One of my friends was killed in this accident. This episode brought up a lot of memories, and a lot of hurt and anger that this was let to happen. I've been listening to the podcast for years, and as upsetting as so many of the disasters are, I can't express how much more surreal it is to listen to an episode about a tragedy that directly affected you and people you care about.
Two things. 1. When I worked at the website factory we did a whole lotta websites for limo companies. To a person the owners of the companies were some of the sketchy SOBs I had to deal with. 2. I'm never getting into one of these death traps.
The stretch of thruway they would have been on to take the route they took is actually not a toll road. Route 30 goes alongside I-88, which is not tolled. I-90 is tolled, but the path that it takes is further north. Source: Grew up in Schoharie, very very familiar with the area this crash happened. My guess is it's possible they actually wanted to stop at The Apple Barrel on purpose, as it's a popular gift shop and cafe, and is perfect as a spot to grab a coffee and snacks on your way to visit a brewery....
@@NavigatorBR I heard a story from back in the day, a state DOT inspector decided a school bus was to old despite passing inspection. Told the person in charge of busses that this would be last time that bus passed inspection. The person in charge of the busses asked why and the inspector smashed a broomhandle into the ceiling and said because of the hole in the ceiling. This was around 40+ years ago.
@@davidtanner665 Something similar I heard in Ohio, is that a highway patrol inspector (who handle our bus inspections), would sometime just jam a screwdriver through bullshit Bondo repairs in buses. (Now, tbf, bondo repairs are limited to small, non structural repairs, and the inspection manual spells that out pretty clearly, and from what I recall, this was done when someone was trying to pass it off on a obviously prohibited/too large hole, instead of patching it correctly with metal.)
I posted this on twitter too, but I live like 15-20 mins from where this happened and it was one of the craziest things to ever happen to this area. My dad teaches at the local district which is very small (like 50-60 kids per graduating class) and everyone in the school either knew someone who died, was related to someone who died, or at the very least knew someone who knew someone. there was basically nobody in the general area who wasn't affected. to this day when i drive by the apple barn, i can't help but remember the images. It's all so crazy, especially considering the measures that had already been taken in this area to prevent something like this. never, ever ride in a limousine
Same. My dad was a volunteer EMT for something like 30 years at the local ambulance. Lot of his friends suffered PTSD from being on call that day. He was lucky it wasn't his shift. Shit was fucking tragic.
I don't live as close to you, but unironically right close to their intended destination was. It's really worrisome seeing the folks trying to get to fun destinations in rural NY with such limited transport options end up in this situation. I'm very sorry it happened, I followed the headlines for years assuming the wrath of the gods would be laid down from on high for the blatant illegality involved. Just wild to see the process and security state get involved.
Fun fact: the insurance company claimed that the plaintiffs should have been aware of the risks of limousine travel, and by embarking on the journey they "willingly and voluntarily assumed" them.
Thank you for putting up with my loud, obnoxious ass at the Franklin Music Hall, and thank you for signing my school ID. My best student had literally died the day before, and your show helped me get through the early part of the week.
Exitied to learn how one crashes a single car so bad its a major tragedy. Edit after watching: wow that was a Final destination esque compounding catstrophy of negligence
I remember hearing about this when it happened and it blew my mind how a single vehicle crash that didn't involve an aircraft could kill this many people. Even actual bus crashes typically don't kill that many people.
@@guypradel8874bovine to be more correct. It is a designer breed from the 70's when the aesthetic for show bulls was 3000lb weener dog ie long and low. So the breed is named for the streached death trap.😀
I know a bus driver who legitimately carries a metal 12" ruler for self defense. The visual in my head of Roz with a socket wrench versus this driver with a metal ruler wobbling around made me literally LOL.
For anyone bitching about the length of this episode, the WTYP gang are also guesting on Trashfuture for an hour or so talking about concrete. Win, win, I would say...
I believe the union’s issue with EVs is actually that they _want_ to build them, but because union busting the automakers are building them and their parts in non-union plants in the south.
