Torque kills

Last Friday, 24-year-old Kiran Pabla became the city of San Jose’s fourth pedestrian fatality of January, 2015 when she was struck down while jogging down Yerba Buena Road. The city of San Jose had a single pedestrian death in January 2014 in what would be a record breaking year for those killed while on foot.

Kiran Pabla of San Jose RIP

A pair of young men were taken into custody after police determined they were racing down the street when both of them lost control and landed on the sidewalk occupied by Ms. Pabla. The homicide took place in council district 8, represented by Rose Herrera.

After I read this story about Pabla and her demise, I watched this video demonstrating the raw acceleration available in the Tesla P85D “Insane” mode.



It’s admittedly a fun video, and the manly American in me loves torque as much as the next guy.

But the driver accelerates to 65 MPH in what appears to be a leafy residential street? Do the right thing and please take it to the track, guys.

Speed kills, folks, even if you think you’re a skillful driver, because everybody thinks they’re above average drivers. See also this recent story of a speeding driver who pled guilty in the death of cyclist Pam Wells of New Hampshire.

For a partial list of traffic “incidents” potentially involving pedestrians as reported through the California Highway Patrol dispatch system just for the month of January, take a look at this page.

6 Comments

  1. even pro race car drivers lose control now and then.normally for mechanical reasons. You can’t tell me that everybody goes out and does as thorough inspection is a race car gets every time it goes on the track.

  2. Just a minor correction: the New Hampshire driver hit Tom Rogers’s wife, Pam Wells, and three other cyclists; Rogers was at home at the time. Wells and one of the other cyclists, Elise Bouchard, died, while the other two were seriously injured.

  3. “TORQUE IS FUN”
    COULDN’T THINK OF A BETTER HEADLINE FOR YOUR ARCTICLE. AYOUNG LIFE WAS SNATCHED AWAY. Your as dumb as the idiots behind the wheel……

  4. The headline is sarcasm, exactly like your comment that you “couldn’t think of a better headline.” I keep forgetting that the nuances of sarcasm are often lost in typed communication and I apologize about that. I’ve changed the headline to better reflect my views on the topic.

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