this post was submitted on 30 Nov 2023

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Young girl 'unresponsive' after being run over by ute on popular Queensland island (www.abc.net.au)

submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

28 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Vehicles should be banned from driving on beaches. Change my mind.

all 29 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

A young girl is in hospital after she was driven over by a ute on Queensland's heritage-listed island, K'gari.

A LifeFlight spokesperson said a toddler was reportedly left unresponsive when the rear and front wheels of the ute rolled over her at a low speed about 10am Thursday.

Air rescue crews said she was pushed face first into the sand before her father performed CPR on her.

Her parents drove her to a nearby area on the eastern side of the island as they waited for paramedics to arrive.

Rescue crews reported extensive bruising on her leg, back, and ear.

Police said Forensic Crash Unit officer were travelling to K'Gari to investigate the incident.

The original article contains 136 words, the summary contains 114 words. Saved 16%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[–] Ataraxia 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

That must have been some large German lady!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

SPRICH

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

DEUTSCH

[+] [email protected] -9 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Actually, one of the key touristic things of K'gari is that you can actually drive a car on the beach, except for three set and marked zones (See here). As the article did not state where the incident happened, the car might or might not be legal there.

Keep in mind that the article states that the parents drove he daughter to the helicopter pickup point. So they might have been on a car-legal beach.

Regardless if allowing cars on a beach is a good thing or not, it is allowed in places, and letting a small child play unsupervised in such an area might not be the best parenting idea for a start. They could have gone to a "no cars allowed" beach instead. Apart from that - it is a beach. Not supervising young kids on a beach, especially one where large areas are marked as to dangerous to go into the water, is not a good idea from the word GO, anyway.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 months ago (1 children)

hot take: the only way to kill someone who's not trying to get killed while driving a car is intentionally or disgusting negligence

[–] [email protected] 14 points 11 months ago

the only way to kill someone who’s not trying to get killed while driving a car is intentionally or disgusting negligence

Nah, that’s definitely not true. It’s an incredibly motornormative claim to make, actually (though this might be counter-intuitive). It’s actually frighteningly easy to kill someone with a car, and while the driver will almost always bear a strong degree of responsibility, it’s very often also the design of the road that is to blame. Road design that encourages drivers to go too fast, or which does not provide adequate separation (including safe angles and waiting areas at intersections to give drivers good sight lines and a way to wait out of the way of continuing traffic) for pedestrians and cyclists, or complex environments with large numbers of driveways and side streets on higher speed roads (i.e., "stroads") are all examples of design that we see all the time on Australian roads (and Canadian, and American, for any people from those countries who might blow in to this thread), which play a huge role in the high death toll on our roads.

We can’t get to a zero road toll by changing drivers. Driver education is important, but it’s one of the smallest things we can do in terms of the size of its impact.

N.B. I wrote this talking about driving on roads in cities, because the parent comment seemed to be talking in the general sense, and not specifically talking about driving on beaches like is in the article. So this is only tangentially related to the OP.

[+] [email protected] -10 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

Reads like a child supervision issue to me; why are you mixing seperate issues?

You could argue that, if you replaced soft sand with carpark or paddock, the kid would likely be dead.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Yes, because drivers shouldn't be held responsible for killing/ harming people with their vehicles on a fucking beach.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Who said anything remotely like that?

I'm saying the incident could happen anywhere with lack of supervision.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago (2 children)

It could, but beaches aren't roads. What if someone was sunbaking or laying on the sand in an area they thought was safe? Are they allowed to be.run over because they weren't keeping a close eye on every vehicle movement in the vicinity?

In my experience, vehicles don't stick to any one particular "lane" on a beach so allowing them to use it as a road means the beach is now entirely unusable for anyone who is not in a vehicle.

You shouldn't have to post a guard to ensure a member of your family is able to enjoy a beach without fear of someone in a vehicle killing them.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

Are they allowed to be run over

The language you're using is just ridiculous.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

You need to do some basic research.

Too lazy; didn't research. In Australia, 4×4 beaches are recognised as roads. All road rules apply, speed limits are signed. You even have to deal with planes when driving through an airport. Yep, beaches also have designated airports with regular traffic and they function exactly the same too.

