I wonder why it took so long when it was pretty clear at the time that the bus was on the wrong side of the road.

Townsville bus driver charged over triple-fatal Bruce Highway Greyhound crash.

Police have charged the driver of a Greyhound bus involved in a triple-fatal collision on the Bruce Highway in North Queensland in June.

Townsville man Peter Cafe, 52, was arrested on Tuesday and charged with five counts of dangerous operation of a vehicle causing death or grievous bodily harm.

Two German women, aged 21 and 33, and a 56-year-old Townsville woman died on June 30 when the Greyhound bus collided with a four-wheel drive towing a caravan.

Three men, also bus passengers, were hospitalised with serious injuries.

The crash happened on a stretch of the Bruce Highway at Gumlu, which is north of Bowen......

Things now become clearer in superyacht sinking.

Italian authorities have opened an investigation into what happened on the doomed superyacht as a Kiwi captain is grilled for several hours.

Italian authorities have opened an investigation into what happened on doomed superyacht Bayesian after it sank off Sicily — with the captain grilled for two hours.

The bodies of billionaire tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch and his teenage daughter Hannah are among the five bodies divers recovered on Wednesday from the wreckage of his $58 million luxury yacht.

The 59-year-old and his 18-year-old daughter were said to be trapped by two mattresses inside a cabin on the superyacht, according to Italian publication La Repubblica.......

.....Mr Cutfield’s interrogation comes after divers found that the keel, a crucial part of the boat’s structure which helps keep it balanced, had been raised when the yacht was anchored off shore......

Now why was the keel raised while it was anchored offshore and who raised it?

The builder of the yacht speaks out.

Firm that built superyacht Bayesian say ‘human error’ is to blame.

The firm that built tech billionaire Mike Lynch’s superyacht Bayesian that sank off the coast of Sicily say “human error” is to blame.

On Thursday, the head of Italian Sea Group, Giovanni Cotantino, said the tragedy could have been avoided after the $58 million ship capsized in a water spout on Monday morning.

“Everything that was done reveals a very long summation of errors,” Mr Costantino said.

The company, which includes the Perini Navi company, built the luxury 56-metre yacht in 2008.

Mr Costantino told Italy’s Corriere della Sera newspaper that bad weather was forecast and all the passengers should have been gathered at a pre-arranged assembly point, with all the doors and hatches closed.

Security camera footage of the ship from the shore showed the lights on its mast going out, which Mr Costantino said indicated a short circuit, meaning that the ship had already taken on water, AFP reported.

“A Perini ship resisted Hurricane Katrina, a category 5 (hurricane). Does it seem to you that it can’t resist a tornado from here?” he told the publication.

Mr Costantino said it was “good practice when the ship is at anchor to have a guard on the bridge, and if there was one he could not have failed to see the storm coming”.

“Instead it took on water with the guests still in the cabin. They ended up in a trap, those poor people ended up like mice in a trap,” he said.......

Sadly another Cessna Caravan falls from the sky. :-(

A plane carrying tourists has crashed shortly after taking off from Bangkok. All nine on board are believed to have died.

A small plane has crashed in Thailand and all nine people on board, including five tourists, are believed to be dead.

The turboprop plane had departed Suvarnabhumi Airport, the main airport in the country’s capital Bangkok, and crashed shortly after take off in Chachoengsao province on Thursday afternoon, local time.

It has been reported five Chinese tourists (including two children), two flight attendants and two pilots were on board.

About 300 officials were sent to the area to search for bodies, with several human body parts already being found, Thai newspaper Khaosod reported, citing Chachoengsao governor Chonlatee Yangtrong.......

What's taking so long to see that complete 'autonomous driving' is still science fiction.
Questions about the safety of Tesla’s ‘Full Self-Driving’ system are growing

Three times in the past four months, William Stein, a technology analyst at Truist Securities, has taken Elon Musk up on his invitation to try the latest versions of Tesla’s vaunted “Full Self-Driving” system.

A Tesla equipped with the technology, the company says, can travel from point to point with little human intervention. Yet each time Stein drove one of the cars, he said, the vehicle made unsafe or illegal maneuvers. His most recent test-drive earlier this month, Stein said, left his 16-year-old son, who accompanied him, “terrified.”

