I just don’t understand drinking and driving

@ehBeth,

Quote:

the bike was close enough to hit with the car

distance wasn't an issue

direction of travel wasn't an issue

You got to be kidding me as even a cold sober driver need some distance/time to become aware of a bike and brake or move over or whatever is needed to avoid an impact with the far slower moving vehicle.

A dark bike cause this envelope of time and distance to be very very small indeed. That is the reason most areas traffic laws demand that bikes ridden after dark have lights on them both front and back.

You or I under the wrong conditions could indeed hit a dark bike cold sober and driving within the speed limit.

1 Reply

@BillRM,

Quote:

You or I under the wrong conditions could indeed hit a dark bike cold sober and driving within the speed limit.

But the driver in this case wasn't cold sober.

Quote:

You got to be kidding me as even a cold sober driver need some distance/time to become aware of a bike and brake or move over or whatever is needed to avoid an impact with the far slower moving vehicle.

And it will take a drunk driver longer to do those things than a sober driver.

1 Reply

@firefly,

firefly wrote:

Remembering the victim of the DUI accident we have been discussing in this thread.

Quote:
Obituary for Barry Lancaster

Barry L. Lancaster, 47, of St. Petersburg, Fla., formerly of Bradley, died Dec. 23, 2011, in St. Petersburg. Visitation will be from 11 a.m. Friday, Jan. 6, until the 1 p.m. funeral services at the Clancy-Gernon-Hertz Funeral Home, west Kankakee. Pastor Karl Koeppen will officiate.

Burial will be in Mound Grove Gardens of Memory, Kankakee. Memorials may be made to the family wishes.

Mr. Lancaster was a truck driver for many years. He was born Dec. 22, 1964, in Kankakee, the son of Donald and Jacqueline Larkins Lancaster. He was an avid bowler. He enjoyed all sports, especially the Chicago teams. He loved the outdoors, fishing, loud music and being around friends and family.

Surviving are one son, Anthony "AJ" Lancaster, of Kankakee; two daughters, Ashli Lancaster and Amanda Lancaster, both of Kankakee; one granddaughter, Abby; his mother, of Tilton; two sisters and brothers-in-law, Karen and Keith Hoskins, of Tilton, and Vanessa and Ken Sackett, of Lake Placid, Fla.; one brother and sister-in-law, Ronald and Denise Lancaster, of Bradley; and many nieces and nephews.

His father died Dec. 28, 2011.
http://www.clancygernon.com/obituaries/Barry-Lancaster/#/Obituary

Quite a loss for this family in one week since both Barry Lancaster and his father died within 5 days of each other.

So what we have here is a hard core homeless guy who migrated to St Pete from Illinois, exactly the kind of person the local authorities are trying to be rid of. If the family in Illinois cared enough to place an obit an have a funeral then this guy was homeless because he wanted to be, otherwise he would have been with family.

2 Replies

@DrewDad,

Quote:

Gee... a drunk person making a wrong turn. What are the odds?

A person would need to be way way over the limit to make a wrong turn going home on a route that he had travel many times.

From the postings here there is no indication he was that far under the influence.

2 Replies

@BillRM,

BillRM wrote:

Quote:
Gee... a drunk person making a wrong turn. What are the odds?

A person would need to be way way over the limit to make a wrong turn going home on a route that he had travel many times.

From the postings here there is no indication he was that far under the influence.

you don't know enough to determine how drunk the driver of the car was, but you know enough to find a way to blame the dead cyclist

you are seriously one sick piece of work

1 Reply

@BillRM,

Quote:

From the postings here there is no indication he was that far under the influence.

His BAC was at least .08 to justify a DUI arrest, and it might have been considerably higher. No one posting here has info about his BAC.

1 Reply

@hawkeye10,

Quote:

So what we have here is a hard core homeless guy who migrated to St Pete from Illinois, exactly the kind of person the local authorities are trying to be rid of. If the family in Illinois cared enough to place an obit an have a funeral then this guy was homeless because he wanted to be, otherwise he would have been with family.

I think, correct me if I am wrong that they stated that he was "believed" to have been homeless and that was stated at the beginning.

Quote:

He enjoyed all sports, especially the Chicago teams. He loved the outdoors, fishing, loud music and being around friends and family.

Did I miss something?

0 Replies

This tears it. I've tolerated a lot of pure horseshit from BillRM with hardly any complaint. But I don't intend to read anything more by this piece of trash. I'm finally putting someone on 'ignore', just to keep H20Man company.

