Flying laptop kills driver

Here comes the Laptop Safty seats!

I'll always put the safety belt on my notebook!

It had been a Netbook or UMPC?

There would be a different headline...

"Flyng laptop bruises driver"?

Was this story supposed to be amusing? Maybe it's a Three Stooges thing: the laws of physics sometimes mediate surprising injury and death. HahHahHah!

Maybe she could have survived if it was a MacBook air, as it would have floated away to cyberdom

I was an EMT. Fatalities or brain trauma(which can be worse) have been caused by textbooks, bottles or canned goods. Don't leave heavy objects to become projectiles in your vehicle. It's usually kids who get smashed. I can't see the humour.

not funny at all. this is lame
emil, a href="http://www.citate-celebre.com/famous-quotes/" best quotes /a .com

What's with all the dummies complaining that this isn't funny? It wasn't presented as a "funny" article.
The article is very simply and factually put, with even a safety recommendation at the end.

So the question is: why do the people who are complaining that this isn't funny, think it is funny?

Nitwits.

Oh it was Nemo with the safety recommendation...still though people are idiots....they're the worst.

Maybe better judgment by the driver would have saved her life?

If she wasn't wearing that death dealing seat belt, she would have been thrown safely from the car away for the evil seat belt forced on her by her evil over-controlling govt.

Death to seat-belt pushers everywhere! no really, kill them all.

Well, this is an obvious candidate for a Darwin Award. Removing oneself from the gene pool in this way must increase the chances for a safer gene pool. A gene pool where people will not be as inclined to place heavy ballistic objects behind them in moving vehicles.

(Ok, I'll get my coat now)

Or rather, I was driving a hatchback and struck in a side-impact around the rear wheel; the car spun a good 180 and a laptop, which had been loose in the back, went through the rear glass (along with some other belongings). Better than my head, I suppose. Laptops have the "benefit" of being somewhat heavy and made of slippery plastic, so they're going to fly relatively easily in a crash.

In light of my experience: If you have a hatch or wagon with a cargo cover of some type, use it; nobody gets in an accident on purpose, and it'll keep your stuff from going projectile if you're struck. (Similarly, never rest projectiles -- that includes coat hangers, so watch out if you use your coathooks -- in front of your front or side airbags unless you're shooting for a Darwin Award.)

The gene pool need chlorine

It's quite hard to imagine since the seat area will be a lot lower than the head area inside a car. but yeah I have always put a seatbelt on my laptop if it's not inside the laptop bag, if it's in the bag I put it in the leg area between the drivers seat and the backseat, although I have to admit I do it in order to protect the computer :P

There seem to be a lot of people criticising the victim...
I assume every last one of them straps down every item that weighs more than 8oz before they set off.
Let this story be a warning, anything loose in the car can become a lethal missile. Laptop, briefcase, frozen food from Tescos or even your mobile phone (especially if you still have a motorola 8800!)

This man has said everything I was to polite to post myself. Word.

I believe Top Gear covered something like this?

Having tool boxes etc in your boot of the car with a crash at 30 mph will force the tool box into the back seat with a force greater than 2 tonnes (quite something for a toolbox weighing about 15-20kg).
With empty back seats the tool box forced its way through the back seat throwing tools through the windscreen and into the driver (a dummy) and all over the inside of the car, this also pushed the rear car seats so they touched the back of the front car seats.
With people(dummies again) in the back seat the seats still forced the seats forward a lot probably going to seriously injure those in the back seats.
The only bit of safety they could offer in that situation is to connect the seat belts on the back seats and that reduces the movement of the rear seats stopping it being so damaging if you have heavy objects in the boot along with pushing the heavy object as close to the back seat as you could inside the boot so it couldn't pick up as much momentum.
You don't want to know what happened when they put cakes on the parcel shelf it was just a disaster!

.. Of Death..

It's ridiculous to blame the laptop or the woman and to ignore the other side of the incident.
As if a bullet is the only thing responsible for a kill and the gunner and his gun are innocent...

Death is always funny when it's done via a very pathetic and humiliating circumstance.

the writer of the article got it right.
The statement was released 30 days after my daughter , Heather , died.
I wasn't in very great shape.
I have made 4 memory quilts and written 2 cookbooks dedicated to her and I have the collection of her short stories.
Heather was more than a daughter. She was a wonderful lady that spoke also spoke, Chinese, Mandarin, Tagala, German, French, and was learning Italian.

Anyhow the article..the point was the "tow truck driver" ...is charged with.. "undue care and attention"
simply the police made the statement that day....she would have lived...
and that brillant reporter that said
"Flying laptop". got it right and saw what the police were doing..

The coroner got it right and said this
"lady died from automobile accident"
the police report does not.........

And that brillant reporter got it right..
The police stated........"the laptop flew"
and as a brillant co-worker said to me..
We had a bad storm and I phone my insurance company and say..the roof just flew off my house..and the adjust replies.."so you admit the roof flew and was not caused by the storm thus your claim is denied"

and that is what happened here.......
it is now up to the court to decide..

so far..that driver has not seen one day in jail...the maximum that driver that will get is a $2000 fine.......

that is the value

the court has the right to change the charge if it even goes to court....
the driver can just go in an plead guilty and pay the $2000

and on April 16, 2009 the day of the headline..the car insurance company did pay the $44 for the ambulance......

that was it...........

90 days later W.C.B. paid for the funeral
that was it....nothing else..