Arizona Crash
 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36040752/ns/us_news-life/

Can't believe no one's posted this yet.

Dump truck plowed into bikes at a light. Very tragic.

Wow... how horrible. Unreal.

Driving distracted is my bet - either phone/text related or otherwise.

Ugh.

Um, wow. :(

You certainly can't be seen if they're not looking.

I always felt safer in a group of bikers.

I rode to work this morning and at every stop I watched my mirrors, left plenty of room in front of me and planned my escape route. But I always wonder...will I know in time to react. I never even pay attention to that while in a group. That will certainly change now.

Holy shit! RIP to the riders, and sadly it sounds like there may be more coming.

RIP to the riders.

he was looking for papers he dropped - tragic for everyone. RIP

Where did you hear that Lauralynne? I can't seem to find more than the original article.

The AP news article had that when the story first broke...I can't find the story again but I remember reading that.

That's just awful..

The driver Jakscht (Jack shit??) is a real winner....

He was cited in 2005 for operating a truck with excess weight and in 2006 for having parts or accessories operating in an unsafe or improper condition.

In 2009, while driving a Blue Sky Sanitation truck, Jakscht was cited for not having a fire extinguisher (anyone see pics of the fireball he caused when he hit the bikes?), no pre-trip inspection and failure to inspect emergency equipment. It was later dismissed because the Scottsdale City Attorney has no fucking balls.

Jakscht currently has two pending speeding tickets, both issued this month.

This fucker better go to jail and not get off with a "failure to control speed" ticket that he can go to traffic school and have it dropped!!!

:( Awful. RIP :(

Seeing reports & videos of motorcyclists plowed-over at lights reinforces why I always watch my mirrors, keep it in gear, and stop to the side/angled a bit behind vehicles at lights until a car is stopped behind me.
First learned it when a blue-hair in a caddy almost took me out my 1st year, but I was lucky to see her & was clear to punch it in time.

The wording of this CBS article should get people's blood boiling here.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/...n6333676.shtml

Not surprised. Of course it is the motorcyclists fault for being stopped at that light when that truck obviously had the right of way. They should have known better. Dirty rotten stinking motorcyclists, making the road more dangerous for those careless drivers.

Really? Geez.

Yup, blood be boiling...

Geez, really? The riders got too close to the truck? Nice wording, indeed.

It also says the motorcyclists struck the truck, not the other way around.

Blood. Is. Boiling.

'When several motorcycles collided with a truck'??? WTF. They didnt collide, they got run the fuck over like bowling pins.

Wow, talk about a news spin. They make it out like the riders were at fault. WTF?

Just want to point out to the group that there is a major vote in AZ about lane splitting going on right now. A major incident like this could possibly affect that vote

Nice working.. shesh.. " collided with a truck.. got too close to the truck" Sure they got to close to the truck.. when he didn't stop and then ran them OVER!

It's a trend that I've seen in news reporting; slant the story so that it sounds like the riders were at fault. The flip-side is that when police are involved, they tend to get blamed and little additional bits of information about the rider tend to be left out.

For instance in a fairly recent story about an RCMP officer (who was the senior officer on-site when that Polish guy was Tasered to death at the Vancouver airport) having struck and killed a rider in the Vancouver area, most reports left off the fact that the rider was also legally impaired at the time of his death. It took a while before I noticed that little tidbit.

That article is terrible.

I think lane splitting is soon to be legal in Maricopa County starting in Dec. of 2010 until Dec. of 2011 as a test.

http://www.azleg.gov/legtext/49leg/2r/bills/hb2475p.pdf

I hope the author of that article is run over by a dump truck and then blamed for the accident.

Thats what I was refering to

Here is an update on this terrible tragedy:

http://www.azcentral.com/community/n...rash-abrk.html


Quote:
Phoenix police arrested a 46-year-old man on suspicion of driving under the influence of methamphetamine in the March 25 wreck in which his dump truck rear-ended a group of motorcyclists at a red light, leaving four dead and others hospitalized. Michael Jakscht walked silently from police headquarters Tuesday, his chin to his chest, as officers took him to be booked at Maricopa County Fourth Avenue Jail on four counts of manslaughter, five counts of aggravated assault and seven counts of endangerment.
...
The Carefree Highway wreck came two weeks after Jakscht was cited by Scottsdale police for failing to control his speed to avoid a collision at Shea Boulevard and Hayden Road. The police accident report detailed how Jakscht, driving a pickup truck in his name, struck a stopped vehicle.