Two Dragracing Comcast Vans Cause Accident That Seriously Injures 3-Yr-Old Girl
According to WAFF in Huntsville, Alabama, last weekend 2 Comcast Cable vans were racing each other at speeds of over 75mph which caused an accident that put 3-year-old Kayleen Smith (pictured left) on life support. Now Kayleen is off life support but remains unconscious. Details, inside...
The article says,
They're (the family) holding onto hope that she'll regain consciousness.
Three-year-old Kayleen Smith's uncle Daimen Morrison said, "She loves flowers. Boy, if we had a yard full of flowers, she'd pick every single one of them."
He adds, "Everybody knows that she's the sweetest, smartest, little thing you'll ever meet. She's just something else though. She makes my father more happy than I've ever seen him," Morrison said. The girl is clinging to life in Huntsville Hospital after an accident Saturday morning.
Witness Wesley Hadley says, "I said a prayer right there. I didn't know what else to do." Hadley saw the accident happen as he was traveling south on Memorial Parkway.
Near Sam's Club and Lowe's, he says, "Two Comcast vans passed me... I estimate, probably about 75 miles per hour." In a 50 mile-per-hour zone.
Hadley says one continued straight and another tried to turn right near O'reilly Auto Parts. "I knew he wasn't going to make it." Hadley says a woman with her two granddaughters was approaching a stop sign.
The Comcast driver hit the van and flipped before resting upside down. The witness describes seeing the accident in slow motion, a horrible sight with tremendous force.
Kayleen Smith is now off life support, but is still unconscious.
Her nine-year-old sister was also in the vehicle, but escaped serious injury, as did their grandmother. The Comcast driver has been released from the hospital and refused to comment.
Family of the other employee confirms to me he was working that day, but could not elaborate due to the investigation.Hadley says, "They were racing. It looked like they were racing. They were going in and out and trying to keep up with each other."
Morrison says, "I just hope this shows anybody out there that wants to act foolish on the road, that people can lose their life and everything that means everything to them."
Comcast could not provide details on employee procedure or the status of these two employees.
Comcast General Manager Butch Jernigan gave us the following statement: "Our thoughts and prayers are with everyone involved. We will cooperate fully with local authorities, but cannot comment further because of the on-going investigation. At Comcast, the safety of our employees, customers, and the general public is a top priority."
According to Huntsville Police, no criminal charges have been filed at this time and the accident is currently under investigation.
We're saddened by this story and hope Kayleen pulls through. We hope that Comcast learns that the money they save in cheap outsourcing has real costs. We've witnessed things like the Comcast Contractor Doing Donuts as well as the Comcast Tech Falls Asleep On Couch which were amusing and fairly innocuous. Unfortunately, Comcast has now graduated up to reckless and dangerous. It's tragic that it takes these kinds of accidents for companies to realize that the value of saving a few dollars is nothing compared to the value of human life.
Witnesses say two cable cars racing causing serious accident [WAFF] (Thanks to Brian!)
(Photo: WAFF)
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Comments:
@mantari: Not in all areas. Qwest offers 20/1 service in some areas, which is obviously faster than Comcrap's highest 16mbps tier (in most non-FiOS areas).
Can Comcast really be blamed for the stupidity of two idiots racing each other? Its not like the CEO called them up and said "First one to the stoplight gets a million dollar paycheck."
Contractors should only be held accountable when the service they are performing for the company thats paying them is faulty. Two jackasses in unmarked vans would have been just as guilty of reckless driving.
Not sure this is Comcast's fault.
nah, comcast should be at fault. its their workers/van and their employees. as long as they were on the clock, comcast better be sending that family more than just their Triple Play package as a gift.
At least they didn't say they take safety seriously...
Still, wow, this is really shitty. Thanks for ruining my day.
I hope this little girl pulls through, but we can't really blame Comcast for this. However, we can blame the idiot's behind the wheel and hope they get what's coming to them (jail time and firings).
Usually when people drag race, they know what they doing. That's not all the time, of course. Obviously this is an example of stupid people on the road.
Would I go to hell for making a comment like "obviously they were not on the way to a service call"?
Just checking.
Six comments ahead of me as I write this and not one person extends any compassion toward the family. I hope and pray your daughter recovers completely and I know my thoughts are shared by many, many people who will read this tragic tale here and elsewhere.
You know they made speed limiting devices for vehicles and black box type records that can electronically send a signal when the vehicle is speeding. Yellow Freight started using monitoring computer many years ago. If companies with commercial vehicles REALLy wanted to make "safety a priority" not just a slogan on a sticker, they would install these. The cost would be offset by possible insurance discounts, a reduction in accidents and maybe avoiding multi-million dollar wrongful death and injury lawsuits.
