How would you handle this roadside emergency - as a father
 

While out with entire family, truck breaks down.

Dark rural roadway, very close to their home.

What would you do if you were the father?

Would you first get all occupants out of the truck, then set up flares and/or other traffic emergency signal devices to warn other drivers, then effect method(s) to re-locate truck from roadway - not including letting your two sons push it from behind?

How culpable was the father in not effecting the safest procedure possible in this roadside emergency?

David Barajas, Texas man, charged in fatal shooting of suspected drunk driver who killed his sons, authorities say - Crimesider - CBS News

It would be hard not to do the same thing.

What? Let your two sons push the truck from behind in the dark with no lights while other vehicles are approaching from behind?

While your wife and two other children are still inside the truck?

You would do that?

I'm not a father, but this just makes me ill. Too many drunks on the road. Three people died in this accident because of one drunk. Have a few less beers and take a taxi home.

If this man were truly distraught he'd have committed suicide for the truly bad decision of doing this on a crowded road.

Killing the other guy isn't going to bring his kids back.

And perhaps he was drunk himself.

Roadside stuff is flat out deadly, no matter where you are or how careful you are. I will walk 50' away from the road and call roadside assistance (while facing traffic). And I have a reflective yellow vest and light sticks in my vehicles. Yes, I know how to change a tire and do the common stuff. But it ain't worth it. More than once a year someone dies here trying to change a tire on a major highway with huge shoulders and pull-off areas in broad daylight. It ain't worth it.

Manbridge and Rick:

Thanks for your thoughts. Those were my thoughts as well. Not excusing the drunk driver but how does a father leave his family so exposed like that?

Last time I got stopped by a cop, I told him I didn't think it was a safe place to stop and asked that we take it up the road a mile. He said the flashing lights on his bike would protect us. Uh huh.

Yup - I know.

A few nights ago I was on my way home from re-locating-releasing a trapped Raccoon and was stopped and given a warning for a cracked tail light. I turned the corner onto a side street when I pulled over off the main road. The cop can park wherever he wants - I'M PARKING WAY OFF TO THE SIDE! :p

Usually the flashing lights cause people to look in that direction and they are more likely to "steer" where they are watching. I have noticed the police around here will angle their cars when they pull someone over and approach from the passenger side if the highway is busy. I guess they feel drunks will glance off their car and not hit them or the car they have pulled over.

That last time I was pulled over, there was no shoulder at all and the side of the road was sand wash and dead grass. Had it not been a mile from my house and my 993 engine cold (having just left the house), my heat exchangers would have started a fire on that grass. The two times I was told to get out and do the field sobriety tests, it was an empty road late at night, but I still hated standing right between the cop car and my own. Very dangerous stuff and I'm sure some real drunks drove right by us while we were out there.

Sorry I was talking about shooting the guy. Unfortunate event all around. Just saying I can see why the father shot the guy. Not saying it was right.

Not surprising.

We have a relatively new law in Florida called the "Move Over" law.

When a safety officer is stopped on the side of the road, drivers are required to move over to the passing lane and/or slow down to 'safe' speed.

The only reason this law exists is because these safety officials have never understood the concept of pulling over where you are removed from being struck by other existing traffic.

Over the years I guess too many cases where safety officials were killed while pulled over to the side of the roads.

Hell they were asking for it, in my opinion - no disrespect intended.

Makes me scratch my head.....:confused:

It could be the father was racked with guilt over making a poor decision regarding safety of his family. Maybe he felt he had to release some anger. Hard to say.

I agree - sad situation for all.

Before you start pilling on the Dad do we know what the road is like.
50 yards from home.
If its a quite street not a lot of traffic, you drive it everyday and know your neighbors.
I would imagine most people including myself would just figure out how to get the truck home.
I doubt most folks including myself would go be that cautious.
I mean really, are you going to evacuate the car and call triple A and set up road flares that close to home.

Nope.

The Dad does not need to be ridiculed for that.

The mother *****er drunk driver deserved that instant justice and the Dad should get a parade.

What the hell was he thinking?? :mad:

First and foremost., get everyone out of the vehicle and away from the road.

These kind off accidents are way more common then people realize.

Don't know what I would do, most people don't really know what they would do until after the fact, but I don't think the father purposely put his kids in danger, it obviously seemed like the best course of action at the time, having the kids push the truck off the road, the drunk was what he was, drunk, I might have shot him, I know I would have wanted to. We don't know if the drunk was a repeat offender, but he won't be.

this story is awful. hard to critique a man when he just lost so much..

i see this all the time. i drive a State vehicle, so everyone thinks i am "highway assistance". screw that..stopping on a california highway is insane. i see the worst in common sense. bay bridge break downs where the owner is standing in front of their POS car waving cars by. WTF? i've seen people try to change flat tires on the bridge..and yes, i've seen people pushing their cars.

no car has been created that is worth risking a human life for.

get the family off the road..if this isnt possible, stay seated and belted.

