Bystander: "who's got a flashlight?" Officer killed.

LAPD detective Mike Selleh was killed early Sunday in an accident on the Hollywood freeway. The story is here:

http://www.knbc.com/news/13777089/detail.html?rss=la&psp=news#

The disturbing unedited video is here, in which the bystander says: "who's got a flashlight?".

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=88a_1185847083

I can't help but think that a powerful flashlight would saved the day, the bystander could have used it to warn traffic, but unfortunately he didn't have one.

agent8698 said:

LAPD detective Mike Selleh was killed early Sunday in an accident on the Hollywood freeway. The story is here:

http://www.knbc.com/news/13777089/detail.html?rss=la&psp=news#

The disturbing unedited video is here, in which the bystander says: "who's got a flashlight?".

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=88a_1185847083

I can't help but think that a powerful flashlight would saved the day, the bystander could have used it to warn traffic, but unfortunately he didn't have one.

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A really good time for the strobe setting. I always decelerate if I see any flashing lights. Don't all video cameras have built in lights?

Not the same location but, I used to live next to (parallel) the Hollywood fwy before studio city and after Hollywood bowl. There are accidents there very often.

For some reason that video chilled me to the core. How horrific.

Wow, that was terrible.

Another reminder to EDC some kind of light... one with a strobe function if possible.

:sigh:

Wow.

Not surprising given the speeds and careless nature of the way people drive these days. With heavy fog that might have been more understandable; but on a clear dry road??? Even if it's night it shows that people drive too fast and follow too closely.

Sorry if this sounds to "preachy" but I think we need to repo peoples vehicles and give tickets out like candy for things like speeding, and unsafe driving. There's no reason for this to have happened. How bad would have extra 2 minute have taken on any of their routes.

One thing I am certain though is that I'm more greatful than ever to have an Inova 24/7 in every vehicle I own, btu I'm not sure that would have helpde here.

geeeez, that's terrible! People driving skills and level of awareness just plain suck. That's a shame. :shakehead

Just horrible. I see stupid drivers every day and it just makes me wonder how they get to work everyday. Blind luck I guess. And yes, a flashlight might have helped.

That was a freaky video. No one could see the car that crashed because they looked like they were driving too fast. The voice of the guy is eerie. Maybe I'll copy the audio and make my own crash up video.

WOW..


It got out of control so quickly

R.I.P. brothers. What a tragedy.

My sincere condolences to the family of the detective and the other Officer found. It was a horrible situation. If we ever really knew how many drivers should not be on the road, I think we'd all be terrified. It so sad.

After years of having to put up with my harping on her, even my wife now has a flashlight with her and carries traffic flares in the car.

I could have missed it but after viewing the video twice I didn't see any flares, DOT triangles, or even emergency flashers on any of the civilian cars. Am I going blind or was it really that bad?

Also, just a suggestion but...

If you are ever in an accident or have a breakdown either stay in the car (and leave the seatbelts on) or get waaaayyy off the road on the drivers' right -- at least 20 feet if possible.

Why? A friend of ours is a deputy here and on his first week on road patrol he was very nearly hit, his training partner was hit and slightly injured, and two women were struck and killed when the first woman had an accident and the second woman stopped to assist. This was on an icy highway but in daylight. The driver who went off the road and struck them could not stop, hit some ice, and slid off the road. The moral of the story is that it is best to get well out of the way and NEVER turn your back on oncoming traffic.

That's scary. . .I feel for the family of the officer. . .

That's a horrific video. My heart was pounding just sitting here and watching it. It's only about 40 miles away from me. I live 1/2 mile away from the 405 here in Irvine, CA. Let me tell you, traffic STOPS all of a sudden on a regular basis around here. 50mph-0mph in 20 seconds sometimes and it's easy to get caught off guard... this is in the DAYTIME.

Heavy traffic at night here in socal can be really crazy. The thing is that there are hundreds of other headlights on the other side of the freeway coming at you so your night vision isn't so great. Also, when you see taillights light up like in the accident, you think in your head, "slow down" but you don't think STOP within 1/4 mile from freeway cruising speed. We can't really say that people were speeding from watching the video, everything looks fast relative to the stationary by-stander. Regardless, it's EXTREMELY difficult to stop in such short distances, at such speeds, AND being alerted soon enough ahead of the accident.

I carry road flares in my trunk for this reason. They attract way more attention than any flashlight in my oppinion, and people (in socal) know that they're used to signal road accidents. You can't miss the bright red flare opposed to a tiny strobing LED or even a big incandescent. It all gets lost in the sea of headlights and taillights. But as WE all know, a flashlight COULD have saved the night.

On a side note, as someone who also has a motorcycle, I would NEVER ride at night on the freeway in traffic (night+freeway+traffic= bad). It's already bad enough riding in the middle of the day on surface streets. 60% of the people in socal have cell phones stuck to their ears while driving.

