I’ve heard the traffic in L.A. is bad, but this is ridiculous:
“I’ve had a pretty good run,” Woods, with the thinnest of smiles, said at a news conference nine months after he sustained devastating leg injuries when his sport-utility vehicle tumbled off a Los Angeles-area boulevard at a high speed. . . . On Feb. 23, police determined that Woods was driving about 85 m.p.h. in a 45 m.p.h. zone on the winding Southern California road when he lost control of his SUV. . . . He was not charged with any legal violation. . . .
Jeez, what would it take to charge this guy? Going 125 mph and crashing 2 cars? It’s just scary to think of people like this on the road. I mean, yeah, it’s cool that he used to be able to hit a golf ball really hard, but that doesn’t mean it’s ok for him to send his engine flying through my windshield.
“The thinnest of smiles,” huh? He could’ve killed somebody! How ironic, right?? Makes me wanna barf.
Is this going to be the third part in your fame series? Who is the least famous person that would get away with driving 85 in a 45 zone? Or maybe what’s the most horrific crime a famous person can get away with?
Kj,
We can imagine a graph of fame vs. maximum over the speed limit to have been caught driving in an urban area without being charged. Maybe Tiger is there on the efficient frontier.
I bet Henry Kissinger could only manage 25 over the limit. He’s no Tiger!
Kj,
Kissinger seems more like the kind of guy whose driver would run over some kid while speeding through a shantytown on the way to the airport.
Hmmm, let me google *henry kissinger driving* . . . No stories of the diminutive diplomat behind the wheel, but there is this charming bit from when Kissinger was editing a magazine back in the 1950s:
Smugly taking pride at being attacked by liberals for promoting a fascist . . . dude was ahead of his time.
I’m now curious to know what Kissinger actually published from von Salomon in Confluence, but now some other journal begun in 1995 is using that name and it’s hard to find much about it.
You also have to wonder how many maniacs are still on the road despite being caught doing things that would’ve had our licenses suspended.
Just a bit ago the NFL wide receiver Henry Ruggs killed a woman when he was driving 156 in a 45 zone with a BAC of 0.16. Hard to believe this was his first time driving recklessly.
When I first acquired a license (in the US, at age 32) and was signing up for insurance, the bloke in front of me was charged something like US$3,000 (1984 dollars). I suddenly had second thoughts about driving. But my insurance rate was tiny (32 years old, no accidents, not even a parking ticket). What happened to that bloke? Multiple DUIs. But he still got a license.
Here in Japan, being a passenger in a car with a drunk driver gets your license suspended.
Driving in the US is not for the risk averse…
The thinnest of smiles was referring at the “good run” on the golf course, not anything to do with the driving accident. He wasn’t being smug at the car crash. He should have been charged though.
In a story linked to by the story linked in the blog pose, the NYT said:
Woods was not cited, Villanueva said, because under California law that typically requires either an independent witness or a law enforcement officer to witness the excessive speed. He said that Woods did not receive any special treatment, and nobody would be cited for speeding in a solo vehicle collision without any witnesses.
Bob76
Bob:
In that case, I think they should change their rules to keep people like this off the road!
In the US, more people die bowling than in car accidents.
Anon:
Huh? That doesn’t even work as a troll. Seriously, I think you should move to twitter where you can get more reaction from this sort of thing.
Well, I can’t find the link right now so I guess I need to retract the post. But actually there are a lot of people with poor cardiovascular health (older, obese, smoking, drinking, etc) getting excited and upset at bowling alleys.
I assume Anoneuoid’s utterly thoughtless statement is due to reading something like “Mr. Withers said that according to CAHCBS calculations if deaths continue to double every year, in 12 years deaths due to bowling and bowling equipment will outnumber deaths on our nation’s highways” (https://raisedbyturtles.org/bowling-deaths-double) and not realizing it’s tongue-in-cheek?
Raghu:
Nope, there is some dataset out there on people who die during bowling and it is surprisingly high. But it does make some sense after a little thought about the demographics involved.
I have seen it, but now can’t find it.
It may have been rates (per car ride vs per trip to the bowling alley) rather than overall number though. I wish I could find it (I saw it years ago).
Anon:
Seriously, please stop. I don’t want this blog to be a place for trolling. We all have better things to do, and, again, there are places such as twitter and 4chan that are more optimized for such activity.
1.3% of the deaths in the US are traffic-related.
1.4% are gun-related (0.9% homicides, 0.5% suicides).
Does it really make “some sense” to you that there are more bowling-related deaths? One in every seventy-five deaths?
For context, drownings are 0.1% of the deaths. 10 per day on average. Does it make “some sense” that over 100 people are dying daily on bowling alleys?
You’re much more skeptical about COVID deaths…
It is a hilariously ridiculous claim.
Perhaps an hour of bowling is more dangerous than an hour of driving though. That seems plausible.
Most dangerous parts of the sport are (a) the drive to the bowling alley and (b) avoiding getting run over in the parking lot by any economists who happen to be passing by.