So in specific general motors founded a new corporation to make batteries, Ultium, and base them out of a plant in Ohio. Because this is a new company and not general motors, they felt that they were able to ignore any UAW demands and staff it entirely with non-union labor. The UAW disagrees. This battery plant has had some safety problems and some bad working conditions beyond that. That's the specific situation related to EVs that I'm most familiar with, but I'm sure there's more across the rest of the US auto industry.
Combustion engines weren’t totally safe from these kind of games. I used to work for the US arm of a Japanese parts company (non-union), who among our customers was a Unifor engine plant in Canada, who then sent the engines to a UAW assembly plant in the US. “What even is this supply chain?!” But EVs are definitely really obsessed with this idea of moving lot of high-value powertrain parts to a greenfield “gigafactory” (because no one ever built a really big factory before) that’s some non-union joint venture. Because greenfield builds that append new SI prefixes to “factory” apparently is how we measure whether a company is serious about EVs or something.
The Big 3 don't build much in the South; they skipped on down to Mexico instead. Their batteries are largely made by Japanese/Korean companies even if in US factories (the Ultium factory is the exception). Honda and Toyota are big in the south but negligible in EVs. The Germans are the only ones big in the South and in EVs. Even if the assembly and battery assembly were all union, there's still less labor required for EV assembly (EV motors and gearboxes are cheap and mostly robotically assembled), and the Unions are likely worried about that. EVs shift some of that cost over to the battery materials and electronics, which are predominantly foreign.
Timestamps: 0:00:00 Gaming Chair Update 0:02:09 Intro 0:03:34 The GD News: First City Destroyed by Climate Change 0:09:24 The GD News: UAW Strike, EVs Not Actually Issue 0:14:22 Background: What Is a Limousine? 0:15:52 Background: Coachbuilding and The Monocoque 0:18:25 Background: The Stretch Limousine 0:25:51 Background: Fleet Vehicles vs Stretch Limos 0:27:50 Background: Limo Regulation and U-Haul Flags of Convenience 0:33:31 Background: Limousine Survivability Onion 0:34:23 Background: Prestige Limousine and Chauffeur Service 0:38:11 This 2001 Ford Excursion 0:43:34 Refuse to Be Governed: Business Edition 0:52:49 The Incident 1:05:22 The Investigation 1:08:00 The Outcome 1:17:29 Safety Third: Prison Forklift
My last "gamer chair" was an 80's armchair on casters my theatre was throwing out. Used it for 6 years. My current art chair is **technically** a Subway chair... as it it was literally being given away by a closing Subway Sandwich franchise. Its hella sturdy metal
That and being an NTSB or Chemical Safety Board investigator, where you can make piles of ways to make shit safer and prevent this shit from happening... And have no power to actually make anyone do a fuckin' thing... The amount of CSB investigations that trace back to combustible dust and how long they've yelled at OSHA to do **something** about it is depressing.
@@NavigatorBR my dad was one of the officials in charge of handling dallas' infamous shingle mountain. he walked the judge to the fucking site pointed out everything they were doing wrong and the judge still said that they could have more time to clean the thing up.
@@elgatto3133 I went and looked this up... Holy shit is that entire thing is a disaster, and it sucks your dad was ignored, and the judge basically let them walk the fuck way from that. (Meanwhile, walk away from student loan debt? Not on your fucking life.)
@@NavigatorBR eventually the city did clean it but the bastards behind it didn't even pay enough to cover the cleaning, then they did the same shit in denton
The NTSB generally has a pretty clear hierarchy of control over their investigations, particularly with airline accidents, but when it comes to highway crashes in dinky jurisdictions, all bets are off. The local DA in Schoharie basically had a hissy fit that the NTSB would somehow release something into the public docket that would compromise the criminal prosecution and tried to keep them away, because somehow NTSB taking measurements and photographs for their own investigation would somehow cause the whole criminal case to fall apart, I guess?
Oh then the DA did an absolutely dogshit job with the prosecution, anyway. He almost got 5 years probation & 1,000 hrs community service in a plea deal. The judge had to step in and stop it. What a fucking prick.
