Deadly Lightning!

[Mutt]

I don't like riding in thunderstorms because of how dangerous lightning is for motorcyclist. A motorcyclist is highly susceptible to being STRUCK by lightning. Now I read the following article on this morning's news. It was posted in the Raleigh News and Observer and on the website.

Lightning May Be Cause Of Fatal Motorcycle Accident

POSTED: 9:05 am EDT June 11, 2006
UPDATED: 9:06 am EDT June 11, 2006

ORANGE COUNTY, N.C. -- A severe thunderstorm in Orange County may be to blame for the death of a motorcyclist early Sunday morning.

The National Weather Service reports that lightning struck a tree along Interstate 85 near U.S. Highway 70.

The tree fell into the southbound lanes, Orange County authorities said, and the motorcyclist ran into the tree at about 5:50 a.m.

The driver, whose name was not immediately released, died at the scene.
Copyright 2006 by WRAL.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


I guess lightning is going to get you one way or another!  >:(

Mutt

[Night Vision]

I continue to be amazed on how many ppl are killed each year by trees.....

I've seen several headlines reading : TREE KILLS MAN...

Only after reading the article closely, do you realize that the man was trying to cut it down or drove his car into it....

I just drove that stretch of road this April. That highway is heavily wooded. Wooded buffers are nice for aesthetics, but around here, major highways are generally cleared back far enough that if a tree fell, it' wouldn't get into a driving lane.

Electric companies often have rights to clear danger trees on adjoining lands so they won't fall and cause outages

I'll wager more ppl are killed by trees, than lightning each year...

[YellowJacket!]

We had an issue here recently regarding a family who is suing the county because a tree killed their son.  Apparently, the county improved a dangerously curvy road and removed many of the trees from along side the road except one, a very large and old oak tree.  The tree was situated on a curve about 10 feet back from the road.  Their son who was 19, driving at a high rate of speed and had 3 times the legal alcohol limit in his blood, lost control of his vehicle on the curve, flipped and impacted with the tree and was killed instantly by .... the tree.  You see, the county was negligent in leaving the tree there after they removed the rest of them.  So, lets see. the TREE killed their son who was 19, driving a t a high rate of speed on a very curvy road and he had three times the amount of alcohol in his blood to be legally intoxicated.  Looks like a bad case of "can't see the forest because the trees are in the way".  Sometimes people want to blame everyone except themselves.

David

[Lucky]

I think in that case they should be suing the tree for destroying their car, & the auto manufacturer for stupidly putting a steering wheel & windshield in front of their son.

also, the parents should have be sued for negligently putting their son inside a dangerous car when they should have instead put him on a nice safe motorcycle where he would have flown off & landed in a gentle bed of pine needles and possable one or two small woodland creatured (drinking Woodchuck beer)

Darn, i was hoping lack of common sense was just a local thing... leaving this silly palce in 19 days!   :D

[Extent]

they should have instead put him on a nice safe motorcycle where he would have flown off & landed in a gentle bed of pine needles and possable one or two small woodland creatured (drinking Woodchuck beer)

No that would be bad because then the next of kin of the woodland creatures would sue the county for allowing a motorvehicle to disturb their habitat (and for pain and suffering of course) and they'ld have to close all the roads leaving the only way for people to get around as a mixture of riding mowers with their blades removed, segues, and electric wheelchairs.

[YellowJacket!]

The riding mower kicked up a rock which hit the guy on the wheelchir in the head causing him to lose control and run into the guy on the seguay who in turn ran into the tree.  Now they are all suing each other and the county.

They are also scheduled to make an appearance on Maury Povitch once they all get out of the hospital.

David

[Lucky]

riding mowers with their blades removed,

that's how i passed my shop exam in high school, I had to rebuild the Techumsa (7hp i think) motor on my dads riding motor for the final exam.  i had it all back togeter  and had it outside.  the shop teacher caught me dooing wheelies in the parking lot and gave me an "A",  lol  That was fun!!
i used to do a paper route down Old Baptist Road on that thing too..

[h2olawyer]

Trees are amazing things.  Skiers successfully sued ski areas for leaving trees that were eventually hit by a skier.  After the ski area would lose the lawsuit, they would be forced to cut the tree down - but leave the others in the same area alone.  Guess there's just precious little common sense reamining today.

The same thing happened to lots of the larger rocks on many ski areas.  Someone would use one for a jump, get seriously injured & sue.  Steamboat eventually made the entire groomed areas of the mountain like golf course fairways.  Now they build terrain parks with the rails & jumps for the snowboarders.  Those places are tons more hazardous than the trees and rocks ever were.  Just waiting for a ski area to lose a suit based on negligent design & construction of a terrain park.  This would make more sense because the injury arose from a direct action taken by the ski area, not a failure to remove natural objects.  Once a ski area loses that type of lawsuit, the terrain parks will be a thing of the past.

H₂O

[Brian Moffet]

I've always had a couple of simple rules when driving, motorcycling, flying, walking:

1) don't hit any thing that you don't intend to hit.
2) larger objects may not have the legal right-of-way, but they have more inertia/momentum and hitting them would hurt.
3) don't do something stupid.

It would seem that hittting a tree/rock/ground would violate at least 2 of these things, and yet legally I kept getting proven wrong...

Brian