Published Sunday, june 10th, 2007
As reported by newspaper, The Sun’s headline read, “ 3 killed at 125mph”. They were reporting on the tragedy of three young people, 30 years and under who lost their lives in one blinding flash while being conveyed in a top of the line BMW M3 convertible at apparently such a horrendous speed that upon impact with a palm tree the car actually exploded. This occurred at the La Zenia roundabout along the N-332 on the Costa Orihuela, Alicante Provence.
As this is an opinion column I feel compelled to weigh in with my two cents worth. But, this is not going to be a judgemental piece about young people out partying because their families have quite enough to deal with already without someone, such as myself, who didn’t even know any of the three or their families making critical comments. After all, I’m not so old that I don’t remember that I was young once. However, I am reminded that one only gets to be my age if you have a whole lot of luck and a very active guardian angel.
Rather than getting bogged down with the obvious, I would like to give you my impression of how I felt on hearing this news: Firstly, I became aware of what had happened through the Spanish nightly news, which included some rather graphic footage of the crash scene. I could not take in what I was seeing. Later, the Costa Levante News produced the print version of the story, which I have read and re-read many times. The first time I read it completely through, and subsequently I have analysed selected parts and dwelt on them.
One sentence stated “The impact was so great that the car’s engine was hurled 200 YARDS from the wreckage.”
If The Sun and The Costa Levante have their measurements correct, we can make a comparison with the following to get a better idea of just how far the engine was thrown. The width of an American College football field is 160 yards, and the length is 360 yards.
The regulation soccer field length is 130 yards, and the width is 100 yards.
This means that the emergency services would have passed the engine on the way to the scene. If it was in plain sight they would likely have exclaimed, “ What’s that?”
Another sentence stated that the car “ smashed into a palm tree at 125 mph and exploded into pieces.” Using a converter I found on the internet to convert mph to km/h we see that 125 mph is 201.16 km/h. I then proceeded to find something to measure that with, so I looked up the current land speed record held by a road going car, which led me to the strangest discovery. It seems that a young man named Mike Newman, in an effort to raise awareness of the problems of blindness, (as well as raising funds) set the record on October 11th, 2005 at Evington Aerodrome, near York, England, in a BMW M5, by travelling at 178.5 mph, while blindfolded. His previous record was 144. mph, and that is only 19 mph more than 125 mph. If indeed that car was travelling at 125mph, that will surely be the record for the N-332.
As reported by newspaper, The Sun’s headline read, “ 3 killed at 125mph”. They were reporting on the tragedy of three young people, 30 years and under who lost their lives in one blinding flash while being conveyed in a top of the line BMW M3 convertible at apparently such a horrendous speed that upon impact with a palm tree the car actually exploded. This occurred at the La Zenia roundabout along the N-332 on the Costa Orihuela, Alicante Provence.
As this is an opinion column I feel compelled to weigh in with my two cents worth. But, this is not going to be a judgemental piece about young people out partying because their families have quite enough to deal with already without someone, such as myself, who didn’t even know any of the three or their families making critical comments. After all, I’m not so old that I don’t remember that I was young once. However, I am reminded that one only gets to be my age if you have a whole lot of luck and a very active guardian angel.
Rather than getting bogged down with the obvious, I would like to give you my impression of how I felt on hearing this news: Firstly, I became aware of what had happened through the Spanish nightly news, which included some rather graphic footage of the crash scene. I could not take in what I was seeing. Later, the Costa Levante News produced the print version of the story, which I have read and re-read many times. The first time I read it completely through, and subsequently I have analysed selected parts and dwelt on them.
One sentence stated “The impact was so great that the car’s engine was hurled 200 YARDS from the wreckage.”
If The Sun and The Costa Levante have their measurements correct, we can make a comparison with the following to get a better idea of just how far the engine was thrown. The width of an American College football field is 160 yards, and the length is 360 yards.
The regulation soccer field length is 130 yards, and the width is 100 yards.
This means that the emergency services would have passed the engine on the way to the scene. If it was in plain sight they would likely have exclaimed, “ What’s that?”
