“An iPod has been blamed for the death of an Australian woman in London,” The Age reports. “The Evening Standard newspaper quoted Ms McMillan’s best friend, Jacques Poullard, as saying she may still have been alive if she hadn’t been listening to the iPod while riding her bike. She was obsessed by that thing.'”
The Age reports, “I never said anything to her about wearing the iPod but now I think if she hadn’t had it on she might have heard the (truck). ‘I hope people will think twice about cycling while wearing headphones.'”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Personal responsibility. Common sense. Remember those concepts? They still work today. Who decided to listen to something (possibly too loudly) while biking on the road? Obviously not the iPod. Still, this tragedy presents an opportunity for a reminder: Make sure you can hear what’s going on around you if you’re listening to your iPod while doing something that might require hearing to help prevent injury.
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is this another ..”blood on Apple’s iPod hands”, story? this time it’s literally…becareful folks, use common sense….
I bought a drink from a bar and it made me piss myself. Who do I sue?
Damn them iPod thingies! I always said they were up to no good…
just to be sure i’ve got this…
if i had been hit by a car while rollerblading and listening to my Walkman then Sony would be to blame for making said Walkman capable of playing too loudly?
i’m just trying to clarify the extent of the responsiblity of Apple Computer and the responsiblity of the end user.
Ahh that’s nothing!!
How about the girl who killed her boyfriend with a iPod?
http://www.jengajam.com/r/Killed-With-iPod
Now that’s a story!
unfortunate dilemma. a lot of the things that make ipods so damn important: jogging, cycling, living through your girlfriends diatribes… can be dangerous with the little life saver. or life ender in this case.
i guess it’s one more reason to just pay the gym membership fees. mortality rates on stationary bikes are pretty low. same with treadmills. although the gym won’t fix you’re girlfriend problems (unless you find a new one while you’re there).
PS I wouldn’t bike around London streets at an aerobic pace even with unimpeded hearing, not that doing so means this woman deserved to be hit by a truck, but that is a bit stupid. I wonder where it happened. I would stick to parks and pedestrian walkways for outdoor cyclling, but maybe that’s not allowed. I don’t know.
Guns don’t kill people, iPods kill people, and so do cheeseburgers, ice cream, smoking, lack of exercise, juggling hand grenades, kicking lions in the balls, blah, blah, blah.
“Everything… Everything gives you CANCER…
Everything… Everything gives you CANCER…
There’s no cure, there’s no answer…
Everything… gives you CANCER!![b/]
-Joe Jackson
before we get any more negative comments about blaming apple, did you guys notice that NO ONE HERE BLAMED APPLE! bloody hell. So quick to talk about how everyone else is a law suit happy idiot you get on this poor dead woman’s case for something she didn’t even do. Her friend’s warning to other cyclists even said heaphones instead of iPods, being fair because this issue is caused by any portable music player. Kudos to her friends and whatever family she may have for not being irrational law suit happy douche bags. and shame on you for jumping down their throat anyway.
I wonder what band/artist she was listening too. Yep, I think they should be sued for manslaughter.
good point, jay… but just wait. there’ll be plenty of local news reporters and editors who, looking for fill for the 5:30 news, will latch onto this and will spare no expense at pointing out that the device in question was an APPLE iPOD that she was listening to and not point out that the problem was the misuse of a portable music device and not a particular product.
there’s already been such pointless lawsuits.
I see cyclists doing this all the time. For those that haven’t been to London, it isn’t a nice New World city with wide streets and a grid pattern. Traffic comes at you from all over the place, and you can’t see in all directions at once. To impede your hearing is asking for trouble.
I feel sorry for this girl, but sooner or later someone was going to die here thanks to their iPod addiction. Hopefully other cyclists will now pay heed.
In Arizona, a heavy cycling state, it is illegal to ride or drive any vehicle with headphones on. You can be ticketed as it impairs your driving/cycling ability.
It is sad that a fellow cyclist yielded to the siren song of an audio device while cycling and paid the ultimate price.
Peace be to her soul.
Natural selection.
“An iPod has been blamed for the death of an Australian woman in London,” The Age reports”
Jay, did you actually READ what the newspaper printed? Who makes the freakin’ iPod? Sony?
Im sick of hearing ‘iPod blamed”.
Thats the problem, everyone wants to blame other people, and now inanimate objects for their problems and for the things that happen in their lives.
Foregt about personal responsibility.
And how many uncountable deaths have been caused over the years by people paying attention to tuning their radio?
