Anzac day parade in melb

some pics from anzac day march however a sad end to the day for VMVC members with the accident of a members vehicle we wish all involved a speedy recovery,i was 200 mtrs behind the incident and it was chaotic and the march was ended at that point,the vehicle involved has been a regular at events for a long time and was well maintained......
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Thanks for the pics Cribby. Nothing worse than a breakdown, except for an accident, hope it all goes well.

Hope the old boys are OK.

I second that Atkipete.

The papers this morning said that all were expected to recover and those hit held no grudges against the driver or vehicle and hoped that he was ok.

Apparantly the driver has been ringing the hospitals to check on everybody according to those same papers

It was a real bummer to hear the old diggers were badly injured, the good news is they will make a good recovery, media said full recovery but that is just B.S at the ages involved.

Had me wondering what went wrong, the fellow who was driving was also shaken, it's just one of those unfortunate accidents brought about by no deliberate means.

According to media the truck checked out OK, so maybe the driver had a slight turn or something ??????.

Just hope everyone makes a good recovery.



A

Cripotow
GuddayM8

Gr8 Pix
Keep m Cummin

FWIW
My news bulletin did say th@ the ol blitz driver said the throttle pedal went to the floor
( sounds like the spring on the throttle didn't let it return to idle)

Hope this little incident don't put a damper on any other ANZAC days with ol trucks

Cya

[ch9787]

I can't understand what happened in this case. If an accelerator return spring snapped and the pedal went to the floor, and she opened up .. you'd just shove your foot on the clutch and hit the key to off position.
Either it all happened too fast for the old fella driving, or he was too close to the old blokes in front. The cars, jeeps and trucks are generally idling in bog cog, anyway, and often pushing the clutch in, because they are moving faster than the march. The march is always fairly slow, to match the speed of the oldest marchers, so they don't get left behind.

NTC bigcam has it right. It's BS that these old fellas will recover fully. At their advanced ages, they've got one foot on a banana skin and the other in the grave. It only takes a major shock, such as getting hit by a moving vehicle, let alone get run over by one .. to send old people on a rapid downward slide from which they never recover. The body has limited recovery ability once you're over 80, the bones won't knit, and it takes weeks longer, than when you're younger, to recover any semblance of health. Often old folk don't last any longer than a few weeks, once they've taken a major hit like this.

The problem now, will be all the extra inspections and added restrictions and regulations, before vehicles are allowed in the march.
I can see that they will be trying to introduce age limits for the drivers .. which may be a good thing, in some ways .. as the age of the some of the drivers I saw in the march was a bit scary ..

Well Ron, it's the same as work place health and safety. They should be ensuring it can't happen again. I think your right, a bit of panic involved. Up at Allora a few years ago, a bloke drove a White 2064 the same as Highwheelers in the parade, it had a 6V53 and Allison in it. It also had the brake pedal where the accelerator should be, and vice versa, as almost all those old White and Diamonds have, including the 2 I just sold. I can tell you from experience, it doesn't matter how much you tell yourself they are around the wrong way, instinct tends to take over. Anyway, getting back to Allora, the bloke who was driving it hadn't driven it before, took it in the parade, then went to back it back in the line up of parked vehicles, got himself a bit confused, and next thing was holding both the accelerator and brake pedals flat. Being an old truck, the 6V53 was beating the brakes hands down. We could hear a Detriot at full niose, under load, and watched it reverse straight into a Commodore ute. I was walking around the rest of the day thinking it was lucky no one was in the way, the truck probobly did 30 metres before it hit the ute. Anyway, the driver could have pulled the stop, could have taken both feet off the pedals and hit the maxi brakes, could have pulled the motors emergency stop, but unfortunatly, he paniced, which is sometimes hard not to do. He was niether too young or old, and had been driving trucks for years.

Cam - it's a common problem with older people, slamming the go pedal instead of the brake, even when they are the right way around. I reckon there's probably at least 2 or 3 cases a year in Australia where it happens, with catastrophic results .. and probably a lot where it isn't reported.

A common episode is granddad running over grandma, or jamming her against something, when she gets out to open a gate or garage door, and it must be very distressing for all.

The old brain slows down with age, older people just freeze when they are confused, and things aren't happening the way they are supposed to happen .. and early-onset dementia often only shows up, when serious events like the above, happen. Forgetfulness is common in old folk. My missus's 93 yr old uncle got out of his car and forget to set the handbrake on his sloping driveway. The car took off and demolished his brick letterbox. Luckily no-one was hurt .. and the old fella gave up driving straight away.

In the same vein, the missus's favorite Auntie had a very slight stroke when coming back from church with a friend. Auntie was about 83 and very fit .. but the stroke was almost imperceptible, until she pulled up and admitted she was lost. The church was only a couple of kms from their homes, but she couldn't find her way home again. Luckily her elderly (non-driving) friend helped her out, and then rang the missus. We got over there straightaway, to find her slightly confused, but O.K. We insisted she go into hospital for tests, and the results showed up the stroke. Naturally, we told her, she wasn't going to drive again, and she accepted that, hard as it is.

We had a famous case here in Perth where a senior detectives father cranked his parked car up and barrelled it straight forward into a hairdressers shop, killing a woman customer. The detective turned up within 10 mins., and clamped down on the whole scene, and refused to initiate, and even obstructed any investigation.
His elderly Dad was suffering from early onset dementia, and I reckon he knew about it before the accident. He should have had his licence taken from him as soon as the son suspected dementia. It's a very subtle thing, and one needs to be on the lookout for oldies who are getting confused with everyday tasks.