Texting teenager plunges to his death An Australian teenager has died after he fell from a multi-storey car park while typing a text message. 19-year-old Ryan Robbins escorted a couple of women to their car late last Friday, in Melbourne. After they parted ways, Ryan began texting a friend, while walking. He did not notice the railing - about waist-high - and …
I'm sorry that the incident happened, but it's bollocks that he 'didn't notice the railing'. A waist-high railing is impossible to ignore. He either lunged for the phone as he lost his grip on it and went over the edge, or the railing was not waist-high or collapsed. Bad reporting.
There is a clip on YouTube of a women falling straight into a shopping centre's fountain because she was too busy texting to look where she was going.
I guess the moral is don't walk and text, or if you do, know the route you're walking. And if at all possible try to avoid walking & texting at the top of car parks, high rise buildings, ravines, crevasses, rope bridges or anywhere else where your attention should be concentrating on not plunging to your death.
The fountain lady didn't die though. I'd liken it to the death penalty debate: should paying far too much attention to your phone result in ridicule or death as a penalty?
He should not have been so taken up in his texting that he didn't see the fall -- but human eyes aren't any good at distance vision outside the area they are focused on, and I don't think it is too much to expect a publicly-accesible building to have a barrier on the roof capable of stopping someone walking off.
Knee-high (if you watched the movie you can see it clearly). Knee-high != waist-high. Knee-high means a MUCH larger proportion of the body's mass is above the fulcrum point and yes, then the body will pitch over and into the water of the fountain.
As for the comments that castigate me for questioning the waist-high comment, I'm taller than most (6'4"), and I have yet to go OVER something that's waist-high even if I tried.
Now the kerb stumble would possibly make physical sense, provided the angle is right.
And if you bothered to read, I questioned the quality of the reporting, which was by someone ALIVE, not the sod who went over the edge.
The centre of gravity of a human is neutrally the navel. In guys it's slightly higher than ladies (more shoulder, less hip). If he was texting, he would have raised his arms. Each of these things raises his centre of gravity.
He may also have been wearing a backpack. If it had a laptop in it, that's a lot of added mass to raise the centre of gravity.
The grandmother says the rail was waist-high, so he was clearly a tall bloke.
A safety railing only prevents accidental falls if it is higher than the centre of gravity. The population is getting taller, so maybe it is time to raise the limit to account for this.
And as for tripping...
Well most car parks have kerbs, right? Even if not a full pavement kerb, those little ones to stop the wheels getting too close to the walls So it's possible he tripped on a kerb or other obstacle *before* hitting the rail? The article doesn't go into detail.
And, to be fair, it shouldn't HAVE to go into detail. What sort of person reads a news story about an accident and starts publically slagging off the person without full possession of the facts?
What sort of person?
I would tell you, but I think Sarah would be obliged to censor it.
The design of barriers assumes that adults are capable of taking responsibility for themselves.
Being over 1.95m (6ft 5) and around 130kg (240+lb) , with a good 70% of that above 1m, I can understand that it would be easy to walk into a 1m barrier and topple over the top.
Perhaps someone should write an app that monitors the rear camera and alerts you to any hazards while you're fondling the slab? Oh wait...that would require allowing downloadable apps to actually multitask....
""Death by iPod" epidemic." - Evidence that technology is helping cull the gene pool.
/mines the (only?) one without the iKiller in the pocket
I've got such an app on my Galaxy S, allows me to see what's coming when I'm texting and walking, but then again, I don't tend to text and walk that often. Came pre-installed on the phone as part of the Samsung suite of applications (although no doubt something similar is available for other Android phones).
Rob
from the bbc link..
"The law on this is vague but the police can - and do - use their discretion in judging these cases. "
I thought it was the Judges that judged, not the Ge^H^HPolice?
If the kid left in charge was 14 and deemed too young, can anyone tell me if the couple of 11 year olds who recently had a kid now have a criminal record? (Apart from making the front page of The Sun)
The Working at Height regulations surely apply to trained staff -- in areas frequented by members of the public you can't assume the same degree of awareness and/or responsibility.
And besides, adhering to government minimum guidelines doesn't idemnify you against civil action -- a court can still rule something as inadequate or inherently unsafe.
Was his grandmother out on the piss with him then? How else does she know he had been drinking but wasnt drunk?