99% of the east coast to go to, but if the idea of your toddler being unsupervised in road and air traffic sounds fun to you, there's maps. And you'll see all the warning signage that'll let you know you're at the right spot. Plus all the traffic. If you really want to step up the fun, walk past the 40kph road signs to the 80kph ones. Orange beacons mean you're on an airsyrip, great sunbathing spot. It's your right.

You picking 25,700km of east AU coastline to roll out your towel and let the kiddos run around...

[–] [email protected] 16 points 11 months ago (1 children)

If you are controlling machinery, and you fail to observe potential hazards and account for them, you are negligent.

If the speed limit is a hundred gazillion but you can't see enough to be able to stop for someone you are being homicidally reckless. It's a limit not a target.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

the ute rolled over her at a low speed

But to return back to something relevant; Yes. Controlling machinery does, in a way, imply controlling it. Very astute. This is why it's fine to play in traffic without supervision, everyone's in control.

On a less sarcastic note, I hope y'all aren't procreating. Or babysitting. Or even have a pet goldfish.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

Hey so if I'm holding a drill on a build site, and a kid is there for whatever reason, and I walk up to them and drill through their leg at low speed what am I?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Are you for real that analogy?

You're effectively saying the driver knew the child was there and intentionally drove over them.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

A weird person actively seeking out children to harm them.

Do you have a point here or was that it? Do we need to call the police?

[–] [email protected] -2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

why is it different if I'm in a car on a road?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago

It's not.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Nah, I'm good.

I don't care if beaches are roads. My point is that beaches should not be roads.

I was over on Moreton Island recently and walking south of the resort. Didn't see any of your claimed warning signage. Just utes and 4wds tearing the shit out of the beach from the water line up to where the trees start. A beautiful beach in a beautiful spot away from all the crowds but I've got to be watching my kids like a hawk to make sure some idiot doesn't kill one of them and then try to blame me for daring to walk with my kids down to the sand dunes.

I don't care if it's legal, it shouldn't be. Why does everything have to be turned into yet more space exclusively for vehicles. Especially pristine beaches.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

There are very few beaches you can go to where vehicles are also allowed. Your interests are not exclusively reign to all of them over other people's interests. You literally have hundreds of other options, most of them better. Learn to accept other people and the things they enjoy and you need but share just a bit with them is all. if you can't tolerate others, just don't go there. They're tolerating you and your kids without complaint.

The Australian coastline is not yours and not everyone is you.

I'd also advise that if you're going to one of the nation's most iconic 4×4 locations that is 95% only accessible by 4×4s, don't be upset if you see 4×4s there and suddenly have to parent. That's entirely your decision, your situation, your issue. I don't go to Perisher and get upset there's skiiers hooning down.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

@mupAus @saltesc That’s the issue: every continent has rednecks or whatever you call them who think it’s “fun” to get in a 4-wheel vehicle, burn up gasoline, spread fumes, tear up habitat, leave refuse and call themselves “outdoor folk”. Wheee-ha!
Stopping them requires re-education, legislation and perhaps barbed wire. Yet the people that Trump appeals to call this “freedom”.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

Most 4wders on K’Gari and other Sand-based highways in Australia are travelling between locations as part of a journey to another location.

While there are the dickheads out there that do tear up the beaches, they are subject to the same restrictions and laws as dickheads who drive illegally on bitumen on highways and in industrial estates.

It is tragic that anyone was injured an on a K’Gari beach. We don’t know the full details on what happened, it could be a child that was in an unsafe location, it could have been a driver in an inappropriate location, it could have just been a freak accident. I do hope that the result will be improved public awareness of which beaches are safe and legal to drive on, which beaches are suitable for swimming and which beaches are too dangerous for anyone.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Not really. Driver arguably deserves more blame than the victim. Normal people don't expect to be run over on a beach, its generally considered a vehicle free zone.

You could argue that, if you replaced soft sand with carpark or paddock, the kid would likely be dead.

Except one expects cars in a carpark. /s

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago

The article is very lacking in details, but I will say I'm not taking blame away from the driver, it's not even clear if the driver was family.

I'm responding to the fact OP decided to add an opinion to the article, I don't agree cars on beaches is the issue here, especially on an island that's world famous for driving on the beach.