From the Wikipedia on this- "It was also the deadliest road transportation disaster in the U.S. since a 2005 bus fire in Wilmer, Texas killed 23 nursing home residents evacuating from the path of Hurricane Rita." That's some Final Destination, "you can't escape death" shit.
@discoj7112 I had just moved to deep east Texas earlier that year from Wisconsin and took a direct hit from Rita about 90 miles north of Beaumont/Port Arthur. People panicked because it was only about a month after Katrina, and the evacuation was chaotic and poorly handled. I was just outside of the evacuation zone and Highway 69 was at a standstill for quite a while. After Rita they designated the shoulder lanes as evacuation lanes because apparently that occurred to no one before then
@@nopantsman35 Something something Gods punishment for you leaving the great cheese state not even bringing a tub of Kemp's along to enjoy as a sendoff
I really want to see a stretch limo that goes by width instead of length. Takes up three lanes of traffic, you can sit eleven people in the back seat, and the trunk can accomodate a playground slide.
This happened in my hometown. My dad has a lot of friends who still suffer PTSD from being first responders. It was a pretty shocking tragedy, absolutely wild to seem my shitty ass smalltown home come up on a WTYP episode. Edit: it's Skoe-hair-ee, I'm about to listen to Roz mispronounce my town for the next 90 minutes aren't I....
Wow... The engine was screaming because the driver had it in low gear trying to engine brake. But the weight and gravity just overcame it and spun it to the moon..Ironically if the engine DID blow it could have at least slowed the crash by locking the rear wheels..
Damn. Imagine the rpms it must've been running at. Insane that it didn't blow up. I mean it wasn't much time but those are not meant to spin past like 4k
Imagining a Bond film where the villain sends goons in a limo to bring in Bond, then cut to the villain trying to contact his number 2 angrily asking where the hell Bond is, his Mr. Name and Mungo come in, "boss... the limo..." Smash cut to a funeral for his number 2, the villain angrily sobbing and threatening all limo companies, and the rest of the film just being legislation being passed.
33:39 Survivability Onion: Don't Be Penetrated Me: Mind your business. 34:26 Originally, Limo PSR was supposed to be where you ran the limos on a schedule. Instead, they only run when they have 200 prom kids, so they only have to pay for the minimum number of cars and drivers. And as seen here, the cars don't fit in the sidings, so they can't pass each other, so the kids end up missing the prom cos the driver died on the law, and the limo company has to send another driver out in a van. The prom kids finally get to the school in mid-October, but homecoming is going on, and there's no room for them, so the limo company takes the prom kids back to the limo yard and charges the school demurrage. It's fucked. This used to be a proper country. Return, goddammit, return I say.
@@alexisborden3191Slightly more ostensibly (37.5% to be exact) but there was probably enough random scraps taken out during the process to make the difference.
Devon's nailed it. You're not going to be flung around while driving a keyboard. Sports car seats should remain in sports cars. Buy a premium office chair (secondhand...) that's designed for 40+ hour weeks and your back will thank you.
Yes, I think someone once said; Never compromise or cheap out on anything that comes between you and the ground. That is, chairs, beds, shoes... And haven't regretted following that advice so far.
I was re-listening to some of y'alls older episodes omw home from a concert. I just got home, started making some food, checked my phone, and saw the RU-vid notification that y'all had posted a new episode. Life is good
Purely commenting on the first news story: I'm the sort of person that can't help but make historical comparisons. So honestly when the flood happened I returned to thinking about the 1931Yangtze-Huai River Flood, which essentially inundated the whole of the plains of Central and Northern China (if not really ALL of China) because heavy rains made the Yangtze burst its dams And the immediate problem and aftermath was made worse because like Libya there was basically no or very little central government to speak of and the country was in a state of conflict. So there was a critical shortage of resources to appropriately act. In the case of China the long deadly tail of inability of the Kuomintang regime to do anything meant upwards of 4 million just dies. Anyways on to the rest of the episode which I'm sure will be great.
I love that this episode on a crash in NY dropped today when we just had another major fatal crash here in NY with a bus full of students going to band camp. Alice was joking about stealing a metal chair from a bus, so maybe y'all can do a live WTYP podcast from the scene and rip out one of the cat proof metal seats from the bus. Rest in peace to the lost students, though maybe we should give all the cat proof chairs seatbelts & mandate their use so we don't end up with more dark humor about "that one time at band camp"?
