Driver's Responsibility

[Unka Bart <mendicant@buddhist.com>]

I'm truly surprised at this one, from someone who should know better...

> > Has anyone here ever heard of the concept of "Personal Responsibility?"
> > Regardless of the model, as near as I can tell, there was only *one* set
> > of controls in the car that crashed so spectacularly in that tunnel in
> > Paris so recently.  Unless the news reports have mis-reported, there were
> > no members of the media at the controls when the fan got brown and stinky.
> >
> > There was no media connection between unfastened seat-belts,
> > intoxication of the vehicles operator, or the rate of speed involved.
> > Now unless I miss my guess, one or more of those factors played the
> > determining factor in the outcome, and I haven't seen any credible
> > evidence that the press was somehow responsible for any one of those
> > factors.
>
> "Personal Responsibility" extends the direct and foreseeable effects of
> your personal actions in my book. There was a direct media connection
> here, quite clearly. Two out of three's not bad, but I have to take
> definite exception to the connection with the speed of the car. Definite
> and crystal clear connection there. Simple cause and effect. Had they
> not been chased, would they have been galavanting about paris at 120+
> MPH? Nope. Not a chance. Evasion was the goal.

Exsqueeze me here, Sarge, but this is not about "cause and effect," but
about a driver's responsibility when he gets behind the wheel.  The fact
that someone does not want to be bothered by someone else does not give any
license to operate a motor-vehicle in a reckless manner, no matter how
badly they wish to remain unbothered.  I'm truly surprised, *amazed* that a
usually reasonable person such as you would put their name on such
juvenile, irresponsible nonsense.

> Unka Bart continues;
> > There are no excuses, boys and girls, just CONSEQUENCES and
> > RESPONSIBILITIES."
>
> Foreseeable consequences are no different. Defenses like "I didn't think
> they'd crash if I chased them" only reflect a miserably low IQ.

Kindly examine what I said with great care.  Now please point out where you
see the (any) suggestion to the contrary in my message.  But your analysis
of the "Defenses " bit is cogent.  Rather like the one that goes "Gee, I
didn't think I'd crash if I drove like an irresponsible idiot just to get
away from a bunch of photographers who were annoying to my passengers,"
wouldn't you say...?

> Like many of us, I also like to drive very fast, and I consider myself
> responsible for all the consequences of my vehicles presence and its
> impact on those in my presence. Certain responsibilities come with
> potentially lethal public activities, all the more if your behavior is
> anomolous to the environment.

It is astonishing how someone able to write the bit above, can somehow blow
it with the following:

> In this case, derisive indifference on the part of those poparazi (sp?) to
> the plight of that MB led directly and predictably to a high-speed chase
> and a foreseeable appointment with that chunk o' concrete. Not their fault
> the driver was drunk and the passengers unbuckled. A foreseeable collision
> none-the-less.

Who, dear lad, do you believe was driving this vehicle, anyway?  You
obviously believe that it must have been the papparazzi.  The *driver* and
the *owner* are responsible, 100%, for the choice *they* made which in this
case was to break the law and drive with reckless disregard to anything
other than their own *DESIRE* to avoid inconvenience.

> Bottom line:  No one was *absolutely* responsible for this mess, or most
> such messes.

Bottom line:  Get a grip.  The person who decides to break the law is 100%
responsible for the consequences of his actions.  Always.  Ditto for the
owner who *allowed* the driver to behave in a criminally irresponsible
fashion.

Bart