20 replies to this topic

[LotusElise]

I know this isn't restricted to motorsport history, but with fatal accidents becoming (thankfully) less frequent, I think we're best placed to discuss this, and I'd like to know what others think. We've touched on the subject before in different ways.

 

Two things have made me start this topic. The first is that I've started doing my yearly mass update and clear-up of Speedqueens. There have been a couple of notable female motorsport deaths this year (Maria de Villota and Janina Depping), so I have had to write about them. I find this hard, because I am not a professional writer, and because I worry a little about how to word things. Reporting of crashes has caused the largest number of irate/insistent messages to Speedqueens. People obviously care about it.

 

This brings me on to point two. Since watching and enjoying Rush this month, I've been doing bits of reading about 70s GP racing in general, filling in some gaps in my knowledge and generally looking at things. However, my browsing has accidentally uncovered some really gruesome images, from press in countries with less regulation of this sort of thing, and lots of discussion of said images, and evidence of searching for more such images. I'm not going to link or detail, we all know what they are.

 

When I am writing, I am mindful of the need to accept that Motorsport Is Dangerous, and of my need to be as accurate as I can. However, I am really conscious of not wanting to provide material for internet gore-hounds to jack off over.

 

Where should we draw the line? I'm never going to publish images of a dead or dying driver, or of someone's serious injuries, but what about describing it in words? What do others feel is personally acceptable to them?

 

There is actually quite a lot going through my mind about this.

[The Chasm]

There can be no accepted standard for this subject. You can only write what is clear and descriptive, but bear in mind that persons very close to the victim will likely read what you have written in the future.

 

Perhaps sensitive detail should appear in a different font in a shadow box - with a warning that the following paragraph contains graphic details. This would provide the detail to those who wish to learn for the sake of humanity and future competitors, while allowing other to skip what they really don't wish to know.

 

I was only a young boy when the prime time TV news showed graphic images of the double fatality that claimed the life of Tom Price and a marshal - I have never forgotten that image, but when marshalling and competing years later, it made me careful to avoid a repeat having seen the images from South Africa all those years earlier.

 

BTW - The car pictured with Nancy Mitchell on Speedqueens is an MGA, not an Austin Healey 100-6.

[Allen Brown]

In the mid-1970s, the Jim Clark Foundation did a statistical survey of F1 accidents between 1966 and 1972.   In 1982, I did an update of this as my university statistics thesis, taking the data up to the end of 1981.  It was a very detailed survey and attempted to draw conclusions about safety in F1.  I wish I could remember my conclusions but it's lost in the mists of time.  

 

When writing about accidents, fatal or otherwise, I think it's important to know what you are trying to achieve.  If it's about furthering our understanding of accidents so we can learn about safety, then great.  If it's because you want to know whether the car could have survived, which is my usual reason on OldRacingCars.com, then you have to be careful that you're not appearing to value the metal more than the human life, but as long as it's done sensitively I believe it's entirely acceptable.  However, if the reason is to entertain, as we all remember from Autosport's "100 Greatest Crashes" which came out the Thursday I cancelled my subscription, you have to be much, much more careful.  

[Tim Murray]

I think that the causes of any accident (fatal or otherwise) need to be fully gone into and analysed, so that people know as much as possible about what happened and whether the consequences could have been prevented, or at least mitigated in some respect. If the accident turns out to be fatal, that’s all I need to know. I do not want to read any of the gory details. The possible exceptions here are accidents such as those of Seaman and Williamson where it is important to know that the driver was relatively uninjured in the crash and could have been saved if rescue procedures had been better.

[kayemod]

However, if the reason is to entertain, as we all remember from Autosport's "100 Greatest Crashes" which came out the Thursday I cancelled my subscription, you have to be much, much more careful.  

 

With media pictures and descriptions of serious racing crashes, they're only trying to feed public prurience, look how motorway traffic slows to a crawl, usually with further minor crashes when any kind of major incident occurs on the opposite side. On Allen's point though, I share his distaste, but does anyone think it's true that a lot of people watch racing in the hope of seeing crashes? I hate the opening sequences of BBC F1 coverage, crash after crash after crash, though fortunately without any significant injuries in most of them. I hate to see things like that, possibly because many years ago I was involved in the racing business, and know only too well how much work is involved in putting the things together again.

[David McKinney]

I think LotuElise's question was in relation to her own special interest, so considerations of improvements to safety standards or reducing causes of future accidents don't apply

I think general references to head injuries are acceptable, but personally don't need to know about decapitation

[Option1]

I understand David's point, and am not into the macabre at all, however, the other side of the coin is I dislike being treated like a child whereby the author so obviously with-holds information on the basis that I mightn't be able to handle it.  It falls into a similar category as that shown so often by television on many subjects (nudity/sex being the most common - blood and violence is much, much more acceptable to show apparently) where there is an undertone of "we've seen the footage, but don't think you should."