Also famously stretch vehicles: Duck boats! Brick Immortar has some great episodes about how those deathtraps are made even more terrifying when they can fucking sink!
This podcast has given me a lot of new things to be wary of over the years - tall buildings, planes, concerts that feel a little too packed - and now i can add another one to the list! The idea of being trapped in a piece of shit limousine with all of my closest friends, careening down a hill at 100 mph to crash horribly has now rocketed up my list of "worst days to die." Thanks! I think!
I was in a runaway school bus with failed breaks going down the east side of Mount Hood in Oregon when I was 14. Loads of fun. Fortunately, the driver managed to keep the bus on the road, and we came to a safe stop after rolling all the way to the end of the drop from a 1215 meter (3989 foot) altitude. The most fun time was had when the bus ran through a closed lane road repair/construction site, causing flaggers and DOT workers to dodge for their lives. This generated a pissed off supervisor running after our bus and a yelling match between our driver and the supervisor. I managed to generate some comic relief by reading the sign on the motel near where we had come to a stop - "Overnighters Welcome." What a way to start summer camp.
Has WTYP ever covered duck boats? Shady companies take WW2 era amphibious landing craft that were intended to last for the length of the war, stretch them, and use them for tourism. They've killed a lot of people from poor design and poor maintanance.
Would not have known about these if not for Brick Immortar, and Sam would be the perfect guest for that topic. He would also be fantastic for an "All Safety Third" episode!
That one that was sent out basically right into a storm and eradicated three generations of an entire family was devastating. A woman and her nephew survived but she lost her husband and three kids and the nephew lost his grandparents, mom and little brother. The survivors guilt I’ve seen in interviews with her and with another girl who survived but lost her dad and brother just break me.
My hometown is Schoharie and this is basically the first time it has been relevant since the revolutionary war. Schoharie county has less than 30,000 people and the village of Schoharie itself only has like 950 people in it. It a very pretty place, but a dying place. It was largely destroyed by Hurricane Irene in 2011. This was basically the only thing anyone talked about up until Covid. Didn't know about everyone dying from impalement though, so thanks for that. I had heard that they found body parts around the parking lot but I'm not sure if that is just yokel gossip. The hill that limo was going down was STEEP and is always a bit suss in the winter if there is even a hint of black ice. The Apple Barrel (and the Carrot Barn down the road) are pretty nice as far as Schoharie goes and are one of the types of places that the local high school work out. Fun Fact; George Westinghouse, inventor of the railway air brake, is from here!
byyyyy the way I'm an ILS tech so if you ever need a guest who is an expert on aircraft landing systems to talk about one of the many aircraft disasters I would love to be on.
I recommended WCC specifically because... okay so small, itty bitty example. On P dorm there was a 2x2 section of reenforced concrete directly above one of the toilets. Around 3/4 of the perimeter of this section of concrete had lost the concrete and the exposed rebar was rusted or soon to be rusted through. The complex was built in like 1880 and has seen very little renovation since
I love how beautifully descriptive the subtitles are for the various groans and moans. Also, thanks to Dev for mentioning the UCU, UCEA really are breaking our balls...
I don't know why, but this episode really got me. Maybe its just that it was a bunch of friends trying to have a good time, or maybe the "low" death count made it easier for my dumb meat brain to relate, but i got really upset. :( Good ep.
personal fun fact about that mavis discount tire in saratoga springs, new york: in 2011, they vandalized the parking brake on my van to make it fail the safety inspection, and then tried to gaslight me into thinking it was always broken, despite me having left it on when I dropped the van off because the parking pawl in the transmission had been known to pop out and send the van rolling on its merry way in neutral, piloted only by gravity and the hands of god, several times in the past.
Arizonan here. I had no idea we were a flag of convenience. Based on some of the other shady business regulations, I’m not surprised. Thanks for the episode.
