quattro fatal accident

[Mullen, Shaun]

A timely reminder (with the arrival of winter weather in some parts of the
globe) that neither quattros nor their drivers are fool proof.

About 2am Friday morning, Nov. 10, a quattro sedan with a driver and
front-seat passenger and single rear-seat passenger entered the southbound
lanes of I-95 in Wilmington, DE.  From a preliminary state police report and
what I myself have gleaned, this is what may have happened:  The driver
accelerated onto wet leaves at a fairly brisk but not terribly high rate of
speed.  The car began to go out of control.  The driver probably over
compensated.  The quattro slid into a median guard rail and flipped over.
The driver and front-seat passenger were injured, but not seriously.  The
rear-seat passenger was projected out of the rear window and onto the
pavement.  He was killed.

The quattro was an early 90's model.  It is impossible to tell from the one
photograph that I saw whether it was a 90 or 100 series.  No info on whether
the driver and front-seat passenger were belted.  It would seem that the
rear-seat passenger was not belted.  No info on whether the car had one or
two airbags, or had ABS.  Or whether the driver had been drinking.  

Shaun Mullen
Yorklyn, DE