Comcast Technician Caused Accident After Accident

[SirBeef]

There are regulations in most states that deal with how you have to establish a work zone. Unfortunately, it seems like the cable guys don't care about that sort of thing. If that's a two-lane two-way road he needs to have someone out there flagging around his truck if it's going to be in the road.

That said, people will slow down and gawk at everything but people trying to work on/near the road. Stop driving like fucking retards, and you can avoid this sort of problem.

Depends on the state. However, regardless, the drivers who got out of control caused it themselves by driving too fast for the conditions like you said. Part of the problem is with they way regular citizens are taught how to drive, and in many states, are never required to re test road skills ever.

[almaderp]

He could have; called a police. What miracles are you expecting he should have done? Run on the road to stop the cars crashing with space magic, without being run over and killed, by, you know, those reckless speeders sliding all over the place?

Fine I'll bite... first "He could have called THE police." and they would have had a fun tine giving him a fine for obstructing traffic. Sorry but if you are stopped in the middle of 1 of the lanes on a 2 lane road you don't just get away with cones. I'll repeat 1 of the lanes is closed. When you close a lane you need a flag person (you know those people with the stop/slow signs at either end of road works?) and not only to you need those but you also need a sign i believe it was 100-200 meters before the flag person in each direction. Were the techs following the law not at all and to make it worst the was negligence and reckless endangerment on top of that... I hope those guys lost their jobs.

On the other hand considering the conditions, Wet snow and slush yeah people were driving too fast and likely didn't have appropriate tires. (as an aside snow isn't necessarily slippery so while i realize most people don't experience dry snow very often in some parts of the world making broad generalizations about "driving too fast for snowy conditions" are not accurate. it's currently -35 where i live)

[Slant]

Fine I'll bite... first "He could have called THE police." and they would have had a fun tine giving him a fine for obstructing traffic. Sorry but if you are stopped in the middle of 1 of the lanes on a 2 lane road you don't just get away with cones. I'll repeat 1 of the lanes is closed. When you close a lane you need a flag person (you know those people with the stop/slow signs at either end of road works?) and not only to you need those but you also need a sign i believe it was 100-200 meters before the flag person in each direction. Were the techs following the law not at all and to make it worst the was negligence and reckless endangerment on top of that... I hope those guys lost their jobs.

On the other hand considering the conditions, Wet snow and slush yeah people were driving too fast and likely didn't have appropriate tires. (as an aside snow isn't necessarily slippery so while i realize most people don't experience dry snow very often in some parts of the world making broad generalizations about "driving too fast for snowy conditions" are not accurate. it's currently -35 where i live)

What you're describing is a more permanent stop of over an hour in length. Since we don't know the time it took to make these repairs, you're just speculating.

Also, obstructing traffic? They're doing their job. Traffic obstruction for overland cable work is part of traffic life, it's why you go to driving school. To learn how to deal with it.

[SirBeef]

Ahhh the faux pas impersonation of wit. How clever of you attempting a turn of tactics.

Let's rewind shall we my educated friend. Has anyone here not admitted the drivers themselves are utter imbeciles. No I think not. And yet here you and your compatriots are saying everything is status quo with our neighborhood comcast man. Shouldn't have changed a thing. Nothing preventative should have been thought of in hindsight. He was in fact a perfect bastion of public safety adhering to the letter of the law and nothing more.

A couple of things come to mind. This is a known area for safety hazards to both locals and police. And yet Comcast took it upon themselves to perform maintenance that directly influenced if not caused several vehicular accidents. And while the obvious preparatory solution would have been to phone the police and request traffic direction from them, they elected to put cones at that bottom of a hill. Which would cause an unusual traffic pattern on a down slope giving people little if any chance to stop if they experienced a wheel lockup of any kind.

And to top it all off, instead of admitting there's a problem alleviating the problem entirely while seeking direction from people above him he obstinately stayed in the road, rather than temporarily pulling off to the side. Whether or not it is his fault. There were SEVERAL avenues for alleviating or eliminating this problem. All of them resting on the comcast workers ability to think critically rather than follow a textbook.

