"Not bad driving for a quadraped"
Posted on 07/14/2009 9:33:55 AM PDT by rdl6989
A man died after his car plunged 600 feet off the edge of the Grand Canyon's South Rim, authorities said Tuesday. The Arizona park's regional communications center received several reports of a car driving off the edge about 6 a.m. Monday, according to a written statement.
"Upon arriving at the scene, investigators found tire tracks leading to the edge behind the Thunderbird Lodge and received reports of a single occupant in a blue passenger car driving over the edge," the statement said.
Rescue personnel descended on ropes and found the vehicle about 600 feet into the canyon. The man's body was recovered shortly afterward, the statement said.
The incident occurred near the El Tovar hotel in a village on the canyon's South Rim, park spokeswoman Shannan Marcak said.
Authorities have not ruled the death a suicide, she said. "It has not been ruled anything at this time."
The statement said the National Park Service is investigating. Typically, Marcak said, such investigations take at least a few days.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
I was just there with my family three weeks ago and stayed at the Thunderbird Lodge. Glad he waited until this week to drive over the edge. Would have ruined a perfectly nice vacation for us had this happened when we were there.......
Your 6 yo grand son is a wise child. You’d never get me close to the edge either!
Hmmm was their handicap access? Was there a sign post that read something like: Do not drive vehicles over the rim. Driving over the rim could cause death or serious injury. Also was there a saftey net hung so to catch any car that might go over the rim? Was the car equipment with anti gravity devices to protect occupants should they drive over the rim of a deep canyon? I think Congressional hearings should be called to answer these questions.
I’m a publik skool grajuate and suck at math but hey I tried.
If you were a liberal, NEA union teacher I would still pass with an A.
;)
That is one of the things I like about the GC. They expect personal responsibility. Many people are shocked when they see that most places don't have railings. They are used to their safety being someone else responsibility.
I take each of my daughters on a 3 day hike to the bottom of the Canyon when they are 8 years old. I have five and the next trip is for my fourth daughter this October. I am counting the days.
Is that the European or the African swallow??
You’re not counting gravity, and that 40 mph was the horizontal vector, not vertical.
I myself won’t be counting wind resistance, launch angle and terminal velocity, but:
It will take 6.1 seconds to land, and he should land 358 feet out while going 134 miles per hour vertically.
I knew physics class would be useful somehow. :)
Exactly. See, I knew this had merit. ;-)
You’d get a “A” just for asking the question.
Good for you Pete. I’m looking forward to it for you. Have a great time.
Damn, you guys beat me.
No disrespect intended but Japanese tourists are slightly crazy. I was in Yellow Stone one year and saw a Grizzly down off the road. I stopped with my friends and we were taking pictures of the bear. Japanese tourists came up behind us, stopped and got out, asking me what we were looking at, I told them a Grizzly, you could just make out his head and ears behind a log. They started down the hill toward the bear with me yelling at them to stay away from it. Fortunately for them the bear stood up and tossed the log it was hiding behind into the air and growled, 25 Japanese tourists set land world speed records getting back up the hill and into their cars!
Many Japanese tourists get hurt in Yellow Stone every year because they just don't get the concept of wild animals, IMO.
He was posthumously ticketed for not wearing his seatbelt.
how fast he was going is immmaterial. he was accelerating downward at 9.8 meters per second, squared.
I did find a picture of the vehicle though.
My wife and I drove through Rocky Mountain National Park on that winding state highway that runs through it, she was terrified the whole time.
I was driving and that may have had something to do with it. I offered to let her drive and she wouldn’t do that either.
It was the first time I’d ever seen snow on my b/day - June 29th.
So if I stand on the top of the canyon and shoot a pistol at the bottom, the bullet will only travel 32ft/sec? Just askin, I’m math challenged. I couldn’t add two and two and get 150 billion for a bailout.
No, I just don’t feel like doing the math for such a brief interlude. :)
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