 

Purely offered as a devil's advocate approach to a difficult and complex topic.

 

Neil

[arttidesco]

The problem with the largely unmoderated internet is that one can never be sure who is going to be reading what one writes, so I tend to be guilty of assuming I am writing for a clever but emotionally undeveloped six year old.

[LotusElise]

Neil, advocate devilishly away. That has struck me before; I can think of one driver (Annie Bousquet) whose death I've held back from describing, then been bothered about because the information is out there. I think I justified it in terms of relevance: her death was only a tiny part of what happened in her life, and its exact circumstances were not particularly relevant to the rest of the story, or even what happened as a result.

 

I've never even looked for images, and it never occurred to me to do so. However, looking at the dropdown in a Google image search for any major driver who died at the wheel suggests that I am quite unusual. Incidentally, I am not even overly squeamish. In my previous occupation, I handled human remains without much anguish, and some of those people had died violently, albeit millennia ago.

 

Rob, I don't believe that most people watch motorsport hoping to see crashes, but there are some who seem to find it a major draw. I've stood behind them whilst spectating on rallies, and listened to them jeering and crowing at a driver trying to restart his shunted car. 

[SophieB]

LotusElise,

 

Not a writer myself, but as a reader I think my attitude to such things depended a bit on the wider context of the work I was reading, and what seems to be the underlying attitude of the author, and the points they're trying to make.  For example, despite the title, Richard Williams' excellent work The Death of Ayrton Senna is about a lot more than his fatal accident but he does set out to answer questions his death prompted, in himself and others - how did that accident happen? Why did such a stellar driver crash and die?  To answer that, he necessarily has to go into quite a bit of medical detail. Yet it doesn't seem ghoulish because he does his best to keep the prose dispassionate and gruesome detail to what is necessary to gain understanding, and at the same time when reading it, I was aware that by downplaying things too much he risked giving a misleading account of things being not as bad as they were.

[Jager]

I can only speak for myself, but over the last 10 years TV shows like CSI Miami, NCIS etc have definitely desensitised my feelings towards death and a picture that in an earlier time would have churned my stomach barely registers these days. My tolerance of graphic narrative has similarly increased proportionately over time.

 

When it comes to family or friends looking or reading something about a loved one, that’s obviously a lot more personal. In my own case, I recently read a book which contained a fairly graphic description about the execution of my Grandfather in a Japanese POW camp during the war. It was my choice whether to read it or not, but I found the detail enabled me to more fully appreciate the situation. I suspect the family of a racing driver would have similar feelings and if they are searching or reading about his/her death, these days they will be prepared for and expect more graphic detail than what would have been commonplace 10 or 20 years ago.

[ensign14]

I understand David's point, and am not into the macabre at all, however, the other side of the coin is I dislike being treated like a child whereby the author so obviously with-holds information on the basis that I mightn't be able to handle it.

 

There's also the point where an author is so coy about the circumstances of a death that they either get it wrong, or misleadingly correct.  Saying someone died of a broken neck might be technically correct if they were decapitated, but it doesn't feel right.

[bradbury west]

How much of this topic was covered by Dr Michael Henderson and his pioneering work all those years ago, I wonder? A check in the Search archives may give details.
Roger Lund

[retriever]

I seem to remember there was a book by Louis Stanley published either before or in early commercial internet days wherein some of the visual content was on the wrong side of acceptable. 

 

On the other hand I felt the Tremayne book 'The Lost Generation', about the careers of those three souls lost in the 1970s, recorded the tragedies that befell them in a correct and understanding manner. It is a book that I recommend - all would have gone on to greater achievements if the circumstances had been different and no doubt would have had individual books published about them. 

[D-Type]

In terms of the Speedqueens site,  I think it is a case of giving the bare facts without embellishment.  To give a fictitious example:

"While competing in the 19** Le Mans 24 hrs in an MG she crashed at Eau Rouge and the car caught fire.  She died in hospital 3 days later on June** 19** "

If there are relevant details such as a broken neck or decapitation or other cars and drivers involved these should be mentioned.  If there is a site with in-depth details, or even Motorsport Memorial, I feel you could provide a link for those who want to find out more.

[Jim Thurman]

In terms of the Speedqueens site,  I think it is a case of giving the bare facts without embellishment.  To give a fictitious example:

"While competing in the 19** Le Mans 24 hrs in an MG she crashed at Eau Rouge and the car caught fire.  She died in hospital 3 days later on June** 19** "

If there are relevant details such as a broken neck or decapitation or other cars and drivers involved these should be mentioned.  If there is a site with in-depth details, or even Motorsport Memorial, I feel you could provide a link for those who want to find out more.