Sorry, but regardless of what the Comcast worker did, it is the responsibility and obligation of drivers to be aware of their surroundings, road conditions, hazards, and proceed through the area with caution and proper speeds.

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According to the police the Comcast driver was following the law. Nice try though.

Yup. I know people want to hate on Comcast and the working man, but he did nothing wrong. He set up his cones properly, was following company and local safety guidelines. It is not his fault people are morons, doubly so in the snow.

[Danner]

More cones wouldn't help.
They aren't there to warn anyone. The truck is big enough to be seen.
Their function is to make it so people do not drive up to just behind it where they then end up stuck and unable to see beyond it due to the truck blocking their sight and not having anywhere to get out of the way when others drive right up after them and there happens to arrive someone from the other side.
You have more cones with a higher speed limit to discourage people from "just trying to slip by really fast because it is short and the other car is still far off".

They aren't there to make it possible to stop in time, in fact, more of them make that harder, because you will notice the truck father than you notice the cones.

According to the cameraman of this video, the problem was that the hill down the road was preventing a view of the truck. In lack of view that something was up ahead, the drivers crashing in the video were driving too fast, and had no chance of stopping. Clearly that is a driver error. No argument there. If you cannot stop for an obstacle in the road, you are by definition driving too fast!

However.... more cones would prevent or at least alleviate that problem. The coned off area is probably perfectly within regulations, but the problem is that reckless drivers coming from behind do not see the truck at all (according to the cameraman). Not that they are driving into the coned area. Adding some cones on the top of the hill would reduce the number of accidents. Regardless of who is in the right or not here.

[Exeris]

Doesn't matter if he is right or not, he sees a situation where he is involved that can potentially get someone killed. Total scum.

[Slant]

According to the cameraman of this video, the problem was that the hill down the road was preventing a view of the truck. In lack of view that something was up ahead, the drivers crashing in the video were driving too fast, and had no chance of stopping. Clearly that is a driver error. No argument there. If you cannot stop for an obstacle in the road, you are by definition driving too fast!

However.... more cones would prevent or at least alleviate that problem. The coned off area is probably perfectly within regulations, but the problem is that reckless drivers coming from behind do not see the truck at all (according to the cameraman). Not that they are driving into the coned area. Adding some cones on the top of the hill would reduce the number of accidents. Regardless of who is in the right or not here.

More cones actually don't solve the problem. As has been explained before, if you extend the coned off area, all you're doing is increasing a minor traffic problem into a huge traffic problem. Longer obstruction, longer time until people are past the obstruction, longer wait time for oncoming traffic to be allowed in that lane, longer queues, further out end of queue cars being an obstruction to cars coming in from behind, without any warning whatsoever if we assume this isn't the only hill within a couple miles on the road.

So no, it's not as easy as "more cones, more safety". The video guy is an idiot and a moron drunk on the power that the cam gives him. Like he's some kind of authority on traffic obstruction safety all of a sudden. He's not, he's just an average citizen thrilled with the drama and thinking he can get righteous on some poor sod's ass who's got to work in what I guess are pretty shitty conditions for a technician.

[SirBeef]

Doesn't matter if he is right or not, he sees a situation where he is involved that can potentially get someone killed. Total scum.

Got it wrong. He may have been able to do things differently, that does not excuse the reckless driving on behalf of the people who got into accidents.

[Barnabas]

According to the cameraman of this video, the problem was that the hill down the road was preventing a view of the truck. In lack of view that something was up ahead, the drivers crashing in the video were driving too fast, and had no chance of stopping. Clearly that is a driver error. No argument there. If you cannot stop for an obstacle in the road, you are by definition driving too fast!

