Canadian killed by unsecured laptop during car wreck
By Darren Murph 
posted Apr 16th 2009 1:56PM
posted Apr 16th 2009 1:56PM
Here's a tip folks: don't get in car wrecks. If you someday find such a situation unavoidable, however, here's another: keep that laptop of yours in the trunk, or at least in a case tucked down behind the driver's seat. Mounties in British Columbia are reporting that a Canadian woman who perished in a car accident last month was actually killed by the laptop within her vehicle. As the story goes, the 25 year old's vehicle was struck by a tow truck, flinging her laptop into the rear of her head. A coroner pegged the cause of death as a "blunt force trauma," and investigators believe that the whole thing was survivable had the machine not been in the back seat. Not surprisingly, officials are using the incident to encourage others to secure their belongings whilst traveling.[Via Switched]
First!
what's with the "encourage others" link leading to articles tagged "safety"?
makes sense to me...
sue the laptop maker!
lol! I thought that by unsecured they meant the wifi had no password X.x FAIL
"the whole thing was survivable had the machine not been in the back seat."
So, just do what's pictured above and you'll be fine.
Sucks if you would get killed by a stack of Playgirl magazines.
Someone could sure use a corona
It killed her because there was too much RAM in it.
Sheesh people just don't know how to l;eave their things securely in their cars. even a pencil can be a fatal projectile in an accident, much less a laptop.
I'm sure she did it on purpose and didn't inadvertently leave it lying around like 99% of all other motorists. The key here is not to crash; even a handful of change will do you over as your face hits it at 70 mph +.
Subwoofer boxes can do this as well, except the big heavy box makes more of a splat noise when it his someone at high speeds.
If a subwoofer hits your head during a car accident, and no one is alive to hear it, does it make a splat noise?
Nope, makes a dull thud.
I've been in a crazy high speed accident before and it was pretty surreal where everything in my car ended up. It was a hatchback and stuff from my glove compartment ended up by the rear window, and stuff from the back of the car was in the front. CDs and napkins and power adapters were everywhere. Thankfully the only heavy thing I had (a club) was on the floor.
At any rate, this laptop is a good example of why you should always make sure your rear seat passengers are wearing their seatbelts. I have a friend who has the annoying habit of always secretly taking her seatbelt off in the back seat of my car when I wasn't looking. Then one day my car got sideswiped by a bus (thankfully the way it hit my car it only pulled my bumper and front fender off) while she had again taken her seatbelt off. And now she always remembers to wear her seatbelt.
If the bus had hit my car at a slightly different angle she'd have been a human projectile like this laptop. And not only would she be hurting herself badly, people unbelted passengers can fly into the other passengers in a car, including the front passengers and injure or kill them. Two skulls smashing into each other at 50mph isn't good.
At least she gets to be entombed with "Death by Laptop".
I wonder if it had Intel Inside.......
C'mon, this was a tragic accident. Incidents like these weigh heavily on my mind.
*runs away*
She obviously wasn't using her head.
Good thing it wasn't a Macbook Air!
Or else it mightve beheaded her.....
Heh.. MacBook air--cause of death--decapitation.
Women drivers.....
so unfunny you jerk
sorry we drive better then men, thats who hit her:(
She was covered by Sheilas Wheels.
It would be wise to the read the article before you comment.
Can you recall the last time you read an article about a fatal car accident, that involved a woman behind the wheel?
what's with the "encourage others" link leading to articles tagged "safety"?
Not that it matters...but any word on the make/model of the laptop? Granted, anything traveling 65+ mph colliding with your skull will probably kill you - but just wondering.
It was a PC, probably HP by the look of it. There are pictures on almost all Canadian news sites with the mother holding it.
On the other hand, Engadget's suggestion to keep the laptop secured behind the driver's seat wouldn't have helped much, since that's where it was and it had actually come from of the case it was contained in.
Bravo on *actually* reading the articles guys.
Yeah, can I buy it on eBay?
I call BS, all cars have headrest, how the hell is she going to be hit in the head by a laptop? Probably foul play by some friend of the police, it's always the simple explanations eh.
Darren, did you just use the word "whilst"? :0)
Quick! Pass a law to protect us from ourselves!
as so the war starts, judgement day is upon us, the machines are taking over.
Austin Powers: Not the time to lose one's head.
Vanessa Kensington: No.
Austin Powers: That's not the way to get ahead in life.
Vanessa Kensington: No.
Austin Powers: It's a shame he wasn't more headstrong.
Vanessa Kensington: Hmm.
Austin Powers: He'll never be the head of a major corporation.
Vanessa Kensington: Okay, that'll do.
Austin Powers: Okay.
Whilst I am sad for her death :( - thank you for bringing up Austin Powers :)
This is actually the main reason they make you put away your laptops/mp3 players/etc on airplanes during takeoff and landing. They know they won't interfere with the plane's electronics, but they just don't want sizable electronic devices flying across the cabin when the plane hits turbulence during takeoff or landing.
I'd be intrigued to see a report whereby a seemingly innocent pencil or similar killed its owner during a particularly hairy patch of turbulence.
Yeah. You have to put away a 8 ounce MP3 player, but not a hardcover book. Go figure...
Laptops don't kill people, tow truck drivers do.
GLC?
actually the laptop had its own mind and was plotting the attack for years without the owner's acknowledgment. this case should be documented as the one of the first robotic uprisings.
Darwin's theory at work.
Please explain, in your words, this "theory."
Must've been a toughbook.
Update:
They found out it was Dell, and that the accident was apparently a suicide attempt. A self-written suicide note written on MS Word said, "I can no longer go on being a Dell. I'm far inferior. Give my best to the Adamo and the upcoming smartphone."
Hey, it looks like you're writing a letter.
It's sad what happened to her. And to be honest, most people just throw there stuff in the back when they're traveling and don't really worry about it. Some of the comments on here are rather condescending as if they never do that - whether it was laptop or bag of groceries.
My question is, does her car not have a head rest? When I sit in my car, my whole body covered from the back by the seat itself and the headrest. Even if the person's tall, it can be extended and the bars would probably hold the laptop from going through.
Yea I'm kinda surprised/disappointed that everyone on here is so quick to joke and label her a dumbass because she left something in the back seat. Don't get me wrong, I have a pretty good sense of humor and joke about shit that I (if I were politically correct, which I'm far from) shouldn't but she was KILLED in an accident that (if I'm reading correctly) wasn't even her fault...