I remember stories like this one when the walkman craze swept through. As a cyclist I can attest to the lure of zipping along with the wind in your face and a stirring soundtrack. It is indeed a recipe for sudden impact.
That Joe Jackson quote brings to mind this one from Blues Traveler
I’m quitting cigarette smoking
It’s bad for me, but anyway
I don’t think the tv was joking
When it told me this, but anyway
The newsman said not to sit on strange toilet seats
It’s my life he’s trying to save, but anyway
I found out that I’ve got eye cancer
Too many television waves, but anyway
Does that mean deaf people can’t safely operate a bicycle too?
What if i see a good looking girl along the road and get distracted?
Or what about people so absorbed in their cell-phone conversations that they ignore eveything in their environment?
Life happens. Deal with it (or life stops happening). It’s a simple as that. Sorry if that sounds cold, but it’s the way the world works… and ignoring it for the sake of Political Correctness doesn’t improve your chances of survival.
I knew a kid that was hit by a train while eating a carrot.
Rainy Day,
In your examples, you should sue:
Your parents and/or the Doctor that birthed you
The good looking girl
The person on the cell phone, the cell phone provider, the cell phone manufacturer, and maybe even descendants of Alexander Graham Bell
At least if you’re in America that is. You know, Land of the Free, Home of the Litigious, where the words “personal” and “responsibility” seldom go hand in hand.
iPods don’t kill people – people choosing to listen to their iPods without common sense regard and attention to what’s going around them can end up dead. MDN is right on track here.
Blaming an inanimate object like the iPod for something like this is like saying a discarded cigarette is to blame for the apartment fire that killed three people – the cigarette didn’t light itself and toss itself onto the couch, now, did it?
Does anybody here remember to phonebone? It was a auditory device that rested around the neck and transmitted sound to the auditory canal via vibration of human breast plate through the skeletal system into the ear drum,. The advantage was it allowed you to listen to music but did not isolate the ears from external sounds. They used to sell through the back pages of Popular Science and Popular Mechanics. From what I understand the fidelity was reasonable. Can’t help but think a device such as this could have mitigated this and future tragedies. Some Ipod accessory maker could probably make a kill… er large sums resurrecting such a device.
iDon’t,
Absolutely priceless imagery!
…… but the important story is that the iPod screen got scratched in the impact and a lawyer based in Seattle is starting a class action law suit.
DARWIN WINS.
Tima and time again – although some lawyer(s) will try to cash in too…
Sad world – and I thought croc hunters were smarter than that?
SB
There is a reason why some states in the US don’t allow headphones while riding a bike. I’m a cyclist myself and I love my iPod but I’d never mix the two for this reason.
Sad story but the owner is at fault. Sorry for your loss lady and Jacques you need to get a clue
In the United States it is illegal to wear something that covers both ears and impairs your hearing that you can’t hear what’s going around you. Common sense would be the other factor involved and blaming the iPod is just a plain stupid cop out to the ignorance of the user.
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The only state worse than Texas and Utah is Arizona and I’ve been to them all.
Part of Apple’s eugenics scheme to cull the herd.
Weed out the inferior before conquering the world and starting the new order.
Magic word: alone-as in alone in my delusions
This is why, in many places, it is illegal to wear earphones while driving a motor vehicle. If I’d used earphones while driving, I’d be dead several times over by now. I wouldn’t even wear those earbuds that shut out environmental noise while just walking around the city. They’d be great on the subway, but not on the street.
And, while we’re at it, don’t forget your helmets when you get on bikes, people. I learned that one the hard way, too. You don’t want to do it.
nekogami13…
ROFLMAO!!
This has been done before.
With a Walkman.
In the late 70’s.
There was no law suit.
Its illegal to wear headphones on a bicycle in the UK BTW, but I guess it did stop this girl killing herself.
“..didN’T stop this girl killing herself.” – D’oh.
I returned from 2 weeks in UK last night (birm,cov, & lon); there is this strange phenomenon that I encountered…heaps of people who hate iPods. And it seems that most don’t know of any other music player.
Even the tube has posters ‘reminding’ riders to not play their music so loud that others can hear it, and its design ‘look’ implies iPod, not any music player.
A few colleagues said, that they hate people wearing ‘those’ iPods; I asked why and the reason they said was because everyone was wearing those white headphones.
I replied that I use Koss clipons…I got a blank stare.
Who cares about this story? This person was a nobody. It’s only a minor setback.
Would I be o.k. if I listened to a Creative player?
Dun blame on iPod, but blame on MP3 player.
