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Car goes airborne in Pru tunnel; driver dead, passenger injured
By adamg on Sun, 03/26/2017 - 10:07am
State Police report a 19-year-old Suffolk University student from China died early this morning when his car somehow flew upward and hit the ceiling of the Pru tunnel eastbound at the Back Bay exit.
The driver of the 2013 Audi A8, Yao Cao, who lived in Brookline, was declared dead at the scene after the crash around 2:15 a.m., State Police say. His passenger was taken to a local hospital and is expected to survive, State Police say.
The car took down wires and cables along the tunnel ceiling, State Police say, adding the crash remains under investigation.
Aftermath photo by WCVB.
According to e-mail sent by Suffolk to students today, he was a freshman from Changchun, China and was a finance major.
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Comments
A 20-year-old driving an A8
A 20-year-old driving an A8 at 2:15am... I don't mean to be insensitive given the fatality, but something tells me speed and/or substances may have been a determining factor.
Speed is its own drug
For some, risky behavior like this lights up the same brain sectors as many drugs do.
At least BASE jumpers rarely kill other people, though. Some people are a bit more discreet about their crazy driving and motorcycling - going to the tracks, keeping it very rural, etc.
Assumption...
"but something tells me speed and/or substances may have been a determining factor."
That something was not in the news article. Nothing but an assumption on your part.
"For some, risky behavior like this lights up the same brain sectors as many drugs do."
More BS from an assumption. The article says nothing about speed, From FTA: "Investigators are still trying to determine how the car went airborne."
So, it could have been a sudden steering wheel pull caused by a sneeze which could have caused it to pogo into the roof. The girlfriend in the car is expected to do OK.
In other words, we simply don't know. An analysis of the black box (OBD computer) will have the info in it. The scene analysis (skids etc) will help explain it.
The truth will come out, no need to place blame before all the facts are in.
Who were you replying to?
Speed had to be involved - basic physics, dear. You can look up the conditions on google and calculate it for yourself given the airborne outcome.
I was merely clarifying that drugs weren't necessary.
I was replying to the both of you.
But since you are so smart, I'll respond to you, dearest...
Your bullshit is showing. Speed did not have to be involved. It was a curve. A car can go high enough to clear that height easily.
I've seen it happen.
"You can look up the conditions on google and calculate it for yourself given the airborne outcome."
No, you cannot. Unless you know the exact conditions of the accident, you cannot say how it happened. Wait for the forensics. Believe it or not, there are ordinary people out there that are really good at their jobs. Let them tell us what happened out there on the ramp.
I was merely clarifying that you don't know what the hell happened out there.
Dude
If he hit the ceiling, he was going pretty fast. Who knows what the cause of that speed was, but speed was certainly a factor. And I say this as a poster who rarely, if ever agrees with swirlygirl
Yeah, right? No way a car can
Yeah, right? No way a car can fly into the tunnel ceiling like that without going pretty fast. Simple physics, as Swirly said. Plus, check the article again, investigators think that excessive speed was likely a factor.
"Investigators were reviewing
"Investigators were reviewing surveillance video from cameras inside the tunnel to determine the exact cause of the crash. They said excessive speed was likely involved. "
http://www.wcvb.com/article/1-dead-1-injured-in-rollover-on-mass-pike-in...
Darling,
I invited you to calculate that. You are the one making assumptions about curve = airborne that are the result guessing, rather than calculating.
You could go ahead and measure it and do those calculations ... or you might want to read the above links to information where accident investigators have done that math.
Remember: hitting the ceiling is a rare event, demanding rarely exceeded conditions.
Disclaimer: My father did official calculations after such events. I was sometimes included in that.
from boston.com
State police say speed and impairment are believed to be factors in the crash, which remains under investigation.
you dont mean to be insensitive
but you will suggest he may have caused his own death by using controlled substances anyway
why not just use a more accurate preamble next time and say "i dont want to deal with the consequences of my insensitivity, but here is how i think this kid may have killed himself and hurt his girlfriend:"
Now there are rules for whining
.
Adorable.
Scum, I would love nothing more than to go toe-to-toe with you one more time, but I honestly cannot make sense of what you said.
Seems like you're upset about my semantics. Sorry about the semantics, I know they can be confusing. Maybe you'll do better next time.
Apparently you didn't get the memo
It's not cool to jump to totally reasonable and rational conclusions based on generally common sense, if there's even a hint that it might not be PC.
I'm thankful that by the time
I'm thankful that by the time my kid is 20 years old, his car will drive itself, and not do the dangerous things I did when I was 20 years old.
20 years old...
Problem with self driving cars, and no one here is gonna like this is that they have extreme difficulty locating people on bikes.
It's a problem.
self driving cars
so they're just like real drivers you mean?
calm down.
There is this thing called advancement in technology.
of course, i just wish only the people that really needed cars had them.
Ceiling is something like at
Ceiling is something like at least 13-6, 14 feet in that tunnel. Even with a Rube Goldberg perfect storm of a tow truck accidentally dropping its flatbed or a dumptruck losing a load of gravel - something that would create a Dukes of Hazzard ramp to launch from - they'd need to have been going a pretty good speed to hit ceiling.
Car
Based on my limited NASCAR viewing, I've seen cars hit a wall and go into a barrel roll, at which the car occasionally hits the pavement a certain way to bounce higher than normal (the car is upright), so my guess is thats how the ceiling was hit.
Updated story
Driver was 19, not 20, and was a Suffolk student.