Single Car Accicdents/Suicide ???

MarinoMark · 18-05-2006 10:48pm #1

How many of these accidents are suicide ? Most are local young men who know the roads well. My Cousin,a guard tells me that, a few who he knew well,and always wore their seatbelt, did not have it on when they were found DEAD. When a say a few I mean 14 in his area in Tipp over the last 2 years. Half of these did not drink as far as he knew..Quicker than a rope and your family think it was an accident...So sad...Comments Welcome...Mark

seamus · 19-05-2006 12:12am

Would be a strange way to go. It's uncertain, it's rash and it's extremely messy.

Certainly it's not unheard of, a few major rail crashes in the UK have been caused by suicidal people parking on level crossings. That'd be a sure way to do it.

Turner · 19-05-2006 12:15am

Oh definitely a lot are suicides...

Same as train/dart suicides.

More people commit suicide than are killed on the roads every year.

And how much money is pumped into road safety???

jimmycrackcorm · 19-05-2006 12:15am

Would be a bit of a hit and miss idea for for suicideas there is no guarantee it would kill. to be sure you'd have to disable your airbag. I'd say a fair few are actually down to falling asleep at the wheel.

Rovi · 19-05-2006 12:35am

jimmycrackcorm wrote:

Would be a bit of a hit and miss idea for for suicideas there is no guarantee it would kill. to be sure you'd have to disable your airbag. I'd say a fair few are actually down to falling asleep at the wheel.

A close relative of mine is an EMT (Emergency Medical Technician (ambulance crew)), and he tells me that a goodly proportion (30%+) of the single vehicle/single occupant crashes he attends show no sign of any attempt at evasive action, emergency braking, etc; merely a vehicle driven at high speed into a solid immovable roadside object.

Sleep? Suicide?

Who knows?

Probably both, if the truth was known. Impossible to tell.

leeroybrown · 19-05-2006 12:35am

Some probably are but as pointed out above it lacks certainty. I'm sure that some of them (to quote a friend) just "ran out of skill". I'm reminded seeing a driver lose control of a car through plain poor driving and skidding all over the road. If they had gone off they would have had a very nasty accident.

seamus · 19-05-2006 12:36am

Again, this is another reason why we need comprehensive road safety stats. If the amount of driver suicides is significant, then perhaps we're not doing as badly as we thought we were (even though we know we are).

John R · 19-05-2006 12:42am

Sleep is a big problem on main roads and particularly motorways but on back roads where constant driver input is needed it is not likely.

The lack of good crash statistics would be more compromised by the skewing of findings away from suicide where any doubt exists. Unless there is hard evidence to confirm suicide the official cause will generally be given as accidental.

r3nu4l · 19-05-2006 9:40am

Yep, I'm pretty sure that there are a higher number of suicides than we know of. Disabling the airbag and not wearing a seatbelt while driving at high speed into a wall or tree is likely to kill.

As seamus pointed out, we need far more comprehensive stats on road deaths. Then we would have a better idea. JohnR is right though we would only get those figures that were 100% positively identified as suicide, others would go unnoticed.

As I pointed out in another thread, blaming provisional drivers for accidents and the like is probably wrong, the stats would show us if they were properly collected and analyzed but I have a feeling that the Government don't want us to have this information.

HelterSkelter · 19-05-2006 10:08am

seamus wrote:

Would be a strange way to go. It's uncertain, it's rash and it's extremely messy.

Certainly it's not unheard of, a few major rail crashes in the UK have been caused by suicidal people parking on level crossings. That'd be a sure way to do it.

It is a known fact that when men commit suicide they usually pick a extremely violent way to go. Women on the other hand usually do something like take an overdose.

