keep thinking what if I had just slept through?

~~~
cyberferret
On another anecdote, similar to the OP story here - A good fried whom I used
to play cricket with, had a sister, whose boyfriend was driving home one
afternoon when a 3 year old boy chased a ball onto the road in front of his
car, and was killed by the impact. He wasn't speeding or doing anything wrong.
It was a pure accident. He was distraught about it and I believe, like the
lady in the story, stopped driving for many years. I look back on the episode
now and realise that I had no social cues as to how to approach him about it
or offer him comfort in any way. I wonder how he is doing now - we lost touch
and I have no idea where he is these days.

------
jackvalentine
When we say things like "I wish people read more widely" this is the kind of
thing I imagine people should be reading.

Hopefully I'll never accidentally kill someone, but I like to think that a
lifetime of reading about other people's experiences good and bad has made me
less quick to judge someone as a 'bad person' and take a charitable view to
trying to understand why people do things.

------
lovehashbrowns
I was dating this girl with a very young daughter. We were gonna go out on a
date, so the daughter went with my ex's brother and sister. The sister knew
how to drive, the brother was 16 years old and didn't know how to drive. So he
ended up driving somehow, hoping to get some practice. He lost control driving
on a straight highway with no traffic in either direction, hit a light pole,
and the daughter (not wearing a seatbelt) went head-first into the back of the
seat. Traumatic brain injury+coma, eventually she was let go off of life
support and passed away.

I've always felt that, if I were capable of really hurting someone, it would
be that brother. I still feel really angry about it, x years later.

Anyway, I can't imagine what that brother and sister are feeling about all
this, even x years later. I don't understand why it would make me happier if I
knew they were suffering from it. But at least this story helps me feel guilty
about feeling that way.

------
cafard
I spent about 10 days in the hospital when I was in 1st grade. A couple of
other kids about my age shared the room for some part of that time. Both had
been hit by cars when darting out into the street, one I think on a sled.
Each, I think, escaped with a broken limb.

Shortly before we moved to the street where we now live, a kid rode his bike
down a driveway and out into the street. The car that struck him was unlikely
to have been going more than 30 mph, but the kid was in a coma for a week or
two. A little later, a girl came down her driveway on a skateboard, and
bounced off the side of a passing sports ute. I don't drive much these days,
but I've had a sense of these neighborhood streets as dangerous places.

------
michaelchisari
Having been living in LA for the last few years, and as such becoming much
more car dependent, stories like these make me dearly miss the days of having
reliable trains and buses available at all hours to take me everywhere I
needed to go.

------
fernandopj
As someone who is not a parent, and reading these comments from fathers on how
unbearable must be to lose a child (even the thought of it), brought me back
to a story which taught me to feel, years ago, to try understand what losing a
child does to a person. It was the game Heavy Rain. It is a big part of the
narrative to put you on the father's shoes, to lose a child and dive down to a
limbo, how your life basically just ends, emotionally. Of course, just a
videogame, but that's what good fiction does, it puts you at a characther's
shoes and makes you feel and think really hard about a situation unfamiliar to
you.

~~~
bargl
As a gamer who became a father. I played this game and felt pain, but on the
flip side I couldn't even play this game now. All I'd do is picture loosing my
son. I could see a lot of the repercussions playing out in my house though,
aka relationship with my other son, wife, etc.

------
amysox
This reminds me so much of Genesis' "Dreaming While You Sleep."

    
    
      All my life, you lie silently there
      All my life in a world so unfair
      All my life and only I'll know why
      And it will live inside of me
      I will never be free all my life
      Trapped in her memory all my life
      Till the day that you open your eyes
      Please open your eyes
    

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMEhTI-
jko8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMEhTI-jko8)

------
martin1975
Damn...reading this was difficult. Her shame - rather than her guilt, which
was absolved the minute she confessed to her being a cause for the boy's death
- went on for too long. Glad she didn't take her own life. Heaven's forbid, if
this ever happened to me, I'm not sure I could live with myself. It is such a
punishing, harrowing ordeal for anyone to go through.... whew.

------
setgree
This woman's story, and a number like it, was featured in the New Yorker
recently [https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/09/18/the-sorrow-
and...](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/09/18/the-sorrow-and-the-
shame-of-the-accidental-killer)

------
riffic
[https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/23/science/its-no-
accident-a...](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/23/science/its-no-accident-
advocates-want-to-speak-of-car-crashes-instead.html)

------
callesgg
I feel like reading articles like this makes me a more careful driver for a
few days or weeks.

------
mikgan
That was a tough, but totally worthwhile read... _deeo breaths, puts the phone
down_

------
GuB-42
I expected some metaphor about becoming an adult. Turned out I was wrong, it
is exactly as the title says, no second meaning.

Maybe I see so many "interesting" titles that I tend to forget that sometimes,
they really mean what they are saying.

------
MollyR
I'm a mother with a young child. I don't think the childless and males can
ever really understand the process of being pregnant for 9 months and then
giving birth.

I empathize with her, but if she killed my child. I could never forgive her.

~~~
bargl
I don't think the childless females can ever really understand the process
either...

I am a dad, and I saw a change in my wife the DAY my first son was born. It's
easy to forget but we were all on the other side of having children at some
point (regardless of gender). It's something that changes you, your
relationships, your priorities.

If someone accidentally killed my child I don't know that I'd forgive them
either. I know that it would tear my family apart and would ruin the rest of
my life. I hope it doesn't happen to anyone.

