Another motorist drives into the Charles from Memorial Drive and is also rescued by a passing crew team

By adamg on Mon, 09/27/2021 - 11:01pm

For the second time in a little over a month, a Memorial Drive motorist wound up in the Charles River and was rescued by a crew team that happened to be right there.

Cambridge Police report a man drove into the Charles River from Memorial Drive at Flagg Street around 7:30 p.m. He was was able to get himself out of his sinking vehicle, police say.

WBZ reports the man suffered some sort of medical incident and that he went into the river near a motorized boat carrying Northeastern crew coaches.

The Cambridge Fire Department reports he was not seriously injured.

On Aug. 24, another driver plunged into the river from Memorial Drive in the same stretch. He was also pulled out of the water by a passing crew team.

Update: CFD companies, Marine Unit 2, & divers are still operating in the Charles River Memorial Dr vicinity of DeWolfe St/Weeks Footbridge assisting in removal of vehicle from the water. Driver self-extricated w/o serious injury.
Contact @MassStatePolice for any info. https://t.co/vXfxTmDgTn pic.twitter.com/WB8k3lYqRC

— Cambridge Fire Dept. (@CambridgeMAFire) September 28, 2021

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Comments

Terminate his license. He

By Kinopio on Tue, 09/28/2021 - 7:42am.

Terminate his license. He could have killed multiple people. If you can’t safely operate a vehicle then you can’t have the privilege of having a drivers license.

Oh and just another reminder of why putting roads next to the river was a terrible idea. Make it all land for parks.

Do you 'spose the horse 'n buggy crowd used to have these problems back in the day? The River Roads were horse paths and wagon tracks originally, the horses were probably smart enough to say "nope, we're not going aquatic."

Please understand

By Rob O on Tue, 09/28/2021 - 9:36am.

You've got to understand, if you are a river, cars are going to hit you. -- Marty & AEG, probably

Next Time You Blow Through a Stop Sign or Red Light....

By John Costello on Tue, 09/28/2021 - 9:38am.

Make sure you turn yourself in at the local constabulary office.

Que?

By Kaz on Tue, 09/28/2021 - 9:56am.

We have no idea what "medical incident" he had. If he had a transient ischemic attack, he wouldn't have known it was coming, it would have disabled his ability to do anything, and then he would have recovered to get out of the car.

Consider the source

By Hardy Har Har on Tue, 09/28/2021 - 10:12am.

It's Car And Driver - he thinks JFK deserved it because he was riding in a vehicle with a combustion engine.

sounds like

By fungwah on Tue, 09/28/2021 - 4:33pm.

a good reason to move away from letting people drive their own vehicles if such an event is possible?

Sounds like a great reason!

By Kaz on Wed, 09/29/2021 - 12:13pm.

Sure, it sounds like a great reason! One that's been there ever since the first Edsel and beyond!

Now, do we just ban all vehicles until self-driving ones are perfected or do we live with the rare occurrence of medical emergencies until such time that we have a better system in place?

When will you learn

By Will LaTulippe on Tue, 09/28/2021 - 10:07am.

That our society just doesn't care about lives more than it does about convenience? The COVID death tally didn't give you the hint?

In a slightly different world….

By Bob Leponge on Tue, 09/28/2021 - 1:05pm.

In a slightly different world, I would be your fervent ally. I believe that it’s an enormous mistake to have focused public infrastructure spending on facilitating automobile traffic the way we have. I believe the impact on our environment, on the fabric of our cities, on our economy, our politics, and on our society itself have been enormously problematic. I believe we should vigorously change course. I believe we don’t do nearly enough to hold criminally bad drivers accountable for the mayhem they create…

… but you’re so goddamned shrill about it that you lose me completely, to the extent that I want nothing to do with you and your cause.

HARD SAME

By eeka on Tue, 09/28/2021 - 2:21pm.

Also, yeah, there's a lot of damn idiots on the road and we should do something about people improperly operating two-ton death boxes, but it also happens that capable responsible people sometimes experience sudden medical issues, and this person (may they recover fully and quickly) doesn't need to see the internet jumping to conclusions and trash-talking.

If capable responsible people can suddenly lose control

By fungwah on Tue, 09/28/2021 - 4:34pm.

of their two-ton death boxes...maybe we shouldn't have so many people out there operating their own two-ton death boxes?

Number sense is important

By Bob Leponge on Wed, 09/29/2021 - 7:10am.

Compared to other road risks, such as distracted/texting drivers, habitual repeat offender drunk drivers, or criminally aggressive drivers, the incidence of otherwise healthy people having a sudden health issue and losing control of their cars is so small as to be statistically insignificant -- something that we can reasonably ignore in formulating public policy.

Robert Moses

By scollaysq on Wed, 09/29/2021 - 11:54am.

I blame a great deal of our traffic troubles - including not keeping up with public transport and rail systems - on that devil spawn, Robert Moses.

Maybe if we were in Suffolk

By Rob on Wed, 09/29/2021 - 1:15pm.

Maybe if we were in Suffolk County, NY...

you'd think so

By scollaysq on Thu, 09/30/2021 - 12:25pm.

His policies were so contagious everyone started thinking "why do we still need these raggedy old tracks, rip them up, we have cars now!" Federal funding for trains etc all but dried up. He spread like a fungus! (I'm oversimplifying but there are so many things I can blame on Robert Moses)