Clearly Comcast's push to improve service is resulting in their technicians rushing from job to job...
If the drivers were Comcast employees, that's one thing. But they are probably contractors, in which case I really don't think Comcast is liable in this case. A possible exception might be if there had been complaints in the past of these drivers, or others from the same contracting company, driving recklesly and Comcast chose to continue doing business with them anyway.
I'm very curious if these drivers have any history of negligent driving, whether on company time or personal time. Establishing a pattern of recklessness will be key to a successful prosecution.
Is there a way we can tie Best Buy into this and be super pissed at Comcast AND Best Buy? I'm just saying...
My knowledge of automotive technology is admittedly kind of weak, but maybe they should install speed governors on their vehicles to keep them from going more than 55 or so.
First, my hopes and prayers go out to that little girl for a fast recovery, and that she doesn't lave any long-term physical or mental problems because of these two idiots. I agree that these guys should be fired immediately, and they should also pay the little girl's medical bills. I'm not willing to debate whether Comcast or their contractor is to blame, but they both should do the right thing and pony up some money for any long-term care she may need.
@MyPetFly: That would be fairly easy to do, but you can still kill a child with a vehicle at 5mph.
The employees are the issue, not the vans themselves. Personal and professional responsibility.
"Comcast could not provide details on employee procedure or the status of these two employees."
Translation:
"We kept these two assholes on the payroll because we can. Screw you."
The first thing a reputable company would do is suspend them both immediately. Jesus, they destroyed company property AND caused an accident resulting in life-threatening injury. This is a disgusting scenario, and like Walmart & the Debby Shank disaster, Comcast will only receive my business out of necessity.
I have to wonder what the REAL speed they were going. The odds are that the guy was overestimating their speed. If they were going 60 in a 50mph zone then they would have been going speeds that are normal and not considered wreckless.
Buran: thats probably the case, that comcast will be on the hook.
However in a none screwed up, sue happy world, with stupid juries... that would not be the case.
I doubt the training for comast includes a chapter on safe drag racing...
The company shouldn't be at fault for what two stupid people did.
@MyPetFly: Not wise. There are times when you may legitimately need to be able to accelerate away from trouble. 70mph is a more sensible governed speed. Unfortunately, that wouldn't have stopped this from happening.
As someone who was nearly killed by an illegal street race once already (Civic shoots by to my right, I hear a loud screech and look in my rearview mirror to see an Integra nosediving into the pavement as the driver frantically tries to not rear-end me -- WITH my mom in the back seat; she would have been killed) I have no sympathy for these idiots.
I never see the cops pull over the irresponsible, either. I got passed by an asshole just this morning in a Porsche 911 doing 120 or so in a 55, who then screamed from the far left lane into the exit ramp I was taking.
Did a cop scream after him and pull him over? HELL NO! The city of St. Louis only gives a shit about parking tickets, and will ticket you if you're a minute late feeding the meter, but they won't do shit if you nearly get hit by someone doing twice the legal limit.
Then I read this story, and it just makes me even angrier. WHERE were the police!?
@opfreak: However, then in the course of duties it would be a lot harder to do many jobs if employees weren't acting for their employers etc. etc. so there's good reason for it (and I don't just mean Comcast techs here).
We know one thing for certain: they certainly weren't in a hurry to get to their installation appointments.
Were they running away from that hammer wielding granny?
Damn morons... safety on the f*cking road! All the best wishes to the little girl and her family.
Speak of the irony, just yesterday we were talking about bandwidth speed and bandwidth data.
Now, today comes up on the news that 2 Comcast employee were racing.
Was that bandwidth speed or bandwidth data?
Bad joke, I know.
Prayers are for the girl.
Comcast may not be to blame, but it's still terrible PR for them to have two branded vans driven by on the clock drivers representing their company to nearly kill a three year old girl.
Those drivers should go to jail. Period.
Kayleen is not feeling very Comcastic :(
@Buran: I never see the cops pull over the irresponsible, either. I got passed by an asshole just this morning in a Porsche 911 doing 120 or so in a 55, who then screamed from the far left lane into the exit ramp I was taking.
Since he was in a Porsche, he's allowed to.
< obligatory > Think of the children!?! < /obligatory >
Ok, they were drag-racing, they hurt someone, they're stupid punk techs working menial labor jobs for a company we despise, DO WE ONLY CARE BECAUSE SHE WAS 3?!?!?
