That's what i was thinking, that everyone missed the point of the tragedy which is how dangerous caravans are and how they need to be banned from the roads.
"Lawsuit fodder" tends to be people falling over at work. The vast hordes of Injurylawyers4U and their ilk that flood the ad breaks of Dave, Challenge and other cable stations survive by everyone being encouraged to sue for the slightest minor incident. So we're not totally immune to it.
I can tell you in Australia, the oversensitive parents and whatever groups would give Top Gear a really hard time, and the government would buckle in. you can sue anybody for anything, common sense is not expected these days
In all seriousness, I don't think the man is much to blame for believing what the TG guys said here. Obviously, they don't know anything about caravaning and do talk a lot of rubbish, but there are moments when they are telling the truth and give advice. And this was one of those moments.
However, I had heard the "accelerate out of a snake" theory long before Top Gear, so blaming an accident on whoever I might have got it from wouldn't go through at court. Also, Top Gear is known to be an entertainment show, so even if they give useful advice here and there, noone should blindly believe what they say.
The Darwin award is for someone who died due to their own stupidity. The (younger) stupid person lived. He killed the old guy.
Also accelerating out of a snake with a trailer works on the flat (usually!) - not going downhill.
edit:
Jusr read another version of the story - the dead passenger was not wearing a seatbelt (and I suppose could get a rather poor Darwin award - like thousands of others). Is that TGs fault too?
I'm no legal expert but he really should consider it. For a start have you seen the price of Lego these days? Plus the increased cost of the weekly shop now he has to buy celery as well. It all adds up to a pretty penny I can tell you.
I've believed in the accelerating out of a spin thing, but not accelerating out of a snake especially while towing. (correct me if I'm wrong, I haven't been driving for that long really...)
Still, taking advice from TG who burnt their own caravan down and got the police onto them when they blocked the country lane because they couldn't turn around is quite funny...
You would think even if he had believed the advice (and i admit i sort of had, not having ever towed a caravan - a record I intend to hold onto) that he would have stopped accelerating before he got fast enough to crash and kill someone?
Opposed to the Americans the brits have at least a tiny bit of common sense. This case won't have any success in any European court. I'm pretty sure about that.
No offense to our Americans here, but it's just a fact that the dumbest lawsuits come from there
I used to feel the same way, but the truth is the UK is trying to one up our stupid lawsuits with flat-out stupid laws. I love much about the UK, but i could not live their for more then a few minutes without breaking enough laws to be imprisoned, and if i wasn't imprisoned i'm sure things that i did as a part of my daily life would piss off somebody enough to form a panel or activist group against it.
yea but over there when i was watching some cop show from Briton, they gave so many people a "police Caution" for what over here in the USA you would go to Jail for and it would mess your life up to.
over there they seem more laid back then people here in the US...