However.... more cones would prevent or at least alleviate that problem. The coned off area is probably perfectly within regulations, but the problem is that reckless drivers coming from behind do not see the truck at all (according to the cameraman). Not that they are driving into the coned area. Adding some cones on the top of the hill would reduce the number of accidents. Regardless of who is in the right or not here.

If you coned to the top of the hill then you'd need 2 people to flag traffic from both directions.

[Orlong]

I kind of feel like maybe they should've had a couple of sheriff deputies regulating traffic if the roads were that bad.

That would just get them killed by someone sliding into them. This appears to be a 2 lane rural road which likely doesnt get a lot of traffic, and the video is edited to only show the accidents so it might have been 10 minutes between cars coming down the road.

Also I do not see a hill right at the truck. It looks like there is at least 200 to 300 yards of road after the crest of the hill and before the cones which should be plenty of room to slow down and stop if they were driving at a speed appropriate for road conditions. The normal speed limit on that road is 40 MPH and it looks like they were going faster than 40MPH with snow and ice on the road. I have no pity for these horrible drivers who in their rush to get somewhere 5 minutes earlier by speeding are now going to be hours late. There were plenty of cars in the video including a school bus that were not speeding and went right through perfectly fine

Where did this asshole think Comcast shouldve parked? There is no shoulder on that road and they cant park in private driveways, and they need their tools to fix the connection.

And after seeing 2 other cars in the ditch, plus hers as she just went off the road, why in the hell was that stupid woman standing by her driver side door within feet of traffic which is likely to slide off the road and right into her pinning her between cars or running her over. Then again, she should a massive amount of stupidity in her driving skills

[SirBeef]

More cones actually don't solve the problem. As has been explained before, if you extend the coned off area, all you're doing is increasing a minor traffic problem into a huge traffic problem. Longer obstruction, longer time until people are past the obstruction, longer wait time for oncoming traffic to be allowed in that lane, longer queues, further out end of queue cars being an obstruction to cars coming in from behind, without any warning whatsoever if we assume this isn't the only hill within a couple miles on the road.

So no, it's not as easy as "more cones, more safety". The video guy is an idiot and a moron drunk on the power that the cam gives him. Like he's some kind of authority on traffic obstruction safety all of a sudden. He's not, he's just an average citizen thrilled with the drama and thinking he can get righteous on some poor sod's ass who's got to work in what I guess are pretty shitty conditions for a technician.

Correct, he has no clue as to the law or Comcast's driver safety policies.

[Barnabas]

Reddit version of this topic: People go into detail on how the Comcast guys weren't following the regulations at all and are the ones at fault for the accidents regardless of other drivers not having winter tires.

MMO version: People sticking up for Comcast employees.

If you think what the Comcast employees did was right then I hope you're not involved with road work at all, because you'll get someone killed with what you think is okay.

reddit missed the part where the police said nothing illegal happened and the drivers need to slow down. so missing that key information you'd debate all kinds of crazy road signs shenanigans unabated.

[SirBeef]

That would just get them killed by someone sliding into them. This appears to be a 2 lane rural road which likely doesnt get a lot of traffic, and the video is edited to only show the accidents so it might have been 10 minutes between cars coming down the road.

Also I do not see a hill right at the truck. It looks like there is at least 200 to 300 yards of road after the crest of the hill and before the cones which should be plenty of room to slow down and stop if they were driving at a speed appropriate for road conditions. The normal speed limit on that road is 40 MPH and it looks like they were going faster than 40MPH with snow and ice on the road. I have no pity for these horrible drivers who in their rush to get somewhere 5 minutes earlier by speeding are now going to be hours late. There were plenty of cars in the video including a school bus that were not speeding and went right through perfectly fine

Where did this asshole think Comcast shouldve parked? There is no shoulder on that road and they cant park in private driveways, and they need their tools to fix the connection.

These same people would be the first ones complaining that their cable wasn't fixed in a timely fashion if he had to park somewhere else or bitch about them using their driveway to be off the road.