If you've been out drinking and you fall over anything... a coffee table, a curb, a fellow reveller in the gutter, then i'd go out on a limb and say your pissed!
For balance though, lets say he wasnt pissed.
Maybe she could blame the girls he helped back to their car. If it werent for them he wouldnt have been there.
If you cant manage the whole "look where your walking" then you should you be outside in the real world without someone holding your hand!
using my brother as a comparison (not very scientific, but there you go), if he'd been out for a family meal, he may have had one pint before heading home. ie drinking but not drunk. At family meals, there are grandparents.
It may have been the case with this guy, who knows? Could the lasses he walked to their cars have been female relatives?
But yes, I forget, we should jump in with anger and indignity and call everything into question.
an accident. Regrettable, tragic for those involved, but not indicative of any need to further regulate, control or amend. As long as there are tall buildings, people will accidentally fall off them. It's sad, but it's not possible or sensible to try to legislate against it.
Granted, the family trying to push an accident caused (it seems) by inattention or inebriation onto the place where it happened is the kind of idiocy you would expect from grieving relatives, and the reason policy should never be formed on the opinion of the deceased's mother (or in this case, grandmother).
And, granted, falling off something, whilst very easy, is not the most macho way to die - that position is obviously reserved for suffering a heartattack machine-gunning zombies to death while a gaggle of sexually curious schoolgirls suck you dry.
All that said, are you aware that as a result of this incident someone is dead? Not a Neo Nazi, a Tory MP, or some other group everyone despises, like smug Opera users, just some dude like you and me.
Well not like me, obviously. I'm some kind of mutant, it seems.
I would hope that if I did something similar that led to my demise people would say 'Tragic - but a twat'. I would consider it one of those unfortunate but comedic incidents.
Yes, it's a pain for the rellies and others but if they've ever laughed at anything on You've Been Framed or shite sitcoms then maybe they would also be able to recognise a similarity.
"All that said, are you aware that as a result of this incident someone is dead? Not a Neo Nazi, a Tory MP, or some other group everyone despises, like smug Opera users, just some dude like you and me."
What makes you draw this conclusion? He might have been a smug neo nazi MP using Opera for all we know. But according to your statement, that makes it ok if he dies stupidly (I'm not sure I quite understoo your morale). And if he isn't, well he might have been involved in the processing of the Foster urine Australians flood our beer market with (which surely is on par with the smug neo nazi MP Opera user).
Every high place should be fitted with low rails for short people, high rails for tall people, and to be safe, middle rails for average people. They shall also be padded. and the floor as well. Either that, or have someone not totally stupid following each stupid person, not sure what's the cheapest option. But something needs to be done, because 1 (one) person died (I don't think the media would have skipped the opportunity of reporting if the same car park needed to have a pile of bodies removed from the bottom on a daily basis).
You can't kill what's already dead. And zombie experts could tell you that hitting a zombie's body mass is not going to put one down for long. You need controlled bursts of accurate fire not a machine gun. And while dying of a heartattack in face of the onslaught might be macho, it might not seem so much directly afterwards when your buddies are faced with your reanimated corpse. Better to lead them off a cliff or something.
Because iOS won't let user Apps multitask. Therefore, you can't download an app that can monitor your camera while you are texting. Only Apple Apps can multitask, so you'll have to wait until Steve stops saying "you're using it wrong." (of course, he'd be right in this instance, for once).
...scare me too. Sure, he should have been looking where he was going, but can you confidently say that 100% of the time you're 100% aware of what's in front of you?
I'm 6'4" (1.93m) tall, and I've often found walls, railings etc protecting significant drops are lower than arse height, i.e. lower than my centre of gravity. I can think of several situations where I could end up falling over them through little fault of my own (jumping back out of the way of a vehicle, jumping out of the way of idiots larking around, being pushed backwards by someone trying to mug me, etc).
1m is NOT high enough for a safety railing.
It was once pointed out to me that railings overseas were often shorter than here in the UK... I was told this by a friend who saw the world through the 'lens' of skateboarding and skateboarding videos, since US skate videos had much more footage of 'grinding' and 'boardsliding' - where the skateboarder launches himself down a set of railings- on account of the shorter US railing being more suitable for such stunts.
On another note, it does seem strange that Aussie building regs call for short railings, when safety in the Australian workplace is taken very seriously indeed.
