Unintended Acceleration Tragedy in New Haven

Sure it is.

We as humans are imperfect beings; the best we can do is design imperfect machines.

That DC-10 some years back lost all hydraulic power simultaneously, because triple redundant systems came together at a choke point, and that's where the damage occurred. Who would have ever thought that would happen?

More recently, that A-380 had a close call. It was a newer engine that failed, on a new airliner, with the latest fail-safe engineering. And we were all astounded—not only that the failure occurred—but by how much damage was caused.

Go back to the Comet and its rectangular window frames. Or the Lockheed Electra, with that initially undiagnosed engine nacelle oscillation.

The vaunted PT-6 turbine, although widely known to be incredibly reliable, still has a failure rate greater than zero. Why do you think that ferry pilots flying a PT-6 powered single across the
Atlantic wear survival suits, when those flying twins do not?

Cars are recalled all the time. The Prius still seems to exhibit that problem with the VVT-i controller.

That bridge in Asia just failed and came crashing down.

How about Galloping Gertie?

Sure, some of those aren't current examples, but I'll bet you that, if you asked those engineers, they'd have said the same things you are now.

Machines fail all the time. And if it hasn't failed yet, it will.

_________

Anyone who operates machines with the idea that they can never fail, will not be spring loaded to deal with the failure when they do.

 

[ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider]Gimli Glider - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

You can try to claim this is operator error or equipment malfunction, in either case you can argue that it was the other.

 

U-Haul nixes truck malfunction claim in Yale death - MiningJournal.net | News, Sports, Jobs, Marquette Information | The Mining Journal

Wittiness Statements vs Statement from a Lawyer, who wasn't there.

Do you folks really think this matter would be handled this way if the driver didn't have status. We are talking the son of upper crust. Anyone of lesser means and/or non-white ethnicity would have gone straight to jail, and the lawyers of the victims would have plastered the press with every alleged slander imaginable, true or not.

Money always wins, so I would wager the family of the driver is already spreading the wealth on this one.

 

Good points frodoz737. The way this is being handled, it will also be interesting to see what comes of the other angle that happens. U-haul had to make statements at the same time the lawyer did to stem future hysteria over U-haul trucks. I'm assuming there will be a few people looking at ways to claim unintended acceleration for publicity and/or lawsuits against U-haul.

Another aspect of this case I don't understand is why the student was just given a sobriety test. I think it should be mandatory that if there's an accident of this severity a breathalyzer should always be used (as it's better evidence in court).

 

Frodoz - After reading your comments I did a quick search for info on Brendan Ross and saw that he was from St. Louis but nothing about his family. Is he from an "upper crust" family? The Ivy League schools all have need blind admissions so this kid need not be from a family with money - really the only thing that we know is that he is smart and driven.

You also mention race - do you think that if an African American Yale student were driving that he would have been thrown in jail? Say that instead of Yale, a school that does cast its shadow far and wide, that he was at another top school - say MIT, U Michigan or Texas do you think that he would have been handled differently. I do not think so - the police would look and see a student at an elite university.

 

"- the police would look and see a student at an elite university"

There is a double standard within the American Justice System.

I think the word elite sums up any futher debate, or my involvement with this discussion.

 

By elite I was referring to the fact that Yale is one of the finest universities in the world, and that is a term that would be used when referring to any of the world's finest universities. It is a school where you could actually make an intelligent augment that it is the best university in the world.

You completely ignored the question of how you know he is "upper crust". Do you actually have some info on that or did you just assume that since he was a Yale student he came from a wealthy family?

 

Whether this student is from a particular "upper crust" family is not what frodoz737's argument was about. Yale is prestigious, but claiming it "the best university in the world" is a specious claim. A few of my relatives have gone to Yale...most have gone to Harvard. Guess which ones would claim what university is better in academics.

Prestigious ivy league universities do recruit students from all backgrounds...but I believe frodoz737's comments are meant as a generalization of a propensity of wealthy families who can afford expensive universities, can also afford expensive lawyers. I already assume that the student's family is better off then if this incident was at some small state community college. This is a similar trend as someone receiving a guilty verdict from a high profile case where a celebrity can hire a team of expensive lawyers.

 

This line of argument is not about the class or status of the individual. It is about perceived class and status. If the police and prosecutors think an individual is wealthy and powerful, that individual will be treated differently than an ordinary citizen, and a whole lot differently than undesirables. Attending an ivy league school conveys an image of wealth and power.

Tom

 

Upper crust was his term, not mine.

I attended the same university as most of your relatives (class of 93 - something cool, I made the cover of the alumni magazine in an insert below Colin Powell - there were 3 of us, the woman who organized a protest, a kid I had gone to school with from grades 2-7 and me) and while I'd agree that it is a finer school than Yale, I had a number of friends go to MIT and honestly that is a university that really impressed me. That is not the point - I was explaining that my use of elite referred to the fact that it is a truly great school and not that it is an "elitist" institution.

Just go back and take a look at the post - it is #23. There was a whole lot of rhetoric - it sounded more like a call to class warfare than a well thought out argument - in one short paragraph he plays the race card, calls him upper crust and more. In his next sentence he implies that the kid is bribing everyone involved.

Please, just go back and carefully read post #25 and then tell me if you might want to change your comment below.

 

Well if the point I was trying to make was that machines don't fail or can't fail, then you win, I lose......but that was not the point. I will also conceed that we cannot make machines that are indestructible or have an infinite lifetime.

The point was that it is quite possible to build, operate machines that do not fail when properly designed, operated, and maintained. So I disagree with your point the machines "must" fail. We have certainly launched a number of space probes that worked successfully from birth to death. So far we have never had a navy nuclear plant accident. There are more examples. But those examples are of things designed not to fail.

What drives me nuts is that the vast majority of what we design and build consider failure to be an acceptable condition, not that we have done the best engineering design job possible. We also consider it "normal" to let failure being the only way to end a machines life. That logic I cannot win either.

Give me enought time, money, & talent to execute a managable task, then designing a machine to not fail in the required window is possible, not impossible. Just because we decide to backoff on any of the above criteria is a decision, not a universal requirement.