Can't believe NBC showed video of fatal luge crash

[Buster52]

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Sorry, I just don't buy that. People have died on film for years and most of the time news outlets have chosen not to show it. That appars to be changing. And if it is only about ratings, then the race to the bottom is all we can hope for. Now, if they caught it live and it just happened to be right there, that is one thing. To repeat it over and over as apparently happened here is nothing but sensationalism.

Personally, I don't watch much TV at all now days.

 

[rebelcowboysnb]

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Royd,

With all due respect, this is just plain wrong, and unfair. The Whistler Sliding Centre has been in use for over two years, and has already hosted three World Cup events. The poor athlete (may he rest in peace) who died yesterday at the track had run his sled on it personally 20+ times.

The track was designed by a designer who has already done six Olympic tracks, and built by the same architectural firm that built the track for the Salt Lake City Olympics, at a cost of $70 million dollars. The venue is dedicated to the slider track for bobsled, skeleton, and luge. Nothing else is crammed in there-- the supports along the track are for observation decks, maintenance walks and other associated structures.

There has been a lot of concern that the track is too steep and too fast, and that may very well be true, although yesterday's crash didn't occur on a particularly fast part of the track.

Whatever the cause of the accident, however, it certainly wasn't a hastily built track with no "pre-game testing," and you shouldn't assume a "major design flaw." That unfairly criticizes and discounts the work of talented and seasoned designers, architects and engineers who put together these fabulously specialized structures.

Im with ya on a lot of this but there was a flaw in that track. Its the same flaw on almost every road in the world. Next time you are going down the road an go under an overpass look at the posts holding it up. See if you can find one that does not have marks where someone hit it. If you put posts like that by a track or road or what ever you condemn someone somewhere to die. There are safer ways to hold structures up but they cost more. I promise you if that tunnel that Lady Dianna died in was held up by a solid wall she would still be here. But the people that plan, design an build these things are not the people that have to pick up the body's so they let cost decide what is safe enough.

Sure, if you don't want to see the bad things in life you know where the off switch is on your TV. But let me tell ya something. Every person that keeps saying how they don't need to see stuff like that I would love to duck-tape your tail to a chair, knock those rose colored glasses off your head an force you to watch all the videos that the government says cant be shared with the public. I have no doubt that the lives it would save would be well worth any discomfort you would feel.

I would love to show what one text message can do. Or how about one more for the road. How about that extra mile before ya take a break. How about that 8MPH over ya run every day. How about the true cost of a 9V smoke detector battery. Or how about pictures of every person that died to save a few bucks on an overpass. These are all things that I would go to jail if I showed to the public. These are all thing that I will see when I close my eyes for the rest of my life. Yet I would still show these thing to you. Why? Because nothing changes till people take off there rose colored glasses an see the truth, LIFE. The way the world really is.

There is now a wall up that would have saved that boys life. That wall cost less than $1000 an was built in a few hours. Is that wall there because he died? No! That wall is there because people kept playing that video on TV an saying that there should be a wall there. If the video was not there in the public eye they would have just called it driver error an that wall would have never been built. So ask yourself. Is that wall worth you having to see that video a few times? You better believe I think it is.

A few more videos out in the public eye an I bet some guardrails an safer barriers would all of a sudden fit in to some budgets.