Nathan's Occasional Blog

Most accidents reported in the media involving motorcycles make it sound like the motorcycle driver was at fault … at least in the headline.  It’s quite concerning to see them take the same tack with the accident the other evening on Hwy 18 where a 17 year old girl was going 100 mph on the wrong side of the highway at 2a.  She was killed when her vehicle slammed into a big rig.

I feel sorry for her and her family.  Another account I read indicated she had taken off after an argument with her parents.

But the headline in the PI says “17-year-old dies after her car is hit by semitrailer”.  Really?  Because in my mind when you’re roughly doubling the speed limit in the middle of the night and end up running into another vehicle that pretty much seems like you hit them.

So why did the PI write the headline as such?  Same reason we see “sensational” news on TV … ratings.  Everyone’s scared of these huge trucks on the road so let’s play on that fear.  “Look – a trucker killed a 17 year old girl” the PI seems to say.

A 17-year-old Spanaway teen died early Friday after a semitrailer hit her car, which was westbound in an eastbound lane on state Route 18, authorities said.
Source: 17-year-old dies after her car is hit by semitrailer

Screw that PI.  The statistics show that truckers are actually the safest drivers on the roads … long-haul truckers even more so.  It’s the folks who go out partying, or want to show off to their friends how fast/cool they can drive, or gab on cell phones while driving down the road who are dangers to society.

Seattle PI RSS feeds: UNSUBSCRIBED.  Hopefully the Seattle Times is better.

By the way, if I see another idiot driving 50 mph in a 60 mph zone while holding a cell phone to their head and driving a $70k vehicle I’m going to …. I don’t know – I’ll think of something.  You can spend $1000/month on a car and insurance but you can’t scrape together $15 for the hands free earbud for your phone?  Hell, most phones ship with the earbud.  GEESH!

UPDATE: I just browsed through the rest of my unread RSS items from the PI and found the same story with the headline “Teen killed after driving wrong way on state Route 18“.  This story was posted just after noon yesterday, with the article that pissed me off published at 10:30p last night.  I wonder which headline made it in the paper?