348 driver killed today near Wasco, OR

Bad accident today near Washington 97 in Wasco, Oregon.

http://www.katu.com/news/local/Police-Ferrari-driver-killed-in-crash-on-Ore-Hwy-97-153813535.html?m=y&smobile=y
http://www.komonews.com/news/local/Washington-Ferrari-driver-killed-in-Oregon-crash-153816885.html

Ferrari driver died later at hospital, Ford driver with minor injuries.

1994 348 red and tan, reported as a 33-year old driver.

 

That's too bad. I get terrified in my car sometimes with other drivers out there. Looks like it was a challenge car as well.

 

Nasty. Even with a roll cage. Looks like the "jaws of life" took off the roof and door.

Condolences to the family, and as always, spare a thought for the police and rescue workers who have to deal with these things.

 

Very sad.

Kai

 

Wow that looks really bad. He was so young.

 

Absolutely horrible. I think this is the 348 Challenge that we've seen many times at local events. Seattle Times identified the driver as Gabriel Pigotti of Seattle. Very sad.

 

I thought the 348 challenge had white rims that rumbled around our area?


Are those white and I can't tell on my iPad?


Very sad.

 

Wow that looked horrible. RIP

 

yes, white

very sad RIP

look at the comparably less damage to the suv?

 

The passenger cabin looks fairly intact other than what they cut away, I wonder if he hit his head on the cage or something...

 

Probably an injury that only a HANS device could have prevented. Condolences to his family.

 

He was a very nice guy and I highly doubt that excessive speed had anything to do with this accident.

Here is his car in front of a handful of CS, Scuderia and 16m's from a drive I organized 2 years ago.
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

Condolences to friends and family.

I wonder if it was just assumed that since it was a fast sports car versus a daily driver it had to be the sports cars fault.?.

 

I wasn't a fan of the wording in that article either.

I highly doubt he was driving out of line.

 

I was on that run with you, Mark, which is the second time I met Gabe.
A very sad time for his family and friends.

—Vic

 

It couldn't have been the 90 year old that was making a lefts fault..

RIP to the driver, thats horrible.

 

No airbag deployment in the 348? Is that an aftermarket steering wheel?

 

Wow, so sad. Makes one pause and think about how quickly life can end. Everyone drive safe and be aware of those that may not be driving safely out there. Seems like once every two weeks someone pulls out in front of me dangerously.

 

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. After taking a rather uncomfortable ride with my 86 year old father last weekend, I'm thinking I'm going to have to have "the talk" with him. It is scary to see the driving skills start to decline, yet he is unaware that he's not driving well.

I can easily see the scenario where the 90 year old guy decides to make a left turn at the last minute, without using his turn indicator and misjudges the distance of the oncoming car. We did a variation of that error with my dad driving last weekend. He was driving a route that he knows very well, yet he suddenly realized that his turn was up ahead and swerved over to get in the correct lane to make the turn. No indicators, no checking rear view mirrors, nothing. We were lucky there were no cars in the lane we swerved into.

It's a shame that the immediate reaction is that the young Ferrari driver was at fault. I would imagine that even the witnesses observations got colored by prejudice in this case.

 

I don't believe 348's came with airbags.

 

When I used to live in Florida, there seemed to be an unnerving number of fatal accidents in which an elderly driver turned left into oncoming traffic. Usually the driver survived, but his right-seat passenger (if any) or a person in the oncoming vehicle would pay the ultimate price.

My dad was, himself, a critic of a system that allowed licensed drivers to renew through the mail, without even so much as a vision test, regardless of their age. I believe that Florida eventually passed a law requiring a vision test for all drivers over 70 renewing their licenses. I think a driving test should have been required too, but maybe a lot of these accidents were being attributed more to declining vision than anything else. But I think that all states should require some sort of test for elderly drivers.

For years, dad insisted that I drive whenever I came down to visit. One day, I put my foot down and demanded that he get behind the wheel. To his credit, his driving was still acceptable to me. He said that he would know when it was time to stop, but I don't know if he kept his word, because ultimately it was the high cost of insurance relative to the little amount of driving that he was now doing that made him stop driving and sell the car. He was 88 at the time. Now I do all the driving when I come down and visit. (He just turned 93.)

 

My brother works for the County and came up on this wreck. Says the driver was most likely headed to the track?

Sad indeed.

GT

 

For years it was believed that James Dean had caused the accident that took his life because he was driving the sports car. Until accident reconstruction experts used computer animation to find different answers.

 

Yeah...90 year old driver. I have a good guess as to who was at fault.

 

Extremely sad. Gabriel was a very nice guy. Always friendly and optimistic on life whenever I ran into him. Condolences to his family and close friends.