I just heard on the radio that Tiger Woods has been injured in a car crash. From Fox News:
Golf great Tiger Woods was seriously injured in a car crash in Florida early Friday morning, authorities said.
Woods, 33, is in the hospital in very serious condition after a single-car crash at 2:25 a.m. in which he hit a fire hydrant and then a tree, according to the Florida Highway Patrol.
The wreck is under investigation and charges are pending, but it was not alcohol-related, the highway patrol said in its accident report. It wasn’t known if he was wearing a seatbelt.
Woods pulled out of his driveway in the Isleworth community when he struck the hydrant. He then plowed into the tree on his neighbor’s property. He was taken to Health Central Hospital in Ocoee, Fla.
Woods was apparently traveling under 33 mph because the Cadillac Escalade’s airbags didn’t inflate, the FHP said.
I’m very sorry that he was injured, and of course hope for a speedy recovery. But there are a couple of things in the story that just don’t add up for me. Most likely its the case of bad reporting in the early hours of a story, but here they are:
One: If Tiger was traveling under 33 mph, how does he hit a fire hydrant AND THEN a tree?
Two: If no alcohol is involved and Tiger was traveling under 33 mph, how does hit hit a fire hydrant AND THEN a tree?
Three: How do you get seriously injured in a Cadillac Escalade traveling under 33 mph? Those things are tanks.
Four: Why why he leaving his house at 2:25 in the morning? I can see coming BACK to the house at 2:25. Was he out of milk for Sam? Was Elin having a craving? Doesn’t he have staff to handle that sort of thing?. If I had a billion dollars, you can be darn sure I’d have a Man Friday on call to fetch stuff.
Here’s hoping that it’s all just a case of media out of control, and that Tiger has nothing more than a little bump on the head as a result of being groggy while trying to fetch a gallon of milk.
Addendum. My Father-In-Law, the car engineer/designer (who has worked on GM’s airbag program) has clarified some things:
One: Air bags usually go off when the impact is over 15mph. You actually don’t want them going off at any lower speed. At lower speeds, you could get more seriously injured by the airbag than from the crash.
Two: A fire hydrant likely wouldn’t set off air bags. They’re too small. So he could have hit the fire hydrant at a MUCH higher speed than 33 mph. It’s also possible that the tree wouldn’t set off an airbag, especially if it hit a frame rail or side structure.
Three: There are a thousand different ways you can hit something without having the air bag go off.
Bottom line: He could have been going much faster than 33 mph.
Another update:
Tiger’s agent says he is “fine”
Another update:
Tiger was treated for “facial lacerations” and released.
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This is a weird story for sure! Now they are reporting when cops got there, Elin had to extract him from the car by smashing out the rear window with a golf club (hopefully she didn’t use his favorite putter). Tiger was in and out of consciousness.
Pictures of the scene show driveways shorter than mine (although houses WAY larger). I am wondering if he was backing out of the driveway and struck the hydrant on the way. Regardless of his speed, would a rear impact ever set off the airbags? But even if he was going 20mph and struck a hydrant, they dont’ give at all, it would have been worse than hitting a car at 20mph. Assuming he was leaving the driveway like me, he probably wasn’t wearing his seatbelt at that point either.
A 2am run to the store on Thanksgiving night isn’t so suspicious I would think. I can see where Tiger might give his manservant the night off. As someone whose daughter was puking 3 night ago, and now has a wife in that condition – I can see the Walgreens 2am trip.
I am guessing though that Tiger wasn’t doing what I did last night at 3:30am to go wait in a stupid line at the furniture store to get 20% a sofa during the opening hour.
Just from a cop’s prospective who has probably worked (estimation) over 1,000 crashes from minor ones to fatals:
At that time of night, I would be skeptical if both alcohol AND some sort of domestic argument were not involved. Peeling out of a driveway is a good place to start.
Second, even at lower speeds, hitting something seriously solid like a hydrant and/or a tree can do crazy things like rip the wheel out of your grasp, break an axle, or just cause such a jolt that it wouldn’t be hard to lose control briefly and hit a second object off road.
If you were to tell me that some random guy I have never met has two small children (stressful) and just got into an accident near the end of his driveway at 0200 hrs. on Thanksgiving and that his wife was awake to hear the crash, I would suggest that they were probably drinking (maybe or maybe not too much), got into an argument, and he peeled out of his driveway and lost control.
I would probably be right on about 75% of the time.
I feel I can out-drive Tiger Woods.