[Orlong]

Yeah it's like those damned idiots have never seen snow or something. If they can't stop with that much distance they are driving too fast for conditions. Especially the truck that actually hit a guy seemed to be going well over 40.

Also lmfao at 'do you have a job? So do I. This is my job.'

He was one of those assholes that think when you have a 4 wheel drive, you can now safely drive like its 85 degrees and sunny out everywhere. I pass 10 or so of those on the way to work every time it snows, and roll down my window and laugh at them hysterically yelling learn how to drive asshole

[McFuu]

Sorry I've seen this video a couple of times. The Comcast employee could have done more, but really he didn't need to. Ultimately the blame lies on poor driving habits and likely car care of the people getting into accidents.

It's just as easy to blame the local government for not clearing or salting the road. The culpability lies with the people operating the vehicles.

[Slant]

Reddit version of this topic: People go into detail on how the Comcast guys weren't following the regulations at all and are the ones at fault for the accidents regardless of other drivers not having winter tires.

MMO version: People sticking up for Comcast employees.

If you think what the Comcast employees did was right then I hope you're not involved with road work at all, because you'll get someone killed with what you think is okay.

Since when has reddit been an authority on anything but silly comments and a fucked up voting system that gets as much wrong as it gets right? You can't even have a proper debate on reddit, it's just a stupid popularity contest in which the first side that starts upvoting attracts more of their own opinion that further increase the upvote/downvote disparity.

[Deleted]

The Comcast driver is not at fault here.

The people not able to drive to the road conditions is!


But one small note, the Comcast driver could put some more cones up, just in case..

[Thelin]

To be fair, do you have an idea how aggravating it is to have some random douchebag film you? I've had this recently, turned right on a crossing, dude almost skated into my car with his board. I broke, he lost balance and fell (without hitting the car, mind you!) and immediately whips out his cell phone and started taking pictures of the license plate and myself.

I was quite surprised how quickly that annoyed me. Stupid little shit. Now my license plate is on someone's phone and there's not much I can do about it.

Your license plate is public to every driver around you every single day, being on someone's cellphone means very little. As far as being recorded, no Ive never had that happen but even if I did and I was on the clock working, driving a company vehicle I'd probably not be a smartass about it for the very reason that we see today, the video has been viewed millions of times and the guy is going to be on the cross and will probably get fired for how he handled the situation. As I stated in my post yes people should drive more cautiously but having the road narrow to 1 lane at the bottom of a hill with no visible markings prior to cresting the hill is dangerous and just stupid. The guy could have said, you know what sir, you're right let me put another sign up or put some cones up. I ended stated the dipshit in the beat up truck that creamed the nissan in the back was in fact driving recklessly, some of the other drivers were not speeding from what I could tell but had a knee jerk reaction and slammed their breaks which caused them to slide. If you slam on your breaks in ice you're going to slide because you're not going to get any traction on the road with your tires at that point. I live in PA where the roads are garage most of the winter and when they run out of salt they use ash.

The other comcast truck that showed up and pulled up in front of him could have also just parked his truck up PRIOR to the hill and placed a sign or parked there to warn people but he didn't.

[Orlong]

Whats funny is the guy filming put up his own cones but people still got into accidents.

Whats even funnier is that the guy filming actually has a bunch of his own cones. What the hell does he normally need them for?

Hes probably one of those neighborhood assholes that illegally make their own speed bumps, illegally post 10 MPH speed limit signs and yell at people to slow down in the neighborhood all the time because he is a shitty dad and cant keep his kids out of the street

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, all the guy was asking him to do was put out a few more cones and the guy was acting like a complete cunt for no reason but I guess you can't really be surprised with it being comcast and all.

The technician said he only had a couple other cones, and if people supposedly cant see over the hill, how would they see 2 more cones anyway? It would just be 2 more cones for people to run over.

[Rezhial]

While I think a few more cones wouldn't be a bad thing.... those drivers are absolute idiots. Title of the video should be changed to "Idiot Drivers Ignoring Weather Conditions Caused Accident After Accident".