Throw the book at them, sick the bottom-feeding lawyers on their company, profit. Nothing to see here.
And now, 1/5th of the national debt being used to pound sand, people starving at 11....
@Buran:
If not a speed governor, how about a dash-cam or black box system for commercial vehicles? I've got a friend who's a safety manager for a limo company, and they've got g-force activated camera systems that activate if the forces go too high.
I am not a lawyer, just a law student, but from what I know of tort law I think Comcast would be held liable regardless whether or not these two were contractors. They were acting in their line of work for Comcast. Comcast could then go after the two drivers for restitution, but wouldnt get much more than stale beer and bong resin I'm afraid.
This is horrible. My prayers are with the family...
Consumerist, could we please stop blaming the companies and start focusing the blame on the individuals? It's not like Comcast hired these two people and knew they were going to be driving recklessly.
There will always be stupid drivers, and they will cause tragic wrecks.
This little girl is going to have a lifetime of hardship ahead of her. All I can say is that these guys probably would have done it on their own time, and left the family out to dry when the auto insurance was nowhere near enough.
This girl's family needs to get a very good lawyer and make sure this incident is never a burden on her in the future. (Probably $1 million for current medical bills, a $100k for punitive damages (I don't believe in big punitive awards), and if it appears she may be disabled, enough to buy a lifetime annuity to pay out $75k/year with an inflation adjustment. Probably 2 million? This amount is hard to pick, she may miss a chance to go to Harvard and bring in 100 times that. Its likely she will never reach her full potential, and we will never know what it was.
Man, Comcast is sparing no expense or effort in winning the Worst Company of the Year competition.
While these jackasses may or may not work directly for Comcast they obviously represent and embody Comcast's flawed decision making processes.
@MyPetFly: Yes, that is a good idea, and many modern vehicles also have "black box" systems that log data like this as is.
Wow - I hope when this family takes possession of Comcast they run it a lot better than the former owners.
First I would like to offer my condolences and best wishes to the family and little girl for being put through this.
now
@ Usually when people drag race, they know what they doing.
Ha
Ahaha
Hahahahaha
riiiiiiiigggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhttttttt
The ONLY place for that sort of behavior is on a legitimate racetrack. Racing of any sort done on public highways endangers everyone else. Not just from the drag racer crashing, but people can react poorly when some vehicle comes slamming around a corner. Sure the racer didn't hit them, but their crashing into a telephone pole when swerving to avoid a blur on their left that they can't really see was a direct result of the racer.
@Buran: Then I read this story, and it just makes me even angrier. WHERE were the police!?
Look, the donuts aren't going to eat themselves you know.
This is what happens when your service fleet is treated with Powerboost™.
... seriously, though. Were they racing, or were they overbooked, and rushing to get to their next appointments?
In Texas I believe the penalty for "street racing" has up to a 6-month jail sentence available for punishing first offenders. I'd say that's a start. The employer of these two yo-yos is definitely financially liable (whether that's considered by the court to be Comcast or a subcontractor) but the driver himself needs to have some time to think about it in a cell. It's too bad most states don't have chain gangs anymore.
How do you blame outsourcing when the incident happened in the US?
Remember, the jackasses of the world have to work too. Some of them will work at Comcast, some even at Costco. The ability of a company of getting rid of the jackasses (both incidents by the press and not by the press) determines their ability.
"It's tragic that it takes these kinds of accidents for companies to realize that the value of saving a few dollars is nothing compared to the value of human life."
It's more tragic that, as will likely be the case here, these kinds of accidents happen and the company doesn't realize a thing. To those that say this is not Comcast's fault: as a number of people have pointed out, Comcast could have used technology that would have prevented this tragedy. They chose not to.
Up next for Comcast - pouring sugar in our gas tanks while anally raping our mothers.
@Buran: Then I read this story, and it just makes me even angrier. WHERE were the police!?
Not to disagree, but why does everyone think there should be a cop every block or so???
Not to mention the people who then complain for being pulled over that the cops should be stopping REAL criminals, you know the ones with guns and drugs!
Once again, not disagreeing, but not agreeing at the same time...
It IS Comcast's fault. They were their vans, with THEIR employees. I know I know, it was the decision of these two drivers bla bla bla. But they are also representivies of Comcast - and it's Comcast's fault 100%. I smell BIG lawsuit, and crimes, especially if this little girl dies.
Well, Comcast DOES offer service that is faster than DSL, so this kind of thing really has to be expected.