Building owners have enough responsibilities without having to extend walls designed to prevent cars from popping over the edge to be tall enough to prevent people stupid enough not to pay attention as to where they are going.
I have just measured the balcony wall off my bedroom and it is 110 centimetres tall and sufficiently high to hold me back even when leaning over to check whose ringing the front door bell.
Death by dumbness should be the coroners decision.
go into a multi story car park with 1m high barriers and get attacked by a bunch of 1.50m high and high teens.
I'm 1.96 tall and 120kg and its fucking scary knowing the little bastards can tip you over with no effort.
I'd like to spend 10 mins up there with the building owners and even the most relaxed health and safety exec.
Only fit for persons of restricted growth.
It's getting to the point where over-legislation, ambulance chasing lawyers and PC is breeding common sense out of the human race.
This to me is an accident. It could have been prevented by a number of things-
Changes to the building so it has higher railings or a solid wall so there are no railings
or
Changes to behaviour, Standing still while texting and watching where you are going.
as in the title people need to be responsible for themselves and not make other people do it for them.
I know that if i stab myself with a bread knife it's going to, at the least, hurt possibly even kill me. I don't need it engraving down the side of the blade to tell me this.
I also know that if i run down the stairs then i am significantly increasing the risk of falling down them. Again i don;t need full instructions on stair useage do and don'ts from a specially trained stair hostess before i sign the waiver to be allowed to use them. OK so i'm exgaggerating, but if we legislate for every single incident because some wasn't paying attention or not taking care of themselves this is how it would end up.
I'm truly sory this young man died and 1m is perhaps to short but the question should be why did he not see the barrier before he fell and could it have been prevented if he wasn;t concentrating on the text message?
If this person was not looking where he was going then it is his own fault for his demise. Personal responsibility for ones own safety is just that, perosnal responsibility. It is up to the individual to watxh out for his/her own safety not for every one else to do it for them.
Read the article carefully. It states that the railing was "about waist-high" and then later says Australian building regs require a height of at least 1 metre.
It does not say that the railing in the car park was 1 metre high. "About waist high" is more than a metre on the average person so the building owners have already gone above and beyond the building regs in terms of safety
So lets try this.
How many people use annually any other than ground level parking floor ?
How many people die annually from tripping / pushed over the barrier ?
does this require sorting out ? In other words is this a mayor problem or are there maybe more cost effective ways to save more lives ? If saving lives is your goal of course. For example providing clear drinking water to say a third world country ?
If I ever see someone getting run over by a car while crossing the road and texting I am pretty sure that I will testify in favor of the car driver.
"Idiot teen texting instead of looking where he's going walks over edge of car park, dies."
I learned this lesson years ago. When changing a track on my CD player, I tripped up a kerb and fell onto a nice, fresh doggy treat. The smell was much less noticeable once I'd vomited over myself. Now, the phone stays in the pocket and the earbuds come out when I cross the road.
If he'd walked out onto a busy road and been hit by a car, would we blame the driver? The local council for lack of safety measures? The government for not mandating such safety measures? The phone manufacturer?
This was an unfortunate accident, partly caused by human stupidity... but 1m barriers are stupidly low. This seems to stray into the McDonalds hot coffe suit, mostly because the suing party actually was right: serving 3rd-degree burning coffe is stupid.
I'm 1.75m and I've seen roofs with stupid 1m barriers, and even a couple of pedestrian overpasses with 1m railings. Needless to say, crossing on those is a terrifying experience given the fact that quakes are common over here. I'd be scared shitless by any railing below 1.40!
This was an unfortunate accident, partly caused by human stupidity... but 1m barriers are stupidly low. This seems to stray into the McDonalds hot coffe suit, mostly because the suing party actually was right: serving 3rd-degree burning coffe is stupid.
I'm 1.75m and I've seen roofs with stupid 1m barriers, and even a couple of pedestrian overpasses with 1m railings. Needless to say, crossing on those is a terrifying experience given the fact that quakes are common over here. I'd be scared shitless by any railing below 1.40m!
It surely would not cost the earth or torch the constitution if we said minimum height for such barriers (where such barriers are mandated by law anyway) should be a tad higher than 1 meter? Without speculating about the causes of this particular incident it IS possible to be distracted under dangerous circumstances without it meaning that you are a total dickhead. One can in fact imagine any number of legitimate and understandable scenarios that do not include "driving an iPhone without due care and attention" or similar sins against the Great Deity of common sense who none of us here posting at Reg ever sin against. Do we? No of course we don't. Not once, ever.