You, BillRM, are beneath contempt!

0 Replies

@firefly,

The issue is if a cold sober driver could not had avoid the accident then the driver not being cold sober is beside the point as far as the accident occurring or not.

If the bike was not lit up it greatly increase the likelihood that the condition of the driver was not the factor that cause the accident.

0 Replies

@DrewDad,

DrewDad wrote:

Gee... a drunk person making a wrong turn. What are the odds?

[sarcasm]Let's pull up Google street view, and see if we can take exactly the same route. Maybe the van will have been by and we can see the bloodstains. [/sarcasm]

Maybe our morbid curiosity would be satisfied.

Do you get lost a couple of blocks from your house? This is a flag, the story told by the police seems to have a problem.....it would be nice if one of the St Pete locals could chime in with a reasonable explanation for why Thom might have been traveling East on this block of 5th Ave. If there is none then eeither the accident did not happen where police said it did, or else Thom was not actually going home.

1 Reply

@ehBeth,

ehBeth wrote:

Rainbow Rides - good to know there is a service like that available. I'm glad you mentioned it in this thread.

Hopefully more people will decide to use it.

Here's their contact info for anyone in the area that needs it:

http://a5.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/312042_260289887322477_260289640655835_1031913_7479859_n.jpg

0 Replies

@ehBeth,

Quote:

you don't know enough to determine how drunk the driver of the car was, but you know enough to find a way to blame the dead cyclist

you are seriously one sick piece of work

LOL and it never hit you that you do not know how drunk the man may or may not had been either and yet you are fully ready and even very eager to place all the blame on the driver.

As a night cyclists with thousands of miles of night cycling in one of the most dangerous cities to cycle in I will tell you that if the man was riding a dark bike he was at least in part responsible for his own death.

1 Reply

@hawkeye10,

Quote:

So what we have here is a hard core homeless guy who migrated to St Pete from Illinois,

You don't know that he migrated. He might have been visiting the area. The police said he might have been transient.

Quote:

this guy was homeless because he wanted to be, otherwise he would have been with family.

He did have family in Florida, about 2 hours from St Petersburg. He might have been traveling around.

But, in your mind, if he was homeless, he was a worthless bum, and a menace to society, and the drunk driver (who you think is an idiot for turning himself in) did everyone a favor by getting rid of him.

You really are a creep.

1 Reply

@EqualityFLSTPete,

EqualityFLSTPete wrote:

All I keep hearing is how everyone feels sorry for Thom.
This is the result of getting behind the wheel of a car and thinking
you can drive after drinking! The devastation is a domino effect.

He remains alive and he is in danger. Some people can empathize with him.
The decedent is beyond human help.
Those who wish to assist his family will do so.

David

0 Replies

@firefly,

Quote:

His BAC was at least .08

A .08 is no where near enough to cause a man to make a wrong turn on a short and very familiar route home.

0 Replies

@BillRM,

BillRM wrote:

As a night cyclists with thousands of miles of night cycling in one of the most dangerous cities to cycle in I will tell you that if the man was riding a dark bike he was at least in part responsible for his own death.

That means that even if Thom were stone cold sober,
he might not have been able to see the bicyclist.

David

2 Replies

@OmSigDAVID,

Quote:

That means that even if Thom were stone cold sober,
he might not have been able to see the bicyclist.

Seeing a dark bike at any distance at all is very hard task even being on the lookout for such bikes and cold sober beside.

Being a night cyclist myself I am always on the lookout for dark bikes and yet there had been times when I still came very near to hitting one.

0 Replies

@firefly,

Quote:

He did have family in Florida, about 2 hours from St Petersburg. He might have been traveling around.

The professional homeless do often go south for the winter, Illinois is not a great place for that lifestyle.....too cold.

0 Replies

@hawkeye10,

hawkeye10 wrote:

Do you get lost a couple of blocks from your house?

I don't know... I don't drive after I drink.

Maybe he was stopping by the QuickieMart on his way home.

You have no facts, so everything you're coming up with is mere speculation.

I don't know if your doing this reflexively because you're used to arguing with Firefly, or if you hate cops, or what. But you're coming off as more paranoid than usual.

1 Reply

@OmSigDAVID,

Quote:

That means that even if Thom were stone cold sober,
he might not have been able to see the bicyclist.

But he wasn't stone cold sober.

So, maybe he would have hit a pedestrian too if one was around. They don't walk around wearing lights either.

Maybe his vision was affected by too much booze...

2 Replies

I just don’t understand drinking and driving

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