If one day, a Toyota come and knock down my dog. Would I blame on the “Toyota”, or would I blame on the driver?
OR
If I watch too much TV on my Sony 42″ plasma, and ignore my duty, would I blame on “Sony”, or the TV?
Actually, it’s the fault of the artist of whatever song she was listening to.
And maybe I should sue Apple for repetitive stress injury from using the click wheel.
And does this mean I can sue the radio station if the radio is on when I get into a car crash? And how about suing my cell phone manufacturer and provider?
And maybe I can sue the makers of Q-tips (Johnson and Johnson) for not getting all the wax out of my ears.
MacDude wrote:
“How about the girl who killed her boyfriend with a iPod?”
That was one pissed chick!
Kinda hate to think what Lorena Bobbitt would’ve done with that iPod…
It’s pretty stupid to wear headphones while cycling. But to do it in London traffic is just insane. Didn’t know it was illegal, but I’m not surprised.
Seriously, I really do feel sorry for the lass. I saw a dude driving a Type III Volkswagen the other day wearing those telltale earbuds, I really couldn’t believe it.
NO, CORRECTION!!! It was HER DECISION TO LISTEN TO AN iPOD while biking that caused her death. Quit blaming the damn gadget already!!! I’m all in favor of outlawing cell phone use while driving, so maybe it’s time to protect people from their own stupidity. After all, you or I could die because someone else is distracted with their freaking phone, hamburger, cigarette, or, yes, and iPod.
HEY HEY HEY!!!
I am deaf and I ride the bicycle all the time. Anyone who listen the music still can ride the bicycle and watch where he/she goes.
If the beautiful person walks pass by me, I still watch the bicycle trail or street.
I personally don’t believe that this lady died because of her fault.
Come on… STOP!
The only state worse than Texas and Utah is Arizona and I’ve been to them all.
You mean Texas or Utah. Texas and Utah, first of all, isn’t a state; second of all, if it were, it would be slightly worse than Arizona.
Common sense is hardly common, I say thin the herd!
Don’t know what it is like across the pond, but here in California, there would be a fleet of lawyers out after this one….too bad…I hate it when things like this happen….and I especially hate it when the lawyers come creeping out of every crack in the sidewalk
Well, a strange and sad story. What’s odder is that the newspaper story starts with a woman’s death, and it turns out to be about a story of her friend who is estranged from her father. Weird.
Also, it’s SPECULATION by her friend, that the iPod is at fault. There are no facts. We don’t even know if the iPod was on. We don’t know if the truckdriver was talking on his cellphone. Until the police report states it was inattentive riding due to an iPod, it’s just speculation. I mean, people get killed while riding bikes, all the time without an iPod.
I have ridden my bike thru downtown London, and it’s not at all easy. You get rubbed by passing vehicles all the time. Riding with an iPod or any musical device is not very smart in London.
Having said that, people complain that the iPod’s headphones don’t fit well, and the sound leaks. I mean, no matter how hard I jam those iPod headphones in, I can always hear ambient sound due to leakage. Having headphones in doesn’t mean she couldn’t hear. Until the facts are printed, this is just a sad story.
Is this story an urban myth?!? I just went to the Evening Standard website, which is where the Aussie Age says the story originates from, and searched their website for Ms. McMillan’s name, zero hits. I searched for the friend, zero hits. I searched for iPod, dozens of stories they’ve published, but none about the accident. Strange. I guess I should google it, but I’ll leave that for someone else. Here’s the search link:
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/search/?query=Jacques+Poullard&length=0&siteOr;=
This is London, is the Evening Standard’s website.
You’re right… “Guns don’t kill people” People kill people!
Okay, I google’d, the originating story is in the Mirror, not the Evening Standard.
Reading the Mirror’s story, we get this:
*****
Best friend Jacques Poullard said: “She was obsessed with that iPod. I never said anything to her about wearing it – but if she hadn’t had it on she might have heard the lorry.
He added: “It wasn’t that she was careless. I bought her the bike three years ago and it was how she travelled everywhere.”
*****
Lemme, see, the friend blaming the iPod, is the one that bought the bicycle. Hmmmm…. Yep, musta been the iPod.
You can’t help the stupid.
Are you sure the vice president wasn’t driving that truck?
Back to the topic.
It is my understanding that the police report didn’t blame the iPod,
the truck driver didn’t blame the iPod,
the bicycle manufacture didn’t blame the iPod,
the women herself didn’t blame the iPod,
some women who wasn’t even there made a speculation.
But placing the blame on the fact she was riding a bike won’t sell as many papers (or troll hits) as blaming an iPod.