Yeah, yeah, the owners probably wanted to spend only the minimum necessary to meet safety code, but, as has been pointed out many times above, 1 meter (~39 inches and change) seems a bit low for keeping people from falling (or being pushed) out of a structure and onto the street below. Did anyone involved in the construction actually stand next to a 1m piece of railing and say "Yep, I'd feel safe if this were the only thing between me and a multi- storey plunge"? Methinks many rules and regulations should be revisited to see if they are still adequate (too strong given current technology, not strong enough, what-have-you).
Poor kid ... should have known better, but it's still a loss to his friends and family.
Should every pavement have a 2 meter high barrier to stop retards walk into the road, should every pedestrian crossing have gates like railways to physically stop them wandering into traffic, should every cliff around every country be fitted with jump proof fences.
It only takes a second to look at you surroundings and make a judgement about walk with you eyes effective shut.
If this idiot had fallen down a flight of stairs and broken his neck would you be calling for the abolition of stairs.
Re others:
As for all the other pathetic excuses about being throw over the edge; try growing a backbone. You know that dark area that follows you everywhere is just your shadow, not to bogeyman.
Rather than railings, perhaps what should be installed are full padded walls equipped with sirens and high powered lights in case someone gets too close. Really, this is a tragic incident that undoubtedly cannot be attributed to negligent behavior on the victim's part. I mean, why should we be expected to pay attention to some meter high railing? What the hell does it mean anyway? This is clearly a design issue which should be remedied immediately. Texting is a far more important task than paying attention to what's going on around us. That's their job, and, obviously judging by this incident, they aren't doing it well enough. I've heard of people being hit by automobiles while they were texting, people in automobiles hitting things while they were texting, a woman walking into a fountain and drowning while texting. I am astonished the lack of sympathy that texters get! I mean, how can we be expected to pay attention to everything else while we are texting? What about some responsibility? Huh? I mean, a one meter high railing is not going to prevent a person too busy for arbitrary tasks, such as watching out for the edge of a buildings, from heading straight into danger! Where's the responsibility of the oncoming traffic, huh? Where's the responsibility of building designers to prevent people from accidentally falling off? That's what I'd like to know.
sorry for the families loss, but the guy died because he didn't look where he was going. It's his fault, no-one else's. I appreciate the family trying to blame someone or something else.
I often text while i'm walking, but I've never manage to fall off a building, walk into a wall or person or anything else. This is because I have two sensors in my head (called 'eyes') which can detect differences in illumination as well as objects & people, and the distance of said objects and people. I then use my own very powerful biological personal computer (I call this my 'brain') to take evasive action when on a collision course. However, i am not unique in this technique. Almost every animal with intelligence (by which I mean having an IQ higher than that of a shoe) uses exactly the same method, and has done for literally thousands of years. It's a tried and tested method.
Lifeforms with zero or very low intelligence avoid many collisions by not moving much. For example, very few turnips fall off tall buildings because they didn't look where they were going by staying in one position on the ground for the whole of their life, even then they only move by an external force over which they have no control.
Any lifeform with an IQ higher than (for example) a turnip, but lower than idiot may find life more complicated with regards (for example) to buildings and the not falling off them .
Mine's the one I'm weraring whilst I'm checking the GPS for,... hang on, incoming txt
The building regs here are that if there is more than a 1m drop off the edge of a deck etc, you need a barrier 1m high
That's fine for a verandah, but when it's 8 stories in the air (like this was), then a 1m barrier is too low. Some carparks have wire mesh above the concrete car-barriers to prevent this sort of accident (which is what it was) - but not many.
The ridiculous part is the barriers around any sort of pool have to be 1.2m high, but a safety barrier to stop a 100m drop is only 1m...
I'm clumsy. I fully expect to die in some moronic fashion. For example, I've nearly stepped off a mountain trying to get some people in the frame of a picture. I guess I don't have a point here except that I can empathise with the poor bastard. And 1m does seem a bit low.
... of when I was teaching daughter #2 to drive and we went into a shopping centre multi story car park, she drove all the way to the roof looking for a big space, drove into it a tad too fast and bounced the car off the crash barrier (stopping us plunging 3 stories to the car park below) which was followed by a stunned silence in the car...
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