~~~
MollyR
Sure people who aren't pregnant can never understand what it's like to carry
their child inside them for 9 months.

You feel their movements inside you. You just know when they aren't feeling
well.They respond differently when you eat certain foods. It's an almost
spiritual connection.

Then to finally meet them after 9 months, I just can't describe it.

~~~
bargl
It's interesting seeing the affect that feeding my kids had on my wife and
their relationship. I was kind of jealous for a while. I didn't get to have
that.

Don't get me wrong I still remember the first time I held them both, but I had
to grow to know them from that day forward.

------
notacoward
Mailboxes on the opposite side of a street with a 45-50mph speed limit?
STUPID. I feel terrible for both the victim and the author, in part because
tragedies like this are _avoidable_. This particular scenario seems pretty
egregious, but even the typical line of cars parked along the side of the road
- obscuring view of the sidewalk and giving pedestrians a false sense of
security - is provably bad for safety. If you want safety you need to maximize
all-direction visibility. You can also add traffic-calming elements like bumps
or chokepoints, but those are strictly secondary.

FWIW, I live on a pretty busy street - feeder for the neighborhood, popular
short cut between two state roads, 35mph speed limit. Technically parking is
allowed, but nobody does so visibility is pretty good. In nearly 20 years
living here, I've only seen or heard of one accident, and it was a neighbor's
_dog_ (who came out of it fine). On runs I've seen evidence of maybe two or
three other collisions. We're lucky. I can't imagine the carnage if we did
something as stupid as putting mailboxes on only one side of the street.

~~~
cozzyd
Indeed the civil engineer who allowed such an egregious speed limit is at
fault here.

~~~
dm319
Speed limits are not speed targets.

In the UK most b-roads are 'national' speed limit (i.e. 60mph or 70mph). It is
expected that the driver selects the appropriate speed for the conditions,
visibility, road etc etc.

Of course, we're humans, which means errors are made, people are impatient, we
don't balance risk very well etc etc.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
Speed limits are a function of road conditions, both static (e.g design) and
dynamic (e.g. weather).

Posted speed limits are a function of the 90th percentile speed (usually based
on typical conditions).

If you set low speed limits because "think of the children" you get other
(safety) problems.

~~~
cozzyd
Just add speed cameras and eventually people will stop speeding.

~~~
jackvalentine
They'll also spend more time looking at their speedometer and less time
actually paying attention to the driving conditions.

[uncited opinion]

------
myaso
The article reads like a case study on OCD from _Brain Lock_.

------
asow92
Tragic. But how is this hacker news?

~~~
lylejohnson
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
asow92
I'm not trying to be snarky, but I still don't see it.

~~~
zuppy
It is, because enough people upvoted it. If you don't agree, flag it. If
enough people do that, it will be removed, if not, it means it belongs here.

------
dudul
"The lead officer came and told me that they were not arresting me - there was
no indication that I was negligent or distracted or impaired in any way - but
he gave me a little lecture saying, "This child died, that's a terrible thing,
you need to make sure that you never do this again.""

Was I the only one shocked by this? I mean, a little kid died and she's not
arrested at least to conduct an investigation? How did they know she wasn't
going to fast?

"never do this again"? What kind of BS closure is that?

I'm not saying she deserved to be convicted or something based on her side of
the story, but taking the time for a basic investigation would have been nice.

~~~
bryanlarsen
IMO, the only person to blame in this incident is the person that thought a
50mph speed limit was appropriate for a road that kids live on.

~~~
luckroy
Perhaps you've never been on rural roads that also have houses? There are many
places where a 50+ mph speed limit is appropriate even though there are little
clusters of houses dotted along the route. It's not practical to lower the
speed limit for every house that has children.

~~~
falsedan
> _It 's not practical to lower the speed limit for every house that has
> children._

Yes it is. Do you mean, it would make driving more inconvenient, since drivers
would have to slow down when they passed?

~~~
luckroy
It's not just inconvenience, although that is part of it. The transportation
department would have a huge added burden by needing a way to determine which
houses have children, a lot more signage to mark the designated slowdown
areas, extra workers to make the adjustments as families move around, a way to
update various mapping/GPS systems, etc. The number of passing zones would be
drastically reduced. Jake braking would be a nuisance for those houses with
children. And there are probably more side effects that I can't think of
immediately.

I don't disagree with any intention of improving safety, but there are
pragmatic reasons we shouldn't unconditionally implement reduced speed limits
around children.

~~~
falsedan
I think you're overcomplicating your proposed solution; if it's a hassle to
track each family's residence, assume all residences may have families
present. Compression braking is a nuisance, so post speed limit & compression
breaking restriction signs well in advance of the houses so normal braking can
be used.

In the UK, all this is done by putting up street lights. The Highway Code then
dictates that the road has a speed limit of 30mph and is residential (no
compression braking).

I don't understand your comment about overtaking. Are you thinking of long,
straight roads with mostly-evenly distributed houses over a large distance?

~~~
luckroy
I don't think we're talking about the same kinds of roads.

In an area zoned for residential, e.g. a small town or village, the speed
limit will drop and there are noise restrictions. That's quite common,
although also quite sparse within the land area.

I've been speaking to unincorporated areas that have no zoning. Many of them
are as you described: long, straight roads with mostly-evenly distributed
houses over a large distance. These are the types of rural roads that make up
the vast majority of land area in the midwest area of the US.

