Should jogging w/ear buds be banned?

[ShamelessMcBundy]

It's also a bit cruel to make light of someone's tragic death in such a manner.

There's more than a whiff of victim blaming in the premise.

No that was actually me. Sorry i had beans for lunch.

Anyway, no banning ear buds is bad, although i personally don't like them; hurts my ears.

 

[Capn Flukie]

I'm sure we all know the game being played here.

 

[trampledamage]

Even if he did hear something, who the hell assumes that the noise they can hear is a plane that's about to hit them?

 

[ShamelessMcBundy]

"It's a trap!"

 

[Bears Discover Fire]

Even if he did hear something, who the hell assumes that the noise they can hear is a plane that's about to hit them?

And would you have time to even move out of the way?

 

[Garak]

Be more conservative in your use of said emoticon.

Good one. Did you mean to do that?

BTW - do you mean the Obama-run "Nanny State" where open carry of firearms is very likely to soon be (rerecognised as) the law of the land?

More of a British Nanny State then.

 

[Holdfast]

"I've got a lot of issues going on right now," Smith said. "I've got a plane that's all torn up. And I've got a young man that I killed."

Impressive way to prioritise the problem list...



On topic, I always knew exercise was dangerous and to be avoided. This is just another reason to add to the list.

 

[Smiley]

As someone who walks and sometimes jogs along a major roadway, I think it's more important to be aware of cars who might turn into your path than it is to worry about an airplane coming down on top of you. Safety should come before your audio pleasure, but that doesn't mean that listening to music or podcasts while on the street should be banned.

 

[Rii]

That's why the jogger probably felt safe. He wasn't jogging through Central Park, Cabrini Green, Watts, or across a street in San Francisco or Brooklyn. He was on the beach. Birds were singing. The ocean waves were lapping at the beach. All was well

THEN BAM!!!! He's mowed down by a turbine-engined Lancair-IV.

Oh, and the reason weight is an issue is because planes like the Lancair-IV are composite. Even this light, fit jogger undoubtedly did a lot of airframe damage. A badly overweight jogger could've cracked one of the wing spars.

Don't worry gturner, I appreciate you even if others don't.

On a vaguely related note I'm just back from swimming at the local pool. Most times I take an underwater MP3 player along, but this morning I discovered I'd forgotten to charge it so I left it behind. I get into the water, and the next thing I know this asian woman in the next lane pops up and says "forgot your radio this morning?" Meanwhile I've never seen her before in my life and I'm thinking "who the hell are you and what are you doing watching me closely enough to notice these things?" For better or worse she vanished back under the water before I could arrange a reply.

 

[gturner]

A gliding aircraft still makes a lot of noise. Glider cockpits are louder than most cars. If nothing else, without the distraction of the music he could've reached out with the Force and sensed the danger.

On another note, the Lancair IV-P probably had a PT6 turbine, one of the most reliable engines there is, yet suffered an oil failure and a prop failure. It makes me suspect that it experienced some type of whirl mode, which is where the engine/prop combination becomes an wobbling gyroscope. This type of failure afflicted the Lockheed Electras. Could it be that this particular Lancair IV had insufficiently stiff motor mounts that allowed the problem to develop? It this is the case, the pilot would certainly have noted severe vibrations immediately prior to the engine failure.

 

[Capn Flukie]

Obviously, if he had a gun he could've just shot the plane out of the sky.

This happened in the South so he was probably listening to Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck, so a tank could've been right behind him, and he'd never hear it coming.

 

[doubleohfive]

But none of this even addresses the point that by the article's own admission, the plane was running silently, gliding. How was the jogger supposed to even know the plane was there either way? Was no one else around? Did the pilot not stick his head out the window and shout? Why don't planes have traffic horns? Should they?

Now this is a much better suggestion - light aircraft need to be fitted with horns in case of emergency landings.

Seriously. If this had been a car accident killing the guy, all fingers would be pointing at the driver and the car. Why is it that a pedestrian, for all intents and purposes, is being blamed for a plane falling out of the sky and scrunching him from behind?

 

[RobertVA]

Be more conservative in your use of said emoticon.

Good one. Did you mean to do that?

BTW - do you mean the Obama-run "Nanny State" where open carry of firearms is very likely to soon be (rerecognised as) the law of the land?

Pesky bill of rights

 

[doubleohfive]

In re-reading the article, the plane and engine were both "kits." Does this mean that the pilot (or someone else) purchased these kits and assembled them?

If so, who does the QC on this kind of thing? Who monitors and maintains that the aircraft is safe to use? In short -- who is accountable for the death of this jogger?

I find it hard to believe that if the plane had crashed and killed just the pilot and his passenger, the family would not be up in arms suing the manufacturing company. Likewise, if it had been a car accident (with, say a Toyota?) that the jogger's family wouldn't be suing the company as well, or even the pilot/driver, however accidentally the death occurred.

 

[USS Triumphant]

Pesky Bill of Rights

Fixed it for ya. Show some respect.

 

[Colonel Green]

But none of this even addresses the point that by the article's own admission, the plane was running silently, gliding. How was the jogger supposed to even know the plane was there either way? Was no one else around? Did the pilot not stick his head out the window and shout? Why don't planes have traffic horns? Should they?

Now this is a much better suggestion - light aircraft need to be fitted with horns in case of emergency landings.

Seriously. If this had been a car accident killing the guy, all fingers would be pointing at the driver and the car. Why is it that a pedestrian, for all intents and purposes, is being blamed for a plane falling out of the sky and scrunching him from behind?

Psst... he's joking.

 

[gturner]

In re-reading the article, the plane and engine were both "kits." Does this mean that the pilot (or someone else) purchased these kits and assembled them?

If so, who does the QC on this kind of thing? Who monitors and maintains that the aircraft is safe to use? In short -- who is accountable for the death of this jogger?

I find it hard to believe that if the plane had crashed and killed just the pilot and his passenger, the family would not be up in arms suing the manufacturing company. Likewise, if it had been a car accident (with, say a Toyota?) that the jogger's family wouldn't be suing the company as well, or even the pilot/driver, however accidentally the death occurred.

The reason it was a kitplane is that almost all of the regular aviation manufacturers, such as Piper and Cessna, were sued silly by the families of passengers and pilots and so they got out of the industry. The idea of a kitplane is to let the pilot assume some liability in partly manufacturing the aircraft.

Lancair has an excellent safety record and inspects the work of the builders.

Here is their website.

 

[Nerdius Maximus]

Yeah, that's what we need. A law that makes it even more difficult for Americans to get exercise.

 

[Mike Farley]

Clearly we should ban jogging. The fewer people out running around (without being chased by something large and fanged) the fewer people that will be potential victims of crashing aircraft.

Nintendo gave us WiiFit for a reason.

 

[bigdaddy]

No, stupid people die out and it's better for the race. If you have your music so loud you can't hear a plane landing on top of you than it's your own damn fault.