Two Deaths In Cliff Road Accidents - Two Different Outcomes?
The death of celebrity plastic surgeon Dr Frank Ryan on Monday has been all over the papers this week so far
. Wisdom has it on good authority that Dr Ryan, who was 50, had been sending text messages to his brother just before his 4x4 plunged off the road at Route 1, the famous Pacific Coast Highway, near Malibu and on to the rocks below.
Visitors to his Twitter account will discover that the last update was posted immediately before his accident, with Dr Ryan's final Tweet containing a picture of his border collie Jill enjoying the beach on the west coast.
Although the dog, who was in the car, escaped relatively unscathed, Dr Ryan suffered fatal head injuries in the crash and was pronounced dead at the scene.
Any visitor to the road where Dr Ryan died will attest that it is not the ideal environment to lose concentration. Crash barriers are few and far between, the road surface is on the loose side in places and the rocks below, as Dr Ryan had the great misfortune to find out, are very unforgiving. Route 1 spends a great deal of time spiralling upwards into the mountains, where even in the summer the threat of fog is omnipresent, making the already dangerous road potentially treacherous.
It is possible to lose control of even a very modestly-powered car here, thanks to the 'marbles' of loose asphalt. Texting or Tweeting, therefore, is not a sensible use of a driver's mental resources in these conditions.
On the other hand, this is just hearsay and the precise cause of the accident is, as yet, unknown. Having lived in the area, Dr Ryan was presumably all-too-aware of the risks associated with flippancy on this road.
The question is: even if texting or Tweeting was the cause of the 4x4's veer off the road, could the crash still be construed as being Dr Ryan's fault?
In Scotland this week, a council was fined GBP20,000 after an elderly gentleman accidentally drove off the edge of a cliff at Dunoon Coal Pier and into the River Clyde, in 2007.
Duncan McGillivray, who was 75, had apparently selected first gear instead of reverse while leaving his car parking space near the pier, and unfortunately drowned before rescue crews could reach him. Witnesses reported seeing his Vauxhall Astra creep forward at about 5 mph before dropping into the sea below.
The pier, which was fully functional until 1997, had not been properly prepared for public use when it was opened in 2006, it was alleged. Not only had Argyll and Bute Council failed to erect a barrier on the pier's north edge, they also failed to assess the risk of their actions and did not inform the Health and Safety Executive of Mr McGillivray's accident, as they should.
Ruling that they were clearly liable for the accident that claimed the victim's life, prosecutors said the council should have identified that leaving a sheer drop into the Clyde was asking for trouble.
After the accident, the car park was closed and subsequently re-opened with traffic barriers and pedestrian hand rails in place.
One wonders whether the Californian authorities will face a similar action? Pictures of Dr Ryan's accident scene show his vehicle left the road at a section of road that was totally unprotected from the drop to the sea.
If this had happened in Britain, they probably would have to accept responsibility. Even though, in the Scottish case, it was Mr McGillivray that literally drove his car into the sea, the fault lay elsewhere, with an organisation that should have been more aware of its duties to the public. It will be interesting to see if anything similar happens across the Atlantic.
by: Richard Craig
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