We could try running a Monte Carlo simulation to estimate the odds of hitting one person (or even multiple people) in an average neighborhood.
Yeah, but it's been a very long time, I can't remember much. I *know* it is obviously Discovery's fault and they will ultimately pay out. But I was wondering whether the homeowners' premiums will go up anyway - simply for filing a claim in the first place - even though they are not at fault. Are you saying this will not happen? I always assumed that any claim at all, regardless of fault, results in increased premiums. Here is a link which explains my reasoning. But we all know how bureaucracy tends to interfere. Insurance companies are rarely pleasant to deal with. Most will look for any excuse to jack up your premium. If, however, you are saying that in this case, the homeowners' premiums will definitely not go up, that is of course a (rare) good thing...
Wouldn't say it's Discovery's fault for two reasons a) Discovery Channel pays for the show but unless it's changed, the production is handled by an Australian owned company called Beyond International. b) secondly they took precautions, they had experts overseeing the process - this is a pure utter fluke. you would have to show that the producers were negligent if you wants to level blame.
^ So if you don't think it was the fault of the show (which I disagree...even though it was an accident, they still caused it), who do you think should pay for all this? Would you expect the homeowners to have to pay?
^What you mean is not that it's their fault, but that it's their responsibility. Saying it's their fault implies that they were negligent, that they did something wrong. You clearly don't mean to say that, so what you're presumably trying to say is that they're responsible for paying the damages.
That's not the case. In a collision event, your premiums should only increase if you are at fault. In a comprehensive event, your premiums will in most cases never increase.
I don't see any reason why the homeowners' premiums would increase. I doubt an event like this would even be covered by most home insurance policies. It's the Mythbusters and Beyond Productions whose insurance companies would cover this, and who might have increased premiums in the wake of it.
Well as the article says, you're not required to file anything with your own insurance. I had someone back into my own parked car once, and the other guy's insurance took care of all the damage, and I didn't even have to contact my own.
For the final act in the "Blow Your Socks Off" myth (revisit, maybe?), they went to a quarry near a town to set off a detonation in an effort to see if they could blow the socks off of any of their fake feet set at varying distances. They set off the detonation and the myth was busted, but the detonation was a bit bigger than they had anticipated. The blast didn't do any damage, but the shockwave moved through the town damaging property, breaking windows, etc. After that incident, they were barred from doing their thing at or near that town again. I apologize if anyone else has posted this since I was skimming through the thread fairly quickly and didn't think I saw anything, but Adam went on Twitter today and confirmed that they won't be showing the mishap on the episode and that the show hasn't been canceled or suspended due to this. I'm glad that no one was hurt and I totally understand why the accident won't get shown in the final episode, but I have to admit that there's a small part of me that's disappointed. If nothing else, that had to have been one helluva blast to do what it did and I wouldn't mind seeing it. But like I said, I understand why they won't be showing it. I am definitely glad that they're not getting canned over this.
Adam Savage, Jamie Hyneman and all are really a class act..something bad happened and THEY TOOK RESPONSIBILITY!!... A lot of folks don't do the same..and the world is poorer for it..
I'm not sure, though, that avoiding any mention of the incident in the show is the best way to take responsibility. I mean, nobody was hurt, the damage will be paid for, and this could be a good teaching opportunity. What they should do is focus a whole segment on the incident and examine the science of exactly what happened and why. Presumably they'd take a more solemn tone than usual, but given all the attention this has attracted, it feels like it'd be a missed opportunity if they didn't address the science of it. Heck, I bet if the owners of the houses and the minivan had been fans of the show, their reactions might've been more like "Whoo, I had a brush with the Mythbusters! What an honor to have my house/car wrecked in the name of awesome science! Can I be on the show now?"
Hell, if it happened to me, that would be the settlement. Screw compensation, just let me push a button on TV standing next to Kari Byron that blows something up, I'll pay them for that.
What would be cool is if Kari, Grant, and Tory personally repaired the damage to the houses. I mean, we know they have the skills for it, and it would be a nice gesture.
Ehh, usually insurance companies (and people in general) only like certified construction workers to make these types of repairs. A group of people more known for destroying things likely wouldn't pass muster.
The impression I've gotten out of everything has been that the folks who owned the damaged property are not particularly happy about the incident. The Mythbusters likely decided not to show it out of respect for the folks- avoiding profiting from a major accident that was a major problem for everyone and could have potentially turned tragic. I would say that they're doing a decent job taking responsibility for the incident. They're not shying away from it, they're not trying to put responsibility on someone else, and they've made it a point multiple times to make sure that it's known that they feel horrible, they're working to make it right, and they're trying to make sure it never happens again. I'm not sure they can do much better than that.
They visited the scene of the damage, talked with the families involved, have assured those families that all damages would be taken care of, and took steps to ensure that this could never happen again.. In deference to those families, they decided not to air the actual firing segment on their show.. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/12/07/BAN31M9Q81.DTL Pretty responsible..esp. in comparison with most local politicians..
Indeed. What's surprising to me is the level of national attention this has gotten! I wonder if there's anyone out there who don't know who, or what, the "Mythbusters" are and were confused by all of this stuff over the production of a TV show. I still find the distance and trajectory of the cannonball to be pretty amazing. But if I understood things right had they done this a few minutes earlier the cannonball may very well have killed or critically injured someone.
Yes, I'm aware of what they did and I agree it is taking responsibility. What I'm saying is that this could be turned into a positive if it were talked about openly and used as an educational opportunity instead of taking a "Let us never speak of this again" attitude. It has attracted a lot of attention, so it could be a good opportunity for science education. You want to talk about responsibility, the efforts the Mythbusters undertake to promote scientific thinking and awareness are very responsible and positive. So it wouldn't be just exploiting it for entertainment or publicity or something. I'm not sure about that. I think the minivan owner did say that his kids were in the minivan a few moments earlier; but if the cannonball had been fired earlier, the odds are that the wind would've been different or it would've bounced differently and thus followed a different trajectory anyway.
^Based on the last article posted, we have at least one person involved with this making semi-veiled lawsuit threats. I'm guessing they aren't particularly interested in seeing this incident end up on their show.