WWTBAM Bored

From what I hear, this made the national news.

http://www.ithacajournal.com/article/20 ... own-Ithaca

I was driving up that street about half an hour before the truck rolled down it. What surprises me was that there's no report of the truck slamming into one or more cars at that intersection before hitting Simeon's, since there's almost always traffic backed up at the traffic lights.

Lindsey Pou, 26, a pastry chef at nearby Madeline’s Restaurant, said she was sitting outside on The Commons when she saw the tractor-trailer barreling down East State Street and smash into the building. She said the driver did not sound the horn, and she did not hear any screeching brakes.

From a related article:

The driver of the car-hauler tractor-trailer that sped down East Hill and into Simeon’s restaurant Friday evening, killing a 27-year-old woman who was tending bar, has been ticketed with having inadequate brakes, according to Ithaca police.

I certainly hope other charges are brought. Why no horn? Why was he not downshifted to first gear and using the compression brakes?

I'm sure the details will be sorted out and more charges will be filed, if appropriate.

We were discussing the accident while I was out at breakfast and one man there said he was a witness to the accident. He disputed the reported speed of the truck (he said only about 20 mph) and whether any construction workers were on the Commons (he said there weren't) when the truck swerved at the last minute.

What used to be the continuation of State Street at that corner was converted during the '70s into a pedestrian mall, the Ithaca Commons. It's currently in the second year of a renovation project, which included replacing all of the old utility pipes. That means the center strip of a two-block space is all open, freshly excavated dirt, surrounded by low, temporary fences. If the driver was looking for someplace to direct a runaway truck and if there were no other cars in that last block of East State Street before the Commons and if there were no construction workers in that space, it would have been the perfect place to steer straight ahead for. I'm sure police investigators will be checking that all out and determining why he made the last second turn that sent the truck through the front door of Simeons.

A loud and continuous horn would have ensured no workers were in the way. There's more to the story, I suspect.

BackInTex wrote:A loud and continuous horn would have ensured no workers were in the way. There's more to the story, I suspect.

There's always more to the story. I continue to be baffled by how much people absolutely trust news accounts of any incident as the "whole story" (And no, that's not a political statement... I'm talking about even stuff like the details of a traffic accident)....

As long as news continues to be reported by human beings who were not witnesses, and human beings continue to have intentional and unintentional biases in how they see the world, all stories are going to be lacking for more details....

lb13

layers and layers of fact checkers

From the AP:

In stories published June 3 and June 8 about young children buried in unmarked graves after dying at a former Irish orphanage for the children of unwed mothers, The Associated Press incorrectly reported that the children had not received Roman Catholic baptisms; documents show that many children at the orphanage were baptized. The AP also incorrectly reported that Catholic teaching at the time was to deny baptism and Christian burial to the children of unwed mothers; although that may have occurred in practice at times it was not church teaching. In addition, in the June 3 story, the AP quoted a researcher who said she believed that most of the remains of children who died there were interred in a disused septic tank; the researcher has since clarified that without excavation and forensic analysis it is impossible to know how many sets of remains the tank contains, if any. The June 3 story also contained an incorrect reference to the year that the orphanage opened; it was 1925, not 1926.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/thanks-to ... le/2550042

Thank you so much for adding that link to this thread about the truck accident in Ithaca, TMITSSS.

MarleysGh0st wrote:Thank you so much for adding that link to this thread about the truck accident in Ithaca, TMITSSS.

you are welcome