From: jeq@i88.isc.com (Jonathan E. Quist)
Subject: Re: Saturday night COPS on FOX
Organization: INTERACTIVE Systems Corporation, Naperville, IL
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 15:47:07 GMT

In article <1992Nov16.222235.22951@spdc.ti.com> serafin@epcot.spdc.ti.com (Mike Serafin) writes:
>>rtaraz@bigwpi.WPI.EDU (Ramin Taraz) writes:
>>: I was just watching cops on fox and they had a report on an accident
>>: 
>>: I might want to stop riding my bike.  I have always though about the
>>: possibility of getting into an accident and losing some body parts,
>>: but it is different when you see it happen!
>>: 
>>: anyway, I just thought you might be interested in hearing about this.
>>: I was shaken up a little.
>>: 
...
>This type of knee-jerk reaction has always puzzled me about any other mode of
>transportation than cars.  My theory is that car accidents have become so
>commonplace that people have become desensitized to them.  Things such as

Okay.  Here's one, that's been on the news for 2 days in Chicago.  Seems
a 56-year-old grandmother was stopping at a diner for her daily breakfast
on the way to her place of employment.  A cager hit her, reasons unknown,
and she was caught underneath the car.  The cager, realizing that there
was a living human being underneath his car, pulled forward, and turned into
a parking lot, apparently trying to dislodge the body.  That didn't work,
so after driving around the parking lot, pulled back onto the street and
took off, turning every couple of blocks to try to get the body unstuck.
Even went a block the wrong way on a one way street.  In total, the car
was driven over a half mile before the body came out.  By that time
the woman was dead.  How do they know the driver's exact path?  Simple,
the followed the dark stain on the pavement that started at the diner,
and continued to the place where the body was found.  The stain was made
by a combination of blood, clothing, and abraded body parts.  One of the
newscasts showed the covered body.  I didn't look too closeley, but part of
what showed from under the sheet appeared to be the abraded stump of a limb.

I might want to stop walking.



Our own Mary Shafer posted the following to rec.aviation some years
back, possibly in response to the Challenger disaster, after
someone demanded that space flight be made perfectly safe.
It's one of the better commentaries I've seen on living with risk.

======

   But, no matter what you do, it will never be perfectly, 100% risk-free
   to fly.  Or to drive, or to walk, or to do anything.

   One of our pilots here died when he waited too long to eject from a
   spinning aircraft.  He was wrong; he should have jumped out earlier.
   He failed in his duty, IMO.

   One of our engineers was walking his dog when a car driven by a kid
   jumped the curb and hit him.  Only his leg was broken.  But he walks
   his dog again, now.  Who know better than him the danger?

   There's no way to make life perfectly safe; you can't get out of it alive.

   You can't even predict every danger.  How can you guard against a hazard
   you can't even conceive of?

   I agree that the days of "kick the tires and light the fires" are gone,
   but insisting on perfect safety is the single most reliable way of 
   killing an aerospace project.

   I've been on both sides of the FRR (Flight Readiness Review) process
   for a number of aeronautical projects.  Experienced engineers try to
   think of everything that can go wrong.  But airplanes can still
   surprise the best team.  

   I've had to sign a form, certifying that to the best of my knowledge
   everything that we're going to do on a flight is safe.  I've never
   seriously asked myself "What will I say to the AIB (Accident
   Investigation Board)" because once one starts on that, the form will
   never be signed, the flight will never be flown, and the research will
   never be done.  

   But I have asked myself "Have I told everybody exactly what we're
   going to do and what the _known_ risks are and are we agreed that
   these risks are acceptable" and when I can answer that "yes" I sign
   the form.  That also answers the question of what I'd say to the AIB.

   I'm not talking about abstract theories here, I'm talking about test
   pilots that I've known for decades.  Believe me, I _know_ exactly what
   the consequences of a mistake on my part could mean.  The reminders
   are all around me: Edwards AFB--killed in the XB-49, Lilly Ave--NASA
   pilot killed in a crash, Love Rd--I _saw_ his burning F-4 auger into
   the lakebed, with him in it.  But once I've done my best, like
   everybody else on the team, it's time to go fly the airplane.

   Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to
   live in the real world.


====end quote====
-- 
Jonathan E. Quist                              INTERACTIVE Systems Corporation
jeq@i88.isc.com  '71 CL450-K4 "Gleep", DoD #094        Naperville, IL
        There are many things a person should experience in a lifetime.
       Among them are an infant's first cry, and an infant's first laugh.
Xref: sparky rec.motorcycles:39294 rec.motorcycles.harley:1094