On Wed, 20 Apr 2005 03:59:23 GMT, "Skip Elliott Bowman"
The video showed a little more detail of the wall she went through, but not enough to really tell how strong it was.
From what I could tell from the video they were mortared, but they weren't the sturdier cinder blocks that I had initially imagined.
Unless I misunderstand the term "mortared". I certainly don't believe they were simply stacked up on top of each other, but I'm no construction expert - Are some parking garages built with Elmer's Glue instead of "mortar"?
I will admit that I think there's a very slight possibility that her brakes failed at that precise moment and the wall was kind of weak to begin with - the garage and apt. building don't look very new and I don't really have much expertise in the strength of 30-40 year old (just a guess) construction material.
Accident investigators are supposed to be trained in estimating speed - I'm not trained and I don't have the benefit of a close look, but I'll hazard a guess that she wasn't going very fast, although the parking stop and the wall surely must have slowed her down a little.
If the brakes did fail, I'd certainly want to know why and if this was a problem specific to Avalons or if it was just a freak accident.
I've never heard of brakes failing under normal conditions - (I'm not counting "runaway trucks" as "normal").
Has anyone else out there heard of brake failure like this? If so, what could cause it? If it's simply not servicing your brakes when they need it, then I think the cops should have been saying that this was "a prime example" of why you should properly maintain your vehicle.
Seatbelts are great, but avoiding an accident in the first place is even better.
I have a feeling she's not going to be parking in those spaces closest to the edge anymore. I probably wouldn't want to either if that happened to me.
