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...
Why does the headline have to start with the word "Canadian". Why couldn't it say "woman killed by unsecured laptop"? As a Canadian geek I have to say that I find this slightly offensive.
yeah what's that aboot?
you offend too easily.
Ya hey der, eh!
@coffee:
And if it said "Asian killed by unsecured laptop during car wreck," I'm sure you would be saying "that's par for the course."
As a human being, it's RyeHigh's right to be offended by anything he so chooses.
"yeah what's that aboot?"
I see what you did there. He shoots and scores!
You should probably consider living in a closet for the rest of your life..
If the writer wanted to include that detail in the title, it's his choice and up to his own will, or at least that's how it should be. If the writer wanted to poke at some nation, then again, it's his choice and he should be free to do that. Pretty soon you will find offensive titles that have the word "woman" or "man" in it. Maybe we should replace that with.. monkey descendants..
Heh, you're offended by "Canadian killed..." but not by "Woman killed...".
TheWC,
Being offended by the facts of an accident may be someone's "right", but it doesn't make it any less thin-skinned. Being offended seems to be high on everyone's list lately, and it's too bad.
It wasn't a judgment call. It didn't say "careless Canadian" or "dumb Canadian", nor did it imply that all Canadians drive around with unsecure laptops in their back seats. It simply used her country of origin as a descriptor to let you know where the accident occurred before reading it. Usage of the word "Canadian" didn't sway the article in any way.
But people will take offense at whatever they like, and they offend too easily.
I think it says that because she was Canadian.
@ The WC, thank you. @ Jerry, I see your point. How about "Driver killed by unsecured laptop"? No matter how you say it, just don't forget that someone lost their life.
Because it was in Canada, you dolt. People like you, who get offended so easily are ruining the world. This site is based in the U.S., so naturally the majority of it's reader base is in the U.S.. If something happened outside the country, we refer to it by that. IE: Canadian killed in car crash.... BECAUSE IT WAS EITHER IN CANADA OR THE WOMAN WAS FROM CANADA. It'd be the same for African, Chinese, European, German, Slovakian, and Finnish. Get over yourself.
"A being from an undisclosed location was injured today..."
That's only because you a-hole Canadians are so damn "sensitive"
-jp
I'm surprised that this turn of events is being heralded as new. I remember back in driver training class (almost 20 years ago) that there's been a long-held statistic that unbuckled rear seat passengers are the most common cause of seatbelt related fatalities. Turns out it's not the rear passengers being killed. They come flying forward and cause blunt force trauma to the buckled front seat passengers.
It was an HP laptop, apparently located in the rear window, my neighbor was the attending cop on the scene, I saw a picture of it and it had a huge curve dent on the right side. Also she was not hit by the tow truck but drove into it while it was parked.....
show some respect and keep the cheap comments to yourselves....
My favorite lesson from high school physics:
"How many of you have driven with your dog in the rear seat of a car?" *hands come up*
"With conservation of momentum, what happens if the car crashes on the freeway?"
Student: "The dog keeps going."
"Exactly. You end up with a 20+ lb cannonball at 70 mph. Even if it hits the seat, that'll put you in the hospital for a bit with back problems"
I think of this and smile every time I see a little lapdog yapping at me from the back of someones car.
That's what always worried me while transporting computers in the back of my Element. I've actually had an entire computer lab back there once. I figured one of the 25 G3 iMacs would probably kill me in a crash.
assuming the emarrassment of driving an Element doesn't get you first.
The Element. More desirable after the crash...coz there's one less on the road.
a candian crash test dummy what will they think of next.
Hmm.. not so much a laptop as a headtop...
Getting hit by a multi-tonnage tow truck is bound to bad for your health.
Anyone wondering why there was no headrest on the seat? Most headrests cover at least the majority of your head from the back, if not all.
That doesn't make any sense. Assuming she got rear-ended by the tow truck, I don't see how a laptop in the backseat would go forwards. Physics has taught me otherwise.
Rear-ended by a truck? You have a sick mind, dude!
It doesn't say she was rear ended
The relative velocity of the laptop to her body was not 70mph. They were both traveling at the same speed before so it was probably flung like 10 mph by the crash.
"says the vehicle's abrupt stop sent the computer flying into the back of Storey's head. The force of the blow was so severe that it shattered the computer's screen and bent the frame. "
So, if she was driving 60 KPH, then the laptop was also going 60 KPH. If she was hit from the front (which it sounds like she was) the car and the girl stop cold, and the laptop keeps it's forward velocity, so in this scenario the relative velocity would be 60 KPH after the impact, hence broken computer and dead girl.
BOOOM HEADSHOT!
Anyone find it inappropriate that just above the story they are advertising for a Dell XPS laptop.
With those flapping heads and beady eyes,
surely decapitating a Canadian doesnt require that much?
won't the top half of the head just come off? :P
This is more common sense than anything.
When I went to do a 'safe driver training' (more or less an offensive driving) course, this is one of the first things they told us.
sometimes engadget makes little word errors, and grammatical whoopsies, and you just roll your eyes and surmise that they probably have tough deadlines to live by. then, something like this happens, and it's rare, but those who can get to stare fundamental stupidity right in the face.
Blunt force trauma is my favorite speed reggae band, doesn't hold a candle to Vasily Chernobyl and the Meltdowns though.
Hmmmm, and her headrest was where during all this? I would think the laptop should have hit the headrest unless it was not adjusted properly.
Sad story, but not new. Rember Tom Mix was killed by his luggage about 70 years ago, same scenario. I keep my laptop in front with me so I can get some work done while commuting. Obviously a safer place than the back seat.
The "whole thing" would have been survivable if the Tow Truck wouldn't have hit her.
WOWWWW...
I have been hit before (pretty hard) and never really feared being smacked in the head with anything.....
BUTTTTTT I was at a complete stop.... heard screeching and loooked up in time to see the OHNO face of the lady that was hitting the back of my car....
and my rearview mirror flew off, so I went from watching what was happening to suddenly not knowing why I couldn't see what was going on lol.... I seriously thought I died.... then I realized I just lost the mirror....
lol but that think could have killed me, i see.....
Whether she was killed by a laptop hitting her head, or anything else hitting her head, she was still a human being and her death was an unfortunate accident and should not be considered a joke. If it was your family member, how would you feel? I'm sure she has friends and family that will miss her and are mourning her. She deserves to rest in peace.
It's another sad story of car accident, only with the aid of laptop as the main cause of death. Better secure your belongings whilst driving.