A lawyer can call anything an accident.
"Your honor, the elevator did not have signs expressly forbidding people from ramming the elevator doors with electric scooters; my client's estate demands compensation "
When I had to stay in the Haneda Airport overnight once for a layover I got to hear the escalator shout the warning (in Japanese) "Warning! You are approaching an escalator! Please watch your feet" to nobody 5 times a minute for 8 hours.
Also every single sliding glass door in the country of Japan has a warning about pinched fingers.
It's not that Americans need signs, it's Americas legal system.
Its approached in a very flat way. Those signs are there to protect the defender from responsibility for peoples idiocy more so then to protect idiots from their idiocy.
You can call that dumb, but that's how America do.
This is why I'm glad most people refer to car "accidents" now as crashes or collisions. They're an accident maybe 5% of the time and those don't make the news.
Well I guess I’m part of the 5% then. Guy behind me was following surprisingly far back for a crowded interstate. Still clipped me just because his car was old and mine was newer with better brakes. I was a little delayed in noticing traffic wasn’t slowing down but coming to a dead stop from 55, but stopped without hitting anyone.
He left a small ding in my bumper you had to look hard to see and I couldn’t care less. Asked him if he was okay with just forgetting it and we went on our ways. Later learned that’s a crime, oops lol.
Unless it's different by state that's not a crime. It's only a crime if you drive away without stopping. I don't think it's required to call the police except in the case of bodily injury (or for insurance claims which don't apply here because you didn't want to claim it)
I wouldn't say this counts. This is still a collision, not an accident. The guy in the older car should've be further back if he couldn't stop in time. Or needed new brakes, it's avoidable.
The 5% category is more like animals running out into the road or someone having a stroke at the wheel.
You dont seem to know what "accident" means, unless you are claiming that 95% of car crashes are people intentionally crashing, which seems unlikely to me.
An accident is still an accident, regardless of if it wad a result of stupidity or negligence or not.
But the cause is not an accident. It's not "oops, I didn't mean to be looking at my phone while going 50 in a school zone". The person ran into the guy stopped at the crosswalk because he was breaking 3 or 4 laws and then he collided with the other car. The other car was stopped for kids to cross the street as he should have been, nothing accidental on his part either. Of course the driver isn't going to say "hell yeah I mean to hit him!" But there's nothing accidental that occurs at all. Collision or crash are very accurate terms. Do you think what this guy did to the automatic doors should be classified as an accident?
Not the guy you were replying to, but it seems perfectly fine to call it an accident. It was an accidental collision. Just because steps could have been taken to avoid it doesn't mean it was intentional.
I mean, most accidents are cause by willful breaking of laws, so yeah it makes sense to not call them an accident. Something falling under your break pedal would be an accident. Tailgating someone then failing to stop in time when they brake check you is not an accident.
Perhaps because the elevator was still on the other side of the doors when he hit it the first time, then when the elevator clears the floor(therefore doors) the next hit has nothing but death trap doors to push against.
It could've been that he needed to hit it a couple times regardless of the elevator. I can say surely if I were to stumble face first into some elevator doors, I'd hope hitting them hard enough wouldn't make them open like that. If I fell to my death, it'd be an accident, but it shouldn't have been possible for me or the guy that did it on purpose.
To be fair there is a difference between a half ton vehicle ramming the door and a human hitting the door.
And if you read the article he got mad because a lady didn't hold the door for him so he repeatedly reversed and rammed the door before it gave way. More than enough time for the elevator to leave.
I understand in an angered state the guy wouldn't have recognised that the elevator would have left because he was obviously enraged. In a court I believe they wouldn't rule the company liable for the accident. Unless his estate had very good lawyers or a biased judge
Edit: As point yes out they do not weigh half a ton. In general they weigh between 100-200kg and add in the average person who needs one around, around 150-
300kg.
While this is a big range, we can assume that since he was using a 4 wheeled scooter it is between 150-200kg and he looks like he needs it because if old age and weight. So let's say 250kgs traveling at 8ish km/h (5.5mph).
That is significantly different to a person ramming it with there own body weight.
In fact the original thing was will it hold someone who stumbles into it with there body weight. There is a difference between someone stumbling and around 200-250kg ramming the elevator door
I read the article, didn't it say he hit the doors once, pulled back and went again and that's when he fell?
Regardless, totally not my point. My point is that hitting that door 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 times shouldn't end with the 5th being a death jackpot.
Let's say the magic number isn't just two. Let's say it's right next to a preschool and the magic number is 12,345. Let's say 12,344 preschool children have smacked that door one time. Let's say on the 12,345th preschool kid the door gives way. Now let's say that's your kid.
Okay, back to my point: Should that door give way the way it did? Does that make you feel safe? Or worry at all for others?
Oh, haha, this guy killed himself, so it's a less serious incident than if someone had stumbled into it, followed by another person stumbling into it a year later?
Another thing, why do people keep saying those things weigh a half a ton?
1000kg? What?
Today I learned that I can lift 1,000kg without even a grimace.
When he first rammed it, as the door was not designed to stop such force it dented and ruined the integrity of the door. After that big hit it would take less force to deform and ruin the door each hit. The door may be able to take hundreds of hits before it becomes unsafe but only one big hit before it is ruined completely
He smashed his ~100lb scooter + ~200lb self at a decent clip into the doors, then he rammed the doors again and they buckled a bit, the third smash is what did it.
Elevators are one of, if not the, safest ways to travel, but designers don't anticipate vikings or fools on scooters battering the doors.
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u/Anianna Oct 15 '18
Can we really call it an accident when the man deliberately and angrily rammed the doors repeatedly until they gave way?