348 driver killed today near Wasco, OR

My condolences to the family. A tragic and unnecessary end.

I agree with the vision/driving test.
My Dad just had double cataract surgery and was astonished at how much better his vision was (and how much he was "missing" before).

In other words, a person doesn't know what they are missing if they can't see it, which means they would be the WORST person to decide when they shouldn't drive anymore..

The 90 year old driver could very well have had the same issue, he just couldn't see the 348.

I am sorry to see this happen.

 

It was a horrible situation, just drving down the highway and another driver turns in front of you. In a moment it life goes from one extream to the other. I offer my heart felt condolances to his family and relatives, not that there is much comfort in words.

Typical of the "If it bleeds it leads" news media today, once they saw a Ferrari in the accident the slant of the story was of course it was the driver of the "sports car" speeding. I'm sure the jump to conclusion reporter is an accident expert and could make that call even before the State Police have finished their investigation. My guess is they will place the blame on the 90 year old making a left turn without signal or realizing the distance between him and the oncoming car. Bet the farm when the final report comes in and it exonerates the Ferrari driver, it won't make the back page of the daily fish wrapper the reporter works for. I'm sure he won't fess up to his jump to conclusion misleading article.

I had to make the call about my father and his inability to continue driving at 86. He was driving and I was a passenger sitting at a left turn arrow. It was red and he started to drive through. I told him to stop as it was red. His response was if you have the arrow it does not make any difference what color it is.

I realized by letting him continue to drive I was putting others in harms way. I called his Doctor and had him notify the DOL. They sent a letter to my father revoking his license. While my father was more than insensed and yes pissed, he did stop driving. God knows if I saved someone the agony or pain of an accident or worse a death.

Howard Musolf
1981 308gtsi
1982 499i Cabriolet
1988 Lotus Esprit Turbo

 

Terrible in deed... I'm not sure if I ever met him, but my thoughts and prayers are with his family... Very sad indeed.. Someone forwarded me the pictures yesterday and this is one of those things you never want to see happen to anyone... terrible..

 

Condolences to his family and friends. Deeply tragic. RIP Gabriel.

People are not use to seeing these cars out and about let alone driving near or around them. Just tonight had a motorcycle pull into my lane without even looking twice.....but I had my eye on him. As mentioned earlier, please be careful out there.

 

I honestly can't say it any better. What a tragic accident! RIP Gabriel!

 

RIP, young man. Very tragic.

As for the 'speed factor'- I guarantee that if a Ferrari went by a group of people at 65mph, then a minivan went by at the same speed, most of the group would state that the Ferrari was going faster. Hopefully the investigators will find the truth.

ALL drivers should re-take both written & driving tests at 65 years of age, IMHO. I believe that would save lives, and could possibly have saved Gabriel's.

 

It is far to easy to renew your license in Washington State. Just go on line and click a few things and you get renewed with your old picture.

I'm 67 and after thinking about it, I think I should be taking an actual test to renew. I honestly know my reactions are slowing as well as my reaction times. I think a refresher course would be an excellent idea. I'm sure there are questions I would be unable to answer correctly today without study. I took the written and drving test more than 50 years ago and for renewals just a simple eye test or an email questionaire. No wonder we have accidents with older drivers.

I am very careful while driving at speed now. I hate to admit it but the old reaction time is much slower now than a few years ago. I was in Eastern Washington last fall and decided to take the 400 up a noch or 2 just to see how it ran. At 125 I saw the trees and poles were flying by. I remeber looking ahead and seeing a tractor driving ahead of me. The good news it was a Deere and brinht green so it was very visible. It was a bit difficult to determine how far ahead of me the tractor was.

We have a customer that is 91 years old and still driving. She has never taken a drivning test. When she got her license they did not have either a written or drivning test. You just showed up with a birth certificate and they issued your driving license.

I think we need to readdress how we do license renewals.

Just saying,

Howard Musolf
1981 308gtsi
1982 400i Cabriolet
1988 Lotus Esprit Turbo

 

Very sorry and my deepest condolences to the families. Really sorry to read about this tragedy.