Now it may very well be true that wearing headphones listing music or a podcast may very well have contributed to the accident. It IS dangerous to ride a bicycle on a busy road and not be able to hear what’s going on.
If she was only listing to WMA instead of AAC, she might still be alive.
darwin award anyone?
MW: choice
Nuff said.
Man, Aussies and Brits are extremely stupid to blame an accident on the iPod. Common sense they don’t have.
Thats one for the Darwin Awards.
> “We salute the improvement of the human genome by honoring those who remove themselves from it.”
Quit with the sweeping generalisation please
I for one am glad of stories like this. Since the announcement that iPod headphones may damage your hearing I have since switched to some from Sony safe in the knowledge that my hearing is safe. Safe from the iPod threat.
Man this is tragic. It’s just like how guns kill people all the time. So many people would still be alive if those darn guns just didn’t shoot themselves.
The title is a bit misleading considering the person quoted said, “I hope people will think twice about cycling while wearing headphones.”
Is it possible in any way I could sue you people…maybe I could sue for punitive damages you are giving me! …hello…sue everybody…I had a terrible accident…hello…I’m sorry
In the United States it is illegal to wear something that covers both ears and impairs your hearing that you can’t hear what’s going around you.
I did a search through the United States Code, and found nothing restricting the use of headphones or any other product that impairs hearing. I was able to find DoD-specific regulations regarding headphone use [Section 6.6, DoD Directive 6605.4, “DoD Traffic Safety Program”], but that only applies to vehicles owned by the DoD, or vehicles driven on property controlled by the DoD (i.e. military bases, Iraq, etc.)
Now, that doesn’t mean that states or municipalities cannot pass laws which restrict the use of headphones, but to say that the Federal government has passed legislation barring any device that impairs hearing is untrue.
It’s funny, but I see NO ONE pointing the finger at the DRIVER.
Yes, it’s certainly idiotic to bike while listing to headphones, but the driver also bears responsibility here.
I’m a cyclist in New York City. I commute and ride for exercise and fun. Pedestrians and cyclists are killed here by the scores every year, yet rarely are the drivers blamed, or even charged with driving infractions.
Drivers are almost completely oblivious to cyclists and close calls with cars are a near daily occurance. You’ll get cut off at intersections, squeezed into parked cars, doored (driver or car passenger flings open door without warning). If you take a lane, they honk or bear down on you, even though cyclists have a legal right to ride.
If drivers know you’re there, it’s a different story.
It doesn’t take a genius to get a driver’s license. Simply requiring average intelligence would keep a lot of morons off the road. So, let’s not be so quick to blame the cyclist in this case.
Hopefully this will be the first of many class action lawsuits against Apple for producing a dangerous product. First it is found that the iPod destroys the hearing of everyone that uses it and now we find out that they kill people too. When will people stop buying these dangerous products and start purchasing safer ones by other companies? Steve Jobs should be forced to go on national TV and admit the errors of Apple and that he is responsible for this woman’s death.
just a senseless Google bomb
http://www.bkpfd.org
If your stupid enoguh to listen to music loud, while riding a bike, then you’re asking for death.
It’s not apple’s fault. It’s you and what you chose to do with your ipod life
Have the British gone stupid?
Why is this a news story? Would it have even made the news wires if she had been listening to a portable CD player?
Why are so many people just itching to throw stones at Apple (and especially iPod) every chance they get? Why can some people simply not bear another’s success? Are they addicted to mediocrity? Is it a rogue gene? Can somebody please figure out how to eradicate it?
LOL…
“Cause of death: iPod”
Was she deaf before the truck hit her? If so, add her to the class-action lawsuit…
And as AlanAudio said, if the Ipod got scratched, add her to that one, too…
Funny how a product can be extremely Effective and yet DEfective at the same time…
It sounds like the victim’s friend found a convenient way to deal with her grief: get angry and blame Apple. If the victim decided that she would compromise her safety on the road to enjoy her music at a louder than safe volume then it was a choice she made. The friend could blame the victim for making a bad choice but of course that would be a very insensitive thing to say.
I am a bit late on this post but I have been busy trying to work out when Apple made iPods that can now operate bicycles! I missed that spec on the last model!!!
Amazing technology, just add the ‘moving object avoidance system’ and you will have a real winner, go Apple.
Leo
Dumbasses. The lot of you.
Another cyclist was killed by a negligent truck driver.
End of story.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/ipod-blamed-for-aussie-death/2006/02/14/1139679557464.html
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