This wasn't mentioned here, but 8 of the passengers were four sisters, their three husbands and one husband's brother. The parents of the four sisters recalled in a news interview having to suddenly plan four funerals, sell three houses and seven cars, deal with their daughters' student loans, and having to care for orphaned grandchildren.
My prom was in our local fire station (they had an event space separate from the actual working part of the building) and I drove with one of my friends who had an ancient car that had velvet seats and shook if you drove too fast.
The Limousin horse was a medieval breed of fancy saddle/riding horse, predating the Limousin coach. It was a term for 'fancy expensive travel", kinda like 'First Class' is used today.
So back in high school, I drove my mom's old car, which was our former neighbor's 1988 Ford Crown Victoria. I was also in band. During pep band season, I was able to give the saxophone section a ride to and from games, including all of their cases (including the baritone sax) in the trunk. So hearing Roz mention that limos were invented to drive around big bands tickled me (along with the aside about fleet vehicles including Crown Vics as cop cars, which to the best of my knowledge, mine never was).
When they get to the part about the distinction between a car and a bus (29:55), it reminded me of Canada's Worst Driver and the "cool bus". It was a school bus which had most of the seats removed, painted to not-yellow and erased the "S" and "H" from the sign. This was enough to make it legal for a normal driver's licence despite being the size of a school bus and not having seat belts.
Btw the Miami people are from Indiana, that’s why it’s called the “Miami” floor. I’m sure those native Americans love the recognition of having a cell block named after them!
it's probably already on the list, but I'd love a similar episode about the "Ride the Ducks" crashes (some of which involved stretching a WW2 surplus *boat* rather than a luxury towncar)
My husband and I drive past the location of this tragedy every few weeks. We listened to this episode on the way, and it lined up that we came down the hill at the same time y'all described the wreck. That hill is scary as fuck with a car in working order. My sincere condolences to the families and friends of those that lost their lives.
You all have it wrong, it was the Chernobyl Narrows Molasses Bridge Disaster. Brezhnev thought a bridge made of molasses could "connect the proletariat" by gluing the steppe together.
Devin: herman miller chairs are goated i got mine from an auction when an office furniture supplier didnt get paid for their custom order. Its not the color i wanted but is way more comfortable and adjustable than a gaming chair and it was almost cheaper all said and done.
I'm shocked you made it through the pod without mentioning the Schoharie bridge collapse in the 80s. very strange two automotive mass casualty events have occurred in this small sleepy town during the span of my lifetime. I'm also pleased to report that I had visited The Apple barrel store and Cafe fairly recently to meet my family and give them my child to stay with them over her spring break. During this time nobody was impaled, or reduced to a soup-like homogenate.
In 1967 or so our family car was a green VW Bug named The Scarab. The driver side floor near the pedals was rotted thru and my Dad replaced the missing driver's seat with a wicker-seat dining table chair of which he sawed part of the legs off so it would fit.
"Trump is going to go down to the picket line and Biden is not" What? Did Biden not go down to the picket line today and Trump went to an nonunion plant to talk?
58:28 the divider can be put up or down by either the driver or the passengers. The driver can control whether the divider has power (for proms, kids aren’t allowed to put the divider up).
As a Houstonian with my mom’s family from Johnstown, PA, I know the incredible destructive power of water. Floodwater destroys everything it touches. Floods terrify me. I can’t imagine what it’s like for those poor people over in Libya, a country my mother has visited in a professional capacity. If 20,000 people died in one city in a single disaster in the United States, I don’t think the country itself would survive, perhaps because of how cushioned by privilege we’ve been. We can’t comprehend it.
Avanti stopped producing in 06. Kelley's bought the rights to the name back after they sold Studebaker. It's been an orphan stepchild since. dad is a stude dude. Restores them for fun. Studebakers not Avanti.
In countries that aren't the USA, like say, Australia, modifying a vehicle comes with some regulatory oversight. Anyone modifying a vehicle has to get drawings from a suitably qualified mechanical engineer, inspections by that engineer, and that leads toa signed off data pack given to hte regulator. Then, once that's approved, a compliance examination by the state. That inspection process will go back and forth and it's quite costly. The vehicle is then blessed with an additional compliance plate next to the one it got before it was first sold.