I was just out there on the 25th after and when I seen on google maps that US-97 is mainly a 2-way highway, I called it a night stopping in Hood River. I limit driving on those sorts of roads at night. I pulled into Hood River, OR around 9pm, just a couple miles away from my turn off on US-97 to head up to Yakima. I headed out at 9am and once I got back on I-84 and made my turn off on to US-97, I didn't have a single car in front of me until I got into Toppenish,Wa, cars and trucks I did encounter was going south bound. I did have my highlights on watching those people who would cross yellows on that road. Only spotted one Sheriff car with radar on the side of the road couple miles north of the spot the incident happened. All I can say is if something happens out on a back road like that, help is sparse and very faraway.


I was going to make a thread how awesome the scenery is on I-84 is from Portland,Or till the turn off on US-97, I'm really lucky I played it safe stopping in Hood River, Oregon and not chancing driving US-97 at night.


On my way back to So.cal on I-5 south of Salem, some woman managed to loose control going in a straight line, car did managed to make 2 complete 360's and stopped in the center median had she been going any faster she would have manged to end up in the north bound lanes and seriously injuring herself and others.

I stopped to render aid the woman looked like a serious DUI case - but that is for the State police to do that sort of stuff, on top of it all she locked the keys in the car as well. A fellow Oregon resident stopped as well who was going north bound, but this person completely poured gas on the fire and straight up was giving this women a lecture on drugs and it went downhill from there, exit stage door right.

 

where that crash happened the road was fairly newly paved but very very bumpy.

 

It's a sad thing to read that.

I went on Google maps and looked at the intersection. A south bound driver has almost 3000 ft of pretty straight road ahead of him before that intersection to be able to see what is ahead while a Northbound driver goes around a fairly tight corner and then makes a left turn onto Mud Hollow road. Round the bend and be thinking about the left turn he was going to make and possibly already be over the line to be able to cut the corner short.

I live on US 97 a ways south of Toppenish and one problem we see all the time is drivers who are way too tired to still be on the road. They load their car up and leave the the middle or further South in California and drive straight through and by the time they pass my driveway they have been on the road over 24 hours straight. You can hear them cross the rumble strip in the middle of the road or run down it for several hundred feet quite often late at night or early in the morning. I leave for work about 03:45 and have followed a number of them up the road.

I love the drive from here to the Columbia river and on down to Bend but never let my guard down when I am on the road between here and Bend.

 

RIP friend.

 

Nope, no airbags in any 348.

 

The ORP track schedule lists a club called Scuderia NW, anyone heard of this club?
http://oregonraceway.com/scheduling-calendar-2/

Thursday - May 24, 2012

Scuderia NW

Private Track Day

 

Rest In Peace.....

Far too young to go....

 

Speed was probably only at fault inasmuch that a 90-year-old driver turned left in front of him and hit a 5000-pound object at 60mph. Speed is a factor in every accident -- as two cars standing still cannot collide.

This is the reason we need to require annual driver's license tests for people after 85 years old. The fact that my wife's 90-year-old grandfather still had a valid license and drove despite bad Parkinsons symptoms led me to the belief that we grant too much freedom to the most dangerous group on the road (more dangerous than 16 year olds.) My grandfather had a valid license when he died last year two days before his 100th birthday. Luckily, we were able to convince his long-time mechanic to tell him that the dead battery in his car was actually a critical engine failure and therefore he opted not to pay the "thousands" of dollars to "fix it".

 

On the two year anniversary of Gabe Pigotti's death the memorial fund is still open. This was a sad event on the drive down led by Roberto Perrina to the Ferrari of Seattle Scuderia Northwest track day at ORP.

 

Hello:

I am Gabe's brother and tomorrow would have marked Gabe's 37th birthday. In remembering my brother I came across this thread and I wanted to share the results of the crash investigation.

The arbitrator in the case stated the following:

"I find that the driver of the SUV was the sole proximate cause of the motor vehicle collision. The reconstruction report concludes that Mr. Pigotti's vehicle was visible to Mr. XXXXX (driver of SUV) before he began his left hand turn. Mr. XXXXX could have waited for oncoming traffic to clear before beginning his left hand turn."

RIP Gabe

 

Thanks,Gerry

 

Sincere heartfelt condolences... I'm so glad his name was cleared - small thing in the picture, but a big thing really.

Thanks for the update on this sad story, Gabriel. RIP Gabe.

Jedi

 

They became mandatory with cars manufactured after September 1, 1998, so no.

 

Sorry for your loss.

In the last year I have started to equip all my cars with DVRs.

 

How Sad! It just makes me think how precious life really is. I was driving my '62 Vette hard today to work. The drive home will be much safer.

 

my condolences to family and friends