Stein’s experiences, along with a Seattle-area Tesla crash involving Full Self-Driving that killed a motorcyclist in April, have drawn the attention of federal regulators. They have already been investigating Tesla’s automated driving systems for more than two years because of dozens of crashes that raised safety concerns.

The problems have led people who monitor autonomous vehicles to become more skeptical that Tesla’s automated system will ever be able to operate safely on a widespread scale. Stein says he doubts Tesla is even close to deploying a fleet of autonomous robotaxis by next year as Musk has predicted it will.

It's one accident after another on the Bruce Highway lately. But the latest accident has been the one with the biggest impact, and the result of the diversions due to the accident have resulted in multiple more accidents occurring due to the increased traffic on the detour roads- a detour that adds about 4 hours to the trip.

Section of Bruce Highway between Gin Gin and Calliope to remain closed after truck explosion

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Grant
Darwin NT

That is one big hole in the road!
From another article that provides more details:

The tanker was carrying 42 tonnes of ammonium nitrate, which triggered an explosion.

"Just after 9:40am, a blast was heard and felt and there was a visible large cloud of smoke," Superintendent Burgess said.

"Emergency services were able to review the scene by use of a drone that indicated several spot fires along the rail corridor."

He said the blast radius was about 500 metres.

... No people or personal property have been damaged in the explosion, although some powerlines are down and there are spot fires along the rail corridor.

"Approximately 15 minutes later … the smaller tanker full of product had actually exploded."

The stupidity of some road users know no bounds.
Oh well, at least this idiot will be off the road for 12 months.
Coming to a fast food outlet near you soon (UK)

The stupidity of some road users know no bounds.
Oh well, at least this idiot will be off the road for 12 months.
Coming to a fast food outlet near you soon (UK)

I've been behind cars where the driver is just talking to the passenger & they're spending most of their time looking at the passenger & not the road. And when people use a mobile phone it seems to suck up even more of their attention.
But to be texting, while driving a truck, at highway speeds?
He shouldn't be allowed to drive at all, not just for the next 12 months IMHO.


Oh, and while the people did the right thing in getting out of their car, it goes to show that you should move as far from the edge of the road as you can, and move away from your car towards the oncoming traffic, not away from the oncoming traffic.
ie don't have the car between you and the on coming traffic. If the truck had really collected that car, they would have been wiped out like skittles by a bowling ball.

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Grant
Darwin NT

1st it was Tesla's Autopilot and now Ford's BlueCruise is under the spotlight.

A fatal accident involving a partially autonomous vehicle could test the laws surrounding advanced vehicles.

Should drunk drivers go to jail if advanced car technology lets them down?

The question could be answered in a test case in the US, where an electric car with advanced semi-autonomous driving systems failed to stop when confronted by stationary vehicles on a dark highway.

Police said a man driving a Hyundai Elantra stopped to assist a stationary Toyota Prius on a six-lane highway at 3am on Sunday March 3 when both men were hit by a new Ford Mustang Mach-E travelling at speed.

AP reports Police charged the driver of the Ford, 23-year-old medical student Dimple Patel, with homicide by vehicle while driving under the influence and involuntary manslaughter.

The American news service quoted a criminal defence lawyer, Zak Goldstein, as saying the case would test US laws surrounding drink-driving, as prosecutors must be able to prove that “DUI [driving under the influence] caused the homicide”.......

Should drunk drivers go to jail if advanced car technology lets them down?

Yes! You as the 'driver" behind the steering wheel, sober or not, are ultimately responsible to control the vehicle even if it is "semi-autonomous".

These vehicles are nothing more than fancy toys being driven controlled by a dumb computer that's programmed by another dumb human being. GIGO - Garbage In, Garbage Out.

Should drunk drivers go to jail if advanced car technology lets them down?

It depends.
If it is a fully autonomous vehicle, then no. The person in the vehicle can't be responsible as it's not possible for them to drive it.
But any other sort of level of autonomous vehicle- yes, the driver is still responsible as they are there to take over if something occurs that the cars systems can't deal with. If they are drunk, then they are DUI.

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Grant
Darwin NT

Someone might have forgotten to take their meds..
‘Erratic’ plane passenger ‘ripped open’ exit door, walked onto wing: ‘Strange behavior’

Thought you were impatient to depart an airplane? An antsy passenger was arrested in Australia after he “ripped open” the emergency exit of a grounded aircraft and walking along its wing.