50 yards from the house? damn it, i would have sent the kids home. left the flashers on..or dumped out some flares. i commute with my work truck. i have two cases of flares. i will light the place up, if need be.

shoot the DUI..no, i'd let the law take care of it.

It's also the law in AZ that you move over a lane for stopped emergency vehicles. But then you first have to be looking up from your email and text messages to see them.

In Oct. I was riding my bike down the 405 near LA when I got sprayed with hot embers from some roadside flares. The accident scene was gone, but they had left the flares burning and some cars had run over them, showering me with the embers. I'm used to dodging cigarette butts, but not magnesium embers.

What Chris said. The law does two things about drunk drivers, jack and scheisse. There was a drunk that killed a guy and his 4 dogs, crippled the girlfriend walking with them. He had half dozen DUIs, was on a suspended license at the time. Hit a stop sign, then hit the guy so hard his leg was torn off. He would have died right there if it did not happen right in front of an EMT's house.

Bet it was not the first time that drunk had an incident.

Last time I got pulled over, I drove about a mile and pulled into a parking lot with the Texas DPS behind me with his party lights going. He was hot, did the full on felony stop and called several other cars. Was screaming at me that you pull over immediately when they hit you with the lights when I got out, on his loudspeaker before that. He tried to take me to the front of my car, but I walked to the hood of his car. No way I am getting my ass kicked in front of the car without a dash cam. Went to court over it. Got a ticket, he got a reprimand.

He walked home to get his gun: "Brazoria County sheriff's investigator Dominick Sanders said Monday that witnesses told authorities they saw Barajas walk to his home right after the crash and then return a few minutes later and approach Banda's vehicle. Evidence showed one shot was fired, Sanders said." Home was 50 yards away.

My first though: My wife would have went home with the 8 yr old and toddler.


I feel for the man, but killing the driver won't bring his kids back and he is now in jeporady of seperating himself from the rest of his family (he didn't help them either).

I could make a case for not having guns in the home.

I have only changed a tire one time and I will never do that again. Call the motor club. Or in his case, leave the 4 way flashers on and wait until morning.

i would drive a flat tire to safety. i'll buy a new wheel later.

in some places..i would crush that wheel to get to safety.

+1 Rick. Totally agree. I tried to change a tire on an icey road after hitting a pot hole. The jack slipped and I cracked the roll pan the bottom of the car. I got the tire on but not before someone else hit the same pot hole and pulled up in back of me. He had the same kind of jack as I. I told him about mine slipping and he decided to call the motor club. The police later came to assist us.

Yep - I would do that too.

Good luck getting a murder conviction.

Plead manslaughter 1, 3-5 years max.

I wasn't sure whether I thought pushing the car was a good idea or not, but I live in a rural area with little traffic. I also have a personality that wants to "fix" the problem, now.

I will however, should this ever occur to me, heed your advice. Thanks, Vin.

Far more cops get killed by cars during traffic stops than any other cause of death. Stopping by the side of the road is simply very dangerous. Staying in the car is far safer than getting out.

It sounds like this was somewhat of a rural area. But 50 yards is a long way to push a vehicle, let alone at night.

I know exactly what I would have done. First I would certainly have apologized to my wife for the truck breaking down because she would have been mad and would need some calming down. Then I would have had my wife steer while the boys and I pushed the truck over to a safe parking spot off to the side. I'm not going to send the boys out to do something I won't do myself. Once I got the truck over and safe, I would have gotten the wife and young kids out and walked home, carrying what I could. I would have figured there was nothing I could do with the truck at night by the side of the road and would have left it there until the next day when I could figure out what to do with it. People walking home by the side of the road are at some risk, but they should be in a good position to see cars coming and stay out of their way. I'd have told my wife it was only 50 yards and that her legs would carry her that far and I would have walked safely with my family until we got home.

+1

He'll walk. No threat to society, and the prisons are full.




I recently had a blowout in the 997 on the freeway, on a long overpass, in the fast lane. It was all I could do to keep it off the rail, and I finally managed to pull it up against the rail on the shoulder (only about 4 feet of roadway between the line and the rail) and had to deal with high speed traffic coming my way. I hit the flashers and got out, walked about 100 yards towards the oncoming traffic to wait against the guardrail for CHP and tow. Scary ten minutes or so before the cop finally showed and put his "move over" lights on to force people out of the fast lane while the tow truck pulled up. Once a car is disabled on the highway, I treat it like a drunk magnet, and get the hell away from it, and the potential path of carnage that an impact would have. You're much less likely to get hit just standing by the roadway, upstream from the car, and you can even attempt to slow people down by waving.

I have to disagree. You are far safer moving away from the vehicle, always upstream. Sitting in the car is begging for disaster. You might as well cop a squat on the dashed line between the lanes.

You guys are quick to judge. This could have been a quiet neighborhood street. Then pushing isn't as crazy an idea albeit carrying some risk.

If it was on a country road or hwy., then yes, GTFO of the car and walk home. Have it towed to your house and fix it in the morning.

Killing the guy is a whole different story. Now your kids are dead and you are in jail on top of it. Wife's going to be really happy ... :rolleyes:

G

I agree, it's not a stretch to get the boys out and start pushing. I have two boys (adults now), and I certainly would have done the same, if the level of traffic warranted it. Lots of variables here, but I think the guy will walk for the killing of the drunk driver. I think a jury would see the overwhelming emotion of the moment as a mitigating factor. Also, he saved the drunk a lifetime of misery.

Well he certainly used poor judgement when having his sons out of the truck under the conditions...

...I imagine given some thought i'd say that the drunk would have experienced significant blunt trauma damage as a result of the incident... much of which may have occured after the vehicles came to rest.

I can also imagine that I would definitely WANT to pop the guy if he just killed two of my kids.

Another story said it was County Road 144. Not sure what will show up on the link, below. If you zoom in where it runs north-south, just south of Cornett Rod there is a pickup that can be used for a reference point. There is no shoulder and does not look like any street lights. It also does not look like there would be much traffic, but i bet the traffic that is there goes faster than the posted speed limit. Easy to say in hindsight, at the time, "only 50 yards" would be hard to dismiss. I'd like the think I'd leave until morning.

https://maps.google.com/maps?q=County+Road+144,+Alvin,+Brazoria,+TX&hl=en& ll=29.478361,-95.262768&spn=0.000892,0.001051&sll=29.276849,-95.682072&sspn=1.906959,1.733093&oq=Brazoria+Count y+Road+144,+alvi&hnear=County+Road+144,+Alvin,+Bra zoria,+Texas+77511&t=h&z=20

The father was an idiot. The truck broke down. Obviously the brakes did not lock up since they were pushing the truck. That means all he had to do was pull over off the road if at all possible and get the family out, and walk home. Go back later (in the daytime) to retrieve the truck.

If he just ran out of gas he is a complete and total idiot.

Unless the drunk was trying to flee the scene or there is no reason to shoot the drunk. I can understand wanting to shoot the drunk but we have laws for a reason. The drunk would for sure be treated way more lenient by the law than what he really deserved. We need to change the laws, not shoot drunks.

If I was the drunk that killed the kids I would just as soon be shot.
As for the father and his actions, who knows, I wouldn't have done it that way, you wouldn't have done it that way, we weren't there, maybe he was used to pushing his truck the last 50 yards, it evidently wasn't the freeway, he had a good chance of making it home and one bad chance not to. I would have wanted to shoot the guy but?
as I have been told in other threads, the police aren't here to protect me, a citizen. You are on your own.

Who hasn't pushed their ride some distance. The circumstances and the out come are horrible. Two families are in crisis now. Pretty easy to call the father an idiot after the fact.....the bigger of the two idiots is the drunk on the highway. Some of us are getting close to the "wearing a dress like that means you expose yourself to rape" kind of thinking. Sad sad story.

Someone earlier in the thread mentioned the dangers of being pulled over on a hwy by the police. I once got two tickets, one for speeding (my bad) and one for ignoring the presence of an officer....my crime? Slowing down, signaling and proceeding to the next grid road intersection to turn off the highway, a total of maybe 1/2 a mile.

Was the father's actions understandable?
50 yards to your own home........
Would you just push it into the driveway, given two strong sons in the car, or would you actually sit there waiting for a tow truck?

Was the father's subsequent (edit:alleged) actions legitimate?
Undetermined.

he did a few things wrong..
and he will blame himself for that..
as he replays that night for yrs to come..
only thing he did right..
waste the drunk...
IMO..no jury down here will convict him..

Rika

I wouldn't have killed the drunk. But he sure as hell would've begged me to.

God have mercy for the guy who hurts my son. Because I won't.