 

Concur with this, but even Motorsport Memorial?  I know the entries there can vary wildly and I realize there are some entries there that leave much to be desired, but...even?

Edited by Jim Thurman, 19 October 2013 - 18:23.

[D-Type]

My apologies to the Motorsport Memorial team.  The 'or even' was not meant in a disparaging way but simply because Motorsport Memorial does not attempt to give in-depth details or analysis of fatal accidents.

[Lee Nicolle]

With media pictures and descriptions of serious racing crashes, they're only trying to feed public prurience, look how motorway traffic slows to a crawl, usually with further minor crashes when any kind of major incident occurs on the opposite side. On Allen's point though, I share his distaste, but does anyone think it's true that a lot of people watch racing in the hope of seeing crashes? I hate the opening sequences of BBC F1 coverage, crash after crash after crash, though fortunately without any significant injuries in most of them. I hate to see things like that, possibly because many years ago I was involved in the racing business, and know only too well how much work is involved in putting the things together again.

Lets get real. Road accidents and people slowing to look are both human nature and the law. Most countrys have a law that passing emergency vehicles invokes a 25k limit. On both sides of a freeway. A commonsense law.
The media sometimes over emphasises motorsport crashes, but they are part of the spectacle like it or not. They generally do not show major accidents or fatalities though. Just the ones where the drivers get out and walk away. As a long time competitor I really do not wish to see accidents of any type. Whatever someone has to fix the cars,,, and the infrastructure they hit.and bent cars often put a small budget competitor off the scene for some time. or ever.
Research on accidents is needed, though often the 'experts' get it terribly wrong. And or the poor bloody promoters cop more flack and expense. And remove the things that caused the accident, Sometimes that was put there in the first place to get a track liscence.
Road accidents are often thus caused too. Some researchers are very good, and many have no idea. They know all about motoring but do not drive themselves. Just like many 'expert' politicians too.

[kayemod]

Lets get real. Road accidents and people slowing to look are both human nature and the law. Most countrys have a law that passing emergency vehicles invokes a 25k limit. On both sides of a freeway. A commonsense law.
 

 

No, it's public prurience. The UK has no such law, and as far as I know, no other European country does either. Drivers here have been prosecuted for slowing down dangerously to take pictures on their phones of an incident on the opposite carriageway, it isn't an uncommon occurrence, happens all the time, that's public prurience. Some months ago an English girl had a leg completely severed by an errant taxi in a New York street. One or two public spirited Americans rushed forward to give what assistance they could, but the rest crowded around taking pics on their phones, more public prurience. Speedqueens is right to take the moral high ground on this kind of thing, and I doubt that anyone going to the site would want gory pics and descriptions anyway, but there's no question that there is a sizeable and growing appetite for graphic factual and pictorial material like this, just look at what you can find on YouTube, and the number of hits on the really gory bits, how much more proof do you need? A neighbour has a 12 year old son, and they watch racing together on TV. If we meet after a race, the conversation between Father and me will be along the lines of "Alonso had a great race", and "Did you like the pass that Kimi pulled on Jenson?". Young son will add, "That was a really good crash just after the start!" and if you asked him who won the race, he probably couldn't tell you. So it's public prurience, we're all doomed I tell you, doomed!

[Nemo1965]

A couple of years ago, under a different nom de plume, I started a thread that posed the opposite question of the thread. I believe the title was 'Are we closing our eyes for the dangers of motorsport?' My conclusion from the hefty and sometimes emotional discussion was: I would not have become a motorsport-fan when I would have had the liberty to see the pictures of, say, the dead woman smoldering on the straight after the Le Mans crash in 1955, or the pictures of Roger Williamson in his wreck in Zandvoort 1973. I think that especially in the 70's, discretion was often used to cover up terrible and idiotic situations in motorsport, especially regarding the lack of safety measures at tracks.

 

I think it is too easy to describe people who watch gruesome pictures as 'ghouls'. There are very few 'Dexters' amongst the motorsport fans, I think. To not enable your readers - after some due dilligence and warnings andsoforth - to see what actually happened, is a kind of protection that is close to censure.

Edited by Nemo1965, 21 October 2013 - 10:21.

[Jim Thurman]

My apologies to the Motorsport Memorial team.  The 'or even' was not meant in a disparaging way but simply because Motorsport Memorial does not attempt to give in-depth details or analysis of fatal accidents.

 

Duncan, I'm not so sure that wasn't the idea at one point, which certainly was debated amongst the team.  Motorsport Memorial is definitely a place for biographical and career information.