Rally accident in Spain

[wolfhound]

There has been an accident on the A Coruna rally in Spain where 6 spectators have lost their lives and 16 others injured.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34165776

I don't know why the car ended up in an area full of spectators but it could have serious consequences for rallying as a sport.
Here in Ireland rallying is very popular and has serious incidents over the years but generally the sport seems to be well controlled.

[Biscuits In A Red Bull]

Often the spectators aren't meant to be where they are in these incidents. Of course the brilliant details from the BBC help us to piece together what happened...

...condolences to the families of those lost and injured, and the driver and co-driver.

[Alex Langheck]

While it's a generalisation, in Europe, organisers seem to have a laissez faire attitude to spectator safety. Some of the places were they stand are just incredible.
This issue is probably the biggest in the sport at the moment; in fact, the very future of the sport has been under threat here in the UK due to spectator stupidity. Organisers now provide 'spectator areas', everywhere else is meant to be 'no go'. The safety delegate can cancel the stage if people aren't in these areas.

[GORDON STREETER]

I have seen a few stage rallies over the years and to be quite honest some of the ones that I have attended regarding spectators are almost a joke, you don't have to be the brain of Britain to see what can happen.
We were watching the Cyprus rally a few years back and there was a crowd of people on the "outside" of a fast corner and virtually standing on the track, the inevitable happened and a few people were taken away with all sorts of injuries, within 10 minutes others had taken their place !

[flagwaver]

FIA are now looking into it.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/119317

[Lancsbreaker]

Done a lot of marshalling on Stage events in UK over the years, and it is indeed incredible where people do try to stand, but fortunately in UK we have generally got well-marshalled stages with the dangerous areas "boxed-off", and in general with tactful crowd control (and a certain amount of peer pressure from those in the sensible areas) you can normally keep things safe and keep the stages running.

I do know of course that there has been a significant ramping up of of safety management in the last year or so.

In other countries, by contrast, things can be scary......

[canamman]

Its time. Spectating this sport is about to go through
a transformation. Fans being showered with gravel
or run over should be a thing of the past. History will
look at this and wonder what took so long?

[fieldodreams79]

Oh my. That's horrible. Having not followed rallying in years, I didn't realize there was such a close call recently.

Condolences to those family and friends of the deceased and hoping for a quick and full recovery for the injuried.

[cg7aa]

Originally Posted by flagwaver

FIA are now looking into it.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/119317

Interesting to read Meeke's words. It's exactly how I saw it too. In fact, I remember being very annoyed at what seemed like a deliberate lack of detail in the TV coverage with the vague 'stage cancelled because of an incident' spin.

[cg7aa]

Originally Posted by Biscuits In A Red Bull

...Of course the brilliant details from the BBC help us to piece together what happened...

...

Typical of modern media though isn't it? Keep sacking reporters to save money and then quote that great barometer of public opinion and facts - effing social media comments and pretend its news. Job done.

"The car was going too fast"? I don't even know what to say to that - if indeed that was really said by the police.

[BertMk2]

Originally Posted by cg7aa

Typical of modern media though isn't it? Keep sacking reporters to save money and then quote that great barometer of public opinion and facts - effing social media comments and pretend its news. Job done.

"The car was going too fast"? I don't even know what to say to that - if indeed that was really said by the police.

Agreed. Taking opinion from social media is worse than not offering an opinion at all unless you can verify the credentials of the source. Sadly it does seem to be used more and more in previously sensible news sources. The other example of this outpouring of ignorance recently was the Shoreham crash - amazing how many aviation crash investigators there are out there.

The problems with rally spectating are well known - it's the solution that's the problem. To some extent rally spectators do have to take some responsibility for their own safety - they can be told to move and herded into safe locations but there's always some that will ignore instructions and do their own thing.

[GORDON STREETER]

What I have found with watching some big car/bike events especially in Spain is some people seem to have a death wish that seems to rub off with those around them, then they try and show how "brave" (read stupid) they are by seeing how close they can get to the speeding competitors !