HelterSkelter · 19-05-2006 10:12am

MarinoMark wrote:

How many of these accidents are suicide ? Most are local young men who know the roads well. My Cousin,a guard tells me that, a few who he knew well,and always wore their seatbelt, did not have it on when they were found DEAD. When a say a few I mean 14 in his area in Tipp over the last 2 years. Half of these did not drink as far as he knew..Quicker than a rope and your family think it was an accident...So sad...Comments Welcome...Mark

I think it is more of a problem that we are lead to believe. I can't believe that there is practically no research into it. I could find very little on the net last time I searched. I emailed samaritans and they said they have not looked into it. Our suicide rate in this country is higher than the road deaths so it is not difficult to come to the conclusion that a lot of people would use a car crash as the method to end their life.

corktina · 19-05-2006 6:12pm

Rovi wrote:

A close relative of mine is an EMT (Emergency Medical Technician (ambulance crew)), and he tells me that a goodly proportion (30%+) of the single vehicle/single occupant crashes he attends show no sign of any attempt at evasive action, emergency braking, etc; merely a vehicle driven at high speed into a solid immovable roadside object.

Sleep? Suicide?

Who knows?

Probably both, if the truth was known. Impossible to tell.

my wife is a Paramedic...(they don't call them EMT's down here any more...) and she says some of them are sure to be Suicide .....the general suicde rate is way higher than the official number she thinks.........

bushy... · 19-05-2006 6:27pm

It was kinda what I was getting at the other day , the same group of people who have a higher suicide rate also have a higher chance of accidents.Without getting carried away maybe the same story applies to a few of the single car & few drinks ones ,my idea being if you were in that mindset , a few drinks wouldn't help and a while later there you are with the ways and means to carry it out.

Danno · 19-05-2006 11:42pm

An ex-Garda that I speak to feels that ALOT of it is suicide...

nlgbbbblth · 21-05-2006 9:13pm

corktina wrote:

my wife is a Paramedic...(they don't call them EMT's down here any more...) and she says some of them are sure to be Suicide .....the general suicde rate is way higher than the official number she thinks.........

What official number?

If we were to believe fatality reports in the media then it would look like there was no suicide in Ireland. A suicide is rarely, if ever, reported as a cause of death by the media. Instead we get intelligence-insulting euphemisms like 'looking for no one else in connection with this death' , 'died tragically', 'fell in front of train' , 'entered the river' etc. Instead of the actual facts.

And people wonder why there's such a stigma about suicide...:rolleyes:

audizerstoren · 22-05-2006 12:14am

It would seem extremely unlikely that anyone contemplating suicide would try to do so by driving into a wall,pole ditch etc..surely It would be too uncertain with the possbility of serious injury and or permanant and drastic disability to think about...

and as for women taking the less violent way out of life...try telling that to the train drivers when some poor deranged soul has jumped or walked in front of their train...there have been quite a few females involved in recent times..

monument · 22-05-2006 12:59am

seamus wrote:

Would be a strange way to go. It's uncertain, it's rash and it's extremely messy.

To the contrary, it could in most cases be very well planned – if something goes wrong the person is left with a car crash, if it goes to plan it’s a fatal car crash - there’s at least the perception that there’s less of a chance that the people left behind will have to suffer the ‘stigma about suicide’.

The falling asleep at the wheel thing may be expected on motorways etc, but what we’re talking about normally goes something like ‘single car crashes on local road into tree/wall’. Of course, alcohol and sleep will account for a lot of this…

popebenny16 · 22-05-2006 11:37am

I wouldnt rule it out, but I think drink = sleep is more the common problem. Note that most of these accidents occur between 2.00 and 6.00am whihc points towards the drink = sleeping, dozing off, distration.

Alun · 22-05-2006 11:49am

Wasn't it 5th Gear that did a test a few years ago where they concluded that on long straight roads like motorways, tiredness was way more dangerous than alcohol. On twisty roads, it was exactly the opposite. Makes sense, really.

base2 · 22-05-2006 1:01pm

Has anybody survived such an attempt and come out and admitted such?

