It is better to be late Mr. Jones than to be THE LATE Mr. Jones:
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Another engine driver trying to kill a ship? Seriously, what were they thinking?
I doubt there was much “thinking” going on there.
That happened in Quebec. The gentleman driving the camper lost his brakes and didn’t have much choice as to where he was going. He died in the crash.
A sad event, for sure, and thank you for identifying where this happened… My guess is that when his brakes failed he simply panicked, and instead of a merely destructive stop, he tried to “ride it out” and, after traveling through town, found himself without options once reaching the ferry dock.
brake failure so rare these days but maybe 30 year old brakes with no maintenance can do it?
It says in some articles he tried slowing down by bringing the side of the RV into a metal railing that went along the road, but obviously didn’t slow him enough.
If it had happened seconds later they would have landed in the water, and he might have survived if they could get out before it sank…
It say there was a 40 years old woman in it with him who survived but was in a critical condition.
Since the 1950’s, all (4-wheel+) motor vehicles should have at least three separate, independent brake systems - two (usually hydraulic) driven by the brake pedal braking diagonally-opposite wheels and one mechanical (usually called a “parking brake”). To have all three fail simultaneously requires a stupendous level of poor maintenance, abysmal luck or both.
I thought the same thing that if they had been a few seconds later they would have hit water instead of the ferry - but the lack of mechanical integrity demonstrated by the RV would have made that a very iffy survival situation as well - they had a LOT of vertical velocity when they hit.
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Just nit-picking – Saab and maybe others used diagonal brake circuits, but most vehicles have front and rear circuits.
Correct you can have disc and drum on same circuit and yes the hand brake/emergency brake is meant to be independent