Another sentence stated that the car “ smashed into a palm tree at 125 mph and exploded into pieces.” Using a converter I found on the internet to convert mph to km/h we see that 125 mph is 201.16 km/h. I then proceeded to find something to measure that with, so I looked up the current land speed record held by a road going car, which led me to the strangest discovery. It seems that a young man named Mike Newman, in an effort to raise awareness of the problems of blindness, (as well as raising funds) set the record on October 11th, 2005 at Evington Aerodrome, near York, England, in a BMW M5, by travelling at 178.5 mph, while blindfolded. His previous record was 144. mph, and that is only 19 mph more than 125 mph. If indeed that car was travelling at 125mph, that will surely be the record for the N-332.
Incidentally, I also have a new found respect for palm trees.
I have long held an opinion that a manufacturer who makes a road-going car that can greatly exceed the maximum speed limit is not acting responsibly. In Germany there is no limit on the autobahn, but elsewhere in the civilized world the maximum is 120 km/h. So, why do we have cars in Spain that can top 200 km/h? It is not an isolated case that someone drove a car at such a speed. I have written before of very rich people who have been seen driving along the motorway at top speed in their top-of-the line sports cars. They seem to have been completely oblivious to the fact that they would very quickly catch up with unsuspecting traffic ahead.
Most loss of life on the roads doesn’t involve such dramatically high speed, but death is death. This incident comes on top of so many others we might be tempted to say that we have become numb. That is not the way I feel. Each tragedy weighs upon my psyche. Because my wife and I are parents of a teenaged son I always think of what must it have been like for the parents to have received the initial news, and how do they cope on a day-to-day basis. I think of my own mortality and wonder if it might all end in a flash for me. Most of us think and assume that it will not, but why not? Yes, we can control our own behaviour, but we cannot control the behaviour of others.
Former American President, Bill Clinton was famous for saying that he felt the pain of those who suffered around him. I feel the pain of the three families and their friends. Their loss did not have to be, and that must surely make it worse. It’s one thing to have a family member involved in a high-risk endeavour and to lose them through that, such as was the case of the space shuttle Columbia that disintegrated upon re-entry into earth’s atmosphere. The three families concerned simply lost their loved ones to a fun night out.
Finally, a police spokesman made the understatement for the year as he said, “it’s a miracle nobody else was injured as there was wreckage all over the road. The car exploded on impact.” That particular roundabout is usually very busy with people even waiting at the impact site for the bus. The fact that it happened at 6am saved many other peoples’ lives.
So, to Emily Scourfield, 24; Jonathan Grafton, 27; and Brian Hill, 30, Rest In Peace.
. Copyright (c) 2007 Eugene Carmichael
I have long held an opinion that a manufacturer who makes a road-going car that can greatly exceed the maximum speed limit is not acting responsibly. In Germany there is no limit on the autobahn, but elsewhere in the civilized world the maximum is 120 km/h. So, why do we have cars in Spain that can top 200 km/h? It is not an isolated case that someone drove a car at such a speed. I have written before of very rich people who have been seen driving along the motorway at top speed in their top-of-the line sports cars. They seem to have been completely oblivious to the fact that they would very quickly catch up with unsuspecting traffic ahead.
Most loss of life on the roads doesn’t involve such dramatically high speed, but death is death. This incident comes on top of so many others we might be tempted to say that we have become numb. That is not the way I feel. Each tragedy weighs upon my psyche. Because my wife and I are parents of a teenaged son I always think of what must it have been like for the parents to have received the initial news, and how do they cope on a day-to-day basis. I think of my own mortality and wonder if it might all end in a flash for me. Most of us think and assume that it will not, but why not? Yes, we can control our own behaviour, but we cannot control the behaviour of others.
Former American President, Bill Clinton was famous for saying that he felt the pain of those who suffered around him. I feel the pain of the three families and their friends. Their loss did not have to be, and that must surely make it worse. It’s one thing to have a family member involved in a high-risk endeavour and to lose them through that, such as was the case of the space shuttle Columbia that disintegrated upon re-entry into earth’s atmosphere. The three families concerned simply lost their loved ones to a fun night out.
Finally, a police spokesman made the understatement for the year as he said, “it’s a miracle nobody else was injured as there was wreckage all over the road. The car exploded on impact.” That particular roundabout is usually very busy with people even waiting at the impact site for the bus. The fact that it happened at 6am saved many other peoples’ lives.
So, to Emily Scourfield, 24; Jonathan Grafton, 27; and Brian Hill, 30, Rest In Peace.
. Copyright (c) 2007 Eugene Carmichael
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