Seth Brundle · 23-05-2006 12:03pm

On a side note, I recall reading in Auto Express a few years back that in the UK they have about 50 people each year, just dying on their motorways and the car drifts along to its eventual stop.

MrPudding · 23-05-2006 12:23pm

I did sociology a few years ago. One of the topic covered was suicide. It would seem that there are people that attempt or succeed with death by car. One of the main reason was thought to be that death in a motor incident is never ever ruled as suicide in an inquest.

This mean it might be an option for someone who really wants to end it without making it look like they actually did. They might think it would be easier on those they left behind or simply because their life insurance won't pay out for suicide but will pay out for an "inexplicable" car accident.

MrP

cargrouch · 23-05-2006 12:35pm

base2 wrote:

Has anybody survived such an attempt and come out and admitted such?

A friend of mine implied that his brother's accident was not what it appeared to be. He did survive it. There had been at least one other situation where the family had thought he was going to try to achieve the same end through different means.
I would believe that a certain percentage are not pure lack of skill/genuine accidents. Some planned, some a kind of "Ah I don't give a f*** what happens" and foot to the floor.
However my opinion would be that majority of young male single vehicle accidents 12am-6am are purely excess speed and/or drink/drugs/tiredness and the thought of suicide never even crossed the drivers mind.

MarinoMark · 26-06-2006 8:40pm

cargrouch wrote:

A friend of mine implied that his brother's accident was not what it appeared to be. He did survive it. There had been at least one other situation where the family had thought he was going to try to achieve the same end through different means.
I would believe that a certain percentage are not pure lack of skill/genuine accidents. Some planned, some a kind of "Ah I don't give a f*** what happens" and foot to the floor.
However my opinion would be that majority of young male single vehicle accidents 12am-6am are purely excess speed and/or drink/drugs/tiredness and the thought of suicide never even crossed the drivers mind.

To sum it all up, If you take off your belt, aim for a tree,wall,ditch, at 60mph you are dead...no rehab..dead....no organ donations, unless u leave a note...dead..A rope over the rafters in the garage,loft etc..suicide...family left to explain..feel guilty...could we have done something etc.....Ditch, tree, wall...accident .................ps..Insurance policies dont pay on suicide...This is COLD but I am afraid its also true....M

Sleipnir · 26-06-2006 8:50pm

I do believe this "suicide by crashing" is balls really.

Has anyone ever come across ANYONE who has left a suicide note saying "I'm going out in my car and I'm going to crash it to kill myself"?Anyone?

If someone really wants to commit suicide, they want to die; they don't just want to "try" to die. Crashing your car into something just leaves too many variables for the attempt to fail so I don't believe anyone who is serious about killing themselves would consider it as an option.

corktina · 26-06-2006 9:44pm

I could be wrong, but i'm pretty sure that when I worked for a UK Assurance comapny many years ago, that suicide WAS covered.....might be different here of course....

Victor · 26-06-2006 10:09pm

corktina wrote:

I could be wrong, but i'm pretty sure that when I worked for a UK Assurance comapny many years ago, that suicide WAS covered.....might be different here of course....

Assurance maybe, insurance no.

monument · 26-06-2006 11:17pm

Sleipnir wrote:

I do believe this "suicide by crashing" is balls really.

Has anyone ever come across ANYONE who has left a suicide note saying "I'm going out in my car and I'm going to crash it to kill myself"?Anyone?

Wouldn’t that contradict the point of trying to hide the suicide?

Sleipnir wrote:

If someone really wants to commit suicide, they want to die; they don't just want to "try" to die. Crashing your car into something just leaves too many variables for the attempt to fail so I don't believe anyone who is serious about killing themselves would consider it as an option.

You could say “anyone who is serious about killing themselves” wouldn’t try an over dose as there’s the possibility of them not doing it right / getting pumped etc…

jimmycrackcorm · 28-06-2006 11:45pm

I'd be more inclined to suggest that falling asleep at the wheel is a more obvious answer.