Ok I gotta say something here.

If that guy had been doing something instead of trying to get footage on his video camera, much of that chaos could have been prevented. He could have at least waved his arms around and yelled for people to stop. He knew more accidents were about to happen which is why he started filming.

Notice how when the cop arrives he quickly announces "I've been screaming at people to get their hazards on" which sounded more like an excuse for why he was just standing there not doing anything. Why would he need to say that to a cop unless he felt guilty about not doing anything?

The crashed motorcycle was right there in front him - where was the dead/injured motorcyclist when this guy was busy filming his movie?

Supernam said:

... Also, when you see taillights light up like in the accident, you think in your head, "slow down" but you don't think STOP within 1/4 mile from freeway cruising speed...

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A friend and I were discussing this issue the other day. Tail lights really don't convey that much information. They only tell you whether the brakes are activated or not. They say nothing about the degree to which the brakes have been activated. So many accidents are situations where someone is rear ended 'cause they decelerated too quickly for the follower to anticipate it. It's really hard to tell when someone has slammed on their brakes, especially at night.

We thought a solution (i don't know how difficult it would be to implement) would be to replace the third tail light with a light bar. The bar would be maybe two feet long and segmented into maybe 7 sections. If the brakes are tapped, the center section lights up. If they are pressed slightly harder, the 3 center sections light up, a little harder still and 5 sections light up. If you slam on the brakes, all 7 sections light up. It would convey more meaningful information at the same speed normal tail lights do.

At first people would have to get used to it, and there may be some delay due to reaction time, but this seems like something anyone would intuitively understand. If all cars were standardized to this kind of tail light, it would eventually become second nature for everyone.

JRTJRT said:

Ok I gotta say something here.

If that guy had been doing something instead of trying to get footage on his video camera, much of that chaos could have been prevented. He could have at least waved his arms around and yelled for people to stop. He knew more accidents were about to happen which is why he started filming.

Notice how when the cop arrives he quickly announces "I've been screaming at people to get their hazards on" which sounded more like an excuse for why he was just standing there not doing anything. Why would he need to say that to a cop unless he felt guilty about not doing anything?

The crashed motorcycle was right there in front him - where was the dead/injured motorcyclist when this guy was busy filming his movie?

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It's easy to jump to these conclusions. Speed and visibility lead to the utter chaos in the video. Would you run up to the shoulder of the road at night while cars are flying off the road to waive your arms around? I sure as hell wouldn't want to have 2 ton cars hurled at me just to die in vain.

When cars are crashing, the only think you need to do is make sure your as far away from it as possible until everything comes to a stop. Unless you have a vehicle with a light bar or flares which you can back up at least half a mile ahead of the crash sight, your actions are pretty much useless.

Actually, a few decades ago, San Francisco required its taxi fleet to use several very bright yellow lights, that blinked faster the harder the brake was pressed/the faster the car was slowing, right where the "third brake light" is now above the trunk (IIRC, this was before the 3'rd brake light became law)...

They all got taken out after tons of complaints about the irritating flashing yellow lights and how all of the taxi drivers stopped using their turn signals and just relied on the flashing yellow lights for everything.

-Bill

l1s125 said:

A friend and I were discussing this issue the other day. Tail lights really don't convey that much information. They only tell you whether the brakes are activated or not. They say nothing about the degree to which the brakes have been activated. So many accidents are situations where someone is rear ended 'cause they decelerated too quickly for the follower to anticipate it. It's really hard to tell when someone has slammed on their brakes, especially at night.

We thought a solution (i don't know how difficult it would be to implement) would be to replace the third tail light with a light bar. The bar would be maybe two feet long and segmented into maybe 7 sections. If the brakes are tapped, the center section lights up. If they are pressed slightly harder, the 3 center sections light up, a little harder still and 5 sections light up. If you slam on the brakes, all 7 sections light up. It would convey more meaningful information at the same speed normal tail lights do.

At first people would have to get used to it, and there may be some delay due to reaction time, but this seems like something anyone would intuitively understand. If all cars were standardized to this kind of tail light, it would eventually become second nature for everyone.

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That an interesting idea, might be worthwhile. But the first rule of safe driving is to acknowledge that driving is dangerous. Many drivers DISAGREE with that (their actions show it). What do you do with these drivers? They are the ones who cause all the accidents. If you give them the most modern car with the best safety equipment, they will still cause a wreck. The problem is not lack of safe driving skills, the problem is ARROGANCE that believes that driving is NOT DANGEROUS. These same people, if you hand them a machine gun, they would not make that mistake, (because the thing looks dangerous).

agent8698 said:

But the first rule of safe driving is to acknowledge that driving is dangerous.

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I agree completely with this. If people can't even acknowledge that fact, then all else is lost. Its really sad.