> avoiding getting run over in the parking lot by any economists who happen to be passing by.
Or any golfers.
It wouldn’t be that bowling per se is more dangerous. It is that the bowling demographic is much more skewed towards those with poor cardiovascular systems who have that as their primary strenuous activity than those who ride in cars.
But yea, 30k deaths per year at bowling alleys does seem implausible. It was the super bowl, sorry.
I’ve seen a lot of failure to be accountable on the Interwebs, but I have to say, “The Super Bowl made me do it” takes the cake.
Joshua, it’s not in Anonyd00d’s nature to be accountable for the stupid things he writes in this blog. Recall any number of the embarrassing, insane, spammy posts and rants he’s made over the past two years and the hundreds of person-hours other posters have charitably donated to patiently explain why he is incorrect. There’s been no course-correction on his behavior or his ideas. Recall Andrew’s New Years post in which Anonyd00d replied that he would try to improve the quality of his posts and perhaps post less. https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2022/01/01/most-controversial-posts-of-2021/ None of this has happened!!!! Business as usual at the Anonyd00d B.S. factory.
Not news but all recent cars (10 years at least) have engine control units (ECUs) that record vehicle speed among other things. That is likely how the speed was determined. Access to that black box data without the owners agreement is a wider issue. Probably due for discussion as some insurance discounts are now available in return for that information.
California’s speeding laws are more broken than that. This LA Times editorial https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-02-19/speed-limit-reform-vision-zero points out the fact that a 60 year old law requires California speed limits to be set on how fast people actually drive, not how fast it is safe to drive. I wouldn’t be surprised if Palos Verdes hasn’t measured the “current typical speed” in a long time and the speed limit would be unenforceable. Not good.
Unanon –
I value some of Anoneuoid’s comments. Some I think are low quality, but I’m quite sure he finds my comments low quality as well.
But yeah, I am kind of big on accountability, and I think he has displayed a lack of accountability a number of times. It’s strange, IMO, that he doesn’t seem to appreciate that a blatant lack of accountability only lessens the overall quality of his input.
I try to avoid personalizing the comments – but justifying bizarre comments comparing the danger of bowling with the danger of driving, by somehow trying to blame the Super Bowl, was just too ridiculous to not remark upon.
You and I don’t matter, Andrew. He’s good at golf, you see.
Hmm. I’m not so bothered by this specific example, and I wouldn’t be even if it were someone I loath (I don’t care much one way or another about Tiger or any other golfer.)
I agree that someone who puts people at high risk like that should suffer serious consequences. If Tiger had somehow walked away unscathed, or with minor injuries, then I’d agree he should’ve been prosecuted.
If he’d killed or maimed someone else I’d be in favor of locking him up and throwing away the key.
But in this case I’d say he’s certainly suffered more serious consequences than the law would ever have doled out.
Without taking any position regarding Tiger and this case, I do question your logic. If you would through away the key if someone had been maimed, why no penalty because fortunately nobody was maimed? Do you think the appropriate treatment of a potential crime depends on the luck of the draw regarding the outcome?
Under a retributive lens, it’s obvious that realized damage to actual victims should elevate the punishment. But many question what’s the real goal of criminal justice. Retribution? Revenge? Restoration? Prevention?
In any case, we’ve certainly already accepted an retributive element in our laws—hence why we punish “attempted murder” less severely than murder and manslaughter more severely than reckless endangerment.
Lol.. ‘thinnest of smiles’ refers to him characterizing his GOAT career as ‘a good run’. Take time to fact-check before unleashing your unreserved outrage, Andrew.
Is it certain that you can be charged for speeding based on an assumption? I would think maybe you’d have to be observed speeding or have it recorded on a radar. Do people have examples of non-famous people being charged for speeding when there’s no direct record or observation?
Just a random Google, but this is what I found:
Joshua:
That’s terrible. They can prosecute you for robbery, burglary, etc., without a police officer being there when you did it; they should be able to prosecute you for speeding too. In any case, if Woods crashed the car and there’s evidence he was speeding, they should prosecute him for dangerous driving.
I’m not saying they should put him in jail or anything. Just take away his right to drive, give him an ankle monitor or something to enforce it. Dude’s rich enough can afford to pay for a driver, also there’s the RTD.
To prosecute for robbery e.g. a credible witness is needed. Prosecution for possession of stolen goods does not require a witness to robbery but it’s a different case/circumstance. Reckless driving is a serious threat to the public and more effort is warranted e.g against traffic light infractions. However your take won’t play, too many speed and break rules and would perceive it as too harsh,
I dunno. You have to establish a standard of proof that applies across context. There is a limit to the amount of power we want to grant law enforcement. What’s the standard here that we’d be willing to have applied more broadly?
The other question is that we should be careful about assumptions that his wealth blocked prosecution. Obviously, rates of criminal conviction are inversely correlated with wealth but with these kinds of extremely famous people I’d imagine there’s a mitigating impact as higher profile law-breakers might attract more attention.