“The man was exhibiting some quite strange behavior,” a “terrified” fly-witness Audrey Varghese, 21, told Melbourne Radio 3AW of the wild incident. The incident occurred aboard a Jetstar flight that had flown from Sydney to Melbourne, CBS reported.

The plane had come to a halt at its destination, when, suddenly, the unnamed flyer “immediately got up and basically charged to where the emergency exit row is,” she recalled to 9 News Australia, adding that he appeared “erratic” and was “shoving people, causing a bit of commotion.”

Yeah, that was about 3 weeks ago.
Hopefully a huge fine and banned from flying.

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Grant
Darwin NT

An update on the Bruce Hwy explosion with some history of other such incidents.

Bruce Highway truck explosion leaves Bororen residents reeling week after blast.

.....Shock waves were felt for kilometres.

Mr Humphries and his family were forced to evacuate after a 2.5-kilometre exclusion zone was put in place following the fiery collision.

"We were told just grab the essentials and leave," he said.

When they were finally able to return to their homes, they were met with twisted and buckled doors, smashed windows, cracked ceilings and walls, and rubble.

Mr Humphries said the full extent of damage to nearby properties was unclear with insurance assessments now underway.

The highway reopened this week under strict traffic control and speed limit changes following a five-day closure, but authorities say road repair works may last for weeks.

Scott Collins, who runs a vintage record store on the Bruce Highway in downtown Bororen, said it was lucky the close-knit community was not wiped out.......

Well that plane isn't going anywhere in a hurry.

Tail section knocked off Delta plane during collision at Atlanta airport.

GROSS! How did they miss this at the passenger's baggage screening?
Amsterdam to Detroit flight turns back as maggots rain down on passenger

A flight from Amsterdam to Detroit was forced to turn around after maggots fell from the overhead bin onto a passenger.

Passenger Philip Schotte told Fox 2 that the woman sitting next to him on Delta Flight DL133 "was freaking out" when at least 12 live maggots fell on her.

"I don't really know what was going through my mind. I was trying to process it – disgust is one thing of course," Mr Schotte said.

He said the passengers had to wait for flight attendants to come, who tracked the critters to a passenger's bag in the overhead compartments.

"They found out that there was a rotten fish in there," Mr Schotte said. "I did see everyone's reaction to the bag being opened, which was just an immediate pinching of the nose."

He said the fish, which was wrapped in newspaper, was taken to the back of the plane while the flight returned to Amsterdam Airport Schiphol.

"I am surprised that both a rotten fish and live maggots were not picked up on by security," he said.

In a statement, Delta Airlines said the trip was "interrupted due to an improperly packed carry-on bag".

"The aircraft returned to the gate and passengers were placed on the next available flight. The aircraft was removed from service for cleaning."

A few things that may contribute to this very unpleasant event:
For most internal European flights cabin baggage doesn't get a deep screening.
Amsterdam airport is a massive interchange hub, where flights from all over Europe (and beyond) congregate.
In some parts of Europe rotting fish is a "delicacy", and it may be considered "normal" to carry it in one's cabin bag.
Not all passengers passing through Schiphol from within Europe have to check-in their baggage for their next flight.

So if Mr.Rottingfish flew into Schiphol from say Bergen (where rotting fish is considered a "delicacy") with a connecting flight to Detroit it is highly probable that his bag would only be checked at Bergen, and he would carry it with him for the rest of his journey, and only the size f the bag would be confirmed, and Delta probably allow a much more generous bag than Norwegian or SAS the bag would be considered to be "OK".
I do have to ask where was Mr.Rottingfish's common sense in carrying rotting fish wrapped in newspaper for several hours and not to expect the rotting fish, or its maggots, to escape.

On one of my trips to China a "fellow passenger" was caught trying to board the flight with an opened jar of Durian. He was caught while we were going through one of the numerous "security" queues by an airport cleaner. Let's put it mildly - he missed his flight, and probably the next few (it was against airport rules to have a jar of the either opened, or sealed). When the bag was opened (a good few yards from the queue) the stench rolled across the place, accompanied by a sea of people retching....

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

That story was from 7 months ago.

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Grant
Darwin NT

I thought there was something fishy about it. LOL!

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