Gee, I hope Ton wasn't anywhere near this area last night.

Last night, a drunk driver rammed through a DUI checkpoint into a crowd leaving the South by Southwest Music Event (where Project Gooseberry was announced)
http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/13/us/texas-sxsw-crash/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

Authorities have not released names of the dead, but they were a Dutch man on a bicycle and a local woman on a moped, Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo said, correcting his earlier statement that the victims had been on a motorcycle.

It looks as if Ton is safe, but I have to ask. Does the BF have any plans in place as to how the Blender project will move forward should something bad happen to Ton, this might be important to know as some projects tend to slowly wither away if the project lead is no longer around?

Nope:
“Police say Rashad Charjuan Owenswill be charged with capital murder in the deaths of 35-year-old Steven Craenmehr of Amsterdam, Holland and Austin resident Jamie West, 27”

Okay, so Ton will be alright, but it seems like they have a quote from Pablo Vasquez (VenomGfx) saying he was only a foot away from being smashed by the driver, so it seems like there were Blender users around that area at the time (including some of our more talented artists).

Well, I am not trying to downplay the loss of life at all - but crazy stuff happens everywhere, and we are mortal after all.

Even blender users get hurt.

For the record, that wasn’t “our” Pablo. He wasn’t at SXSW. Crazy coincidence, though.

Drunk drivers have also struck far too closely to my life. Although I’m generally not too keen on technological intervention in private things, the notion has been floated of equipping cars to basically breath-alyze the driver. If the driver’s drunk, the car won’t start.

While I am sure, of course, that “drunks are very determined people,” who would studiously find a way to smash their cars into crowds anyway, sometimes I think that anything is worth a try.

You haven’t lived (or, nearly died) until you’re coming off an exit-ramp at 50 mph and here comes a red pickup truck (of course) weaving unsteadily down the ramp towards you . . . Fortunately, I went one way, slipped past without a collision, and pulled to a safe [screeching …] stop, while he hit the guardrail before he made it all the way to the traffic lanes. Ran up to him, at first thought he might be dead (which would have been just fine with me, I think …), but no … he was just that drunk. If I’d had a cigarette lighter, his breath would have made a very nice torch. They say he was at or near the point of alcohol poisoning.

I got in my car after the police were done, drove up to a nearby hotel (because I knew the adrenalin was going to wear off soon), checked in … and positively “lost it” for a while. I honestly thought the Grim Reaper was driving a red truck, and that my number was up. I called everyone I knew and babbled at them, just to hear their voice.

@sundialsvc4

Yea, I live in the UK “we have some of the worst designed roads in the world, don’t believe me check this out LINK, it has its own wiki FFS!” anyways I have seen my share of bad driving and accidents :(. Drink driving is bad and should not be tolerated but fitting a breathalyzer to a car should only be used on convicted drink drivers. Not only are the chemicals used in breathalyzers carcinogenic “that’s why they have a valve that stops you sucking”, they are also unhygienic and easily overcome.

In my experience stupid people are far more common and often more dangerous than drunks. If your going to advocate compulsory breath tests why not IQ test as well?

But seriously, if you really wanted to crack down on drink drivers the way to do is to require thous selling/providing alcohol to make sure their customers/guests don’t get in a car drunk. Make it illegal to sell/give booze to someone who has not made proper travel arrangements in the same way they cant sell to drunks or youths. 90% of drink drivers get in there car at the pub/restaurant car park or outside a private residence.

If it was a crime to sell to someone who was later driving, the pub/restaurant owners would either prevent the drunk from getting behind the wheel “by calling the police” or by booking them a taxi. Same goes for thous organizing a party.

The closest call I ever had was when a mongtard had a load of wood planks stuck 2 meters out of his drivers side window like a lance or spear. The guy was on the opposite side of the road to me coming straight at me. He then decided to overtake a cyclist forgetting he had the lance out of his window. I pulled as far over as I could but the planks still hit my car “luckily hitting the metal column, not the glass and sliding up the side of my car onto the roof snapping of my aerial”. The guy then realized what he had done so pulled back in, nearly crushing the cyclist on his inside before speeding off into the distance. Total idiot!

All i can say is, I wish all the best for the family’s involved. Please people don’t try to turn such a thing into a discussion. I have no idea why this happened, who did it and why they did it. All i can say is if anyone hurt or killed was part of our community then the best thing we can do is put together a financial fund for those killed and hurt to lower the blow to the family’s involved. Someone set up a donation fund and your have my small contribution (as i have nothing much to give, but always will try to help). Very sad to hear this happened.

An old adage my father always said: People are going to do what people are going to do.

No amount of technology can prevent 100% of these murderous characters from somehow finding a way to get behind the wheel. Just have your not-drunk friend do the breath test and then drive anyway. And some people are stupid enough while sober to go along with such a hair-brained idea.

Another, less reported problem here in Florida: people on prescription drugs (whether legally or not) driving, sometimes in a state more impaired than from alcohol.

I mentor underprivileged kids. I was with one of these kids once, driving him to his house, and was in a turn lane on a busy highway (US 19) about to turn right. A girl in a little car looked straight at me. We made eye contact. To our astonishment, she gassed it while I was barely 30 feet away. I nearly t-boned her doing 30-45 mph! I swerved into the travel lane again (not knowing at that moment if there was traffic there or not), and, as we went by, horn blaring, she accelerated and nearly t-boned my friend and I! She swerved across 4 lanes of traffic into the left turn lane. I stopped, shaken, and made sure she knew how angry I was. Unfortunately, these things happen routinely due to abuse of whatever substance is on sale that week.

If you’re going to ruin your own life, don’t take other people with you. But, alas, people are going to do what people are going to do.

Dan

Everyone deals with things like this in there own way, talking about your own close calls and discussing it are normal reactions.

As for the “fund”, they don’t have to be part of our community to require help. You could even donate to an alcohol abuse charity if you want to help reduce the chances of it happening again.

@MCHammond, I wasn’t talking about the reflections of people who have had such near misses and personal tragedy effect them. The above posts on those lines are healthy and ultimately important in effecting people’s outlook on life. I’m talking about the posts not giving any thought to what happened to the people involved and the effect that will have on friends and family, when making statements like ‘what would happened to blender if something happened to ton’ which just seems self serving and a little cold. If they were Blender related people then yeah we should take the case personally and provide some support, Like friends do at work when tragedy hits a colleague or family member and a whip round is done. Nothing wrong with getting personally involved. Also would add i give £30 a month to Shelter here in the UK and have done for years, also give what ever i can for any good cause if local to my surroundings or abroad. The UK way.

Good point sweet Dragon i have been wondering about this. Once Ideasman had said in one of the Blender guru podcast something like " there are two peoples who knows blender really well him (and somebody else that i don’t remember the name) if something bad happens to them blender will have hard time"

This is just a idea that the Blender Foundation may ponder even though they don’t publish it as a B plan but just something to think about.:wink: