If he had not been listening to music perhaps he could have nimbly sidestepped the helicopter and gone about his business as if nothing had happened. After all, this sort of crap happens everyday right?
The stupidity of some people truly knows no bounds.
It’s not a hardware issue. If musicians hadn’t created music worth listening to in the first place, he’d have not had those earbuds in and would have been able to avert disaster.
This is stupid. You’re not going to win the argument by saying you could get hit by a crashing helicopter because you’re listening to your mp3 player too loudly while you’re doing otherwise mundane activities, like walking to the mailbox or sitting in your backyard.
The threat of hearing damage is probably many thousand times greater than getting killed by a rogue helicopter while listening to music too loudly.
People are easily distracted. A girl got hit by a train here just last week who was on her cell phone and another guy almost did the same thing a day or two later.
Hence my support for the law that’s going in effect soon in WA state that makes talking on your phone and driving at the same time illegal.
So, I was at first shocked at the headline, but after reading what happened I think it is clearly not headphones to blame here. This was an act of god.
A helicopter fell out of the sky, and because he didn’t successfully “dodge” it headphones are at fault?
It’s one thing to get hit by a train while you’re paying more attention to the conversation you’re having over your cell, because you’re expecting to drive over train tracks. It’s another thing entirely to expect a person to look out for helecopters that drop out of the sky while you’re picking up your mail.
I’m pretty sure the only thing that could’ve prevented him from dying was him not going out to check his mail when he did.
Do they even know if he had his headphones on, or are they just guessing?
The night before this happened a friend and I were playing GTA4 free-roam. We were right downtown with a bunch of police after the both of us, when I found a rocket launcher. Stopping in the middle of the street and watching the cops rush towards us from far at the other end I noticed a helo closing in as well, high above. While I was aiming at it my friend said there was NO way I was going to hit it. I fired anyway, and the rocket flew for must have been 4 or 5 seconds when it finally hit the chopper, blowing it up. Pieces, and bodies flew from the stricken machine and I stood there awestruck by the sheer coolness of it all. I failed to notice the main burning hulk of the helo coming my way however until my friend point out that it was coming right at us. I ran about five steps and it hit somewhere behind me with a loud crash. A few moments later my friend cursed me out… the helo came down square on his head.
Yet hands-free sets are going to be just fine legally, even though the distraction amount is virtually the same. Also GPS kits, radios, TVs, laptops, you name it is legal.
Besides, the last study I saw said radio and GPS weren’t as distracting as phones. Radio is a momentary distraction compared to a five minute phone call.