Spinning The News
Friday 14th September, 2007 15:36 Comments: 1
Headline: Top Gear Crash Caused By Nail In Tyre
First sentence: The high-speed tyre blowout that almost killed Top Gear presenter Richard Hammond was probably caused by a nail that safety experts missed
Body: A penetrating object such as a nail, probably picked up during the course of the day's events, punctured the side wall of the tyre.
I find the terms "penetrating object" and "punctured the side wall of the tyre" useful and factually correct. What I don't like is the blatant lie "caused by nail in tyre". And I find "probably caused by a nail" to be a bit misleading, as "probably" suggests a certainty that doesn't appear to be present in the report (which presumably used nail as an example, I suspect a screw or screwdriver or even a metal shard of some kind are all equally likely). The second "probably" is better as it seems the tyres weren't "checked between earlier test runs", which suggests that they were checked at the start, which only leaves foul play or something picked up during testing.
First sentence: The high-speed tyre blowout that almost killed Top Gear presenter Richard Hammond was probably caused by a nail that safety experts missed
Body: A penetrating object such as a nail, probably picked up during the course of the day's events, punctured the side wall of the tyre.
I find the terms "penetrating object" and "punctured the side wall of the tyre" useful and factually correct. What I don't like is the blatant lie "caused by nail in tyre". And I find "probably caused by a nail" to be a bit misleading, as "probably" suggests a certainty that doesn't appear to be present in the report (which presumably used nail as an example, I suspect a screw or screwdriver or even a metal shard of some kind are all equally likely). The second "probably" is better as it seems the tyres weren't "checked between earlier test runs", which suggests that they were checked at the start, which only leaves foul play or something picked up during testing.
Fab - Monday 17th September, 2007 11:37 I am with you there. Considering they were using a runway that is also used for aircraft (and funny enough aircraft engineers tend to obsess about metal things on runways) it is highly unlikely there was a nail. It could even have just been a sharp bit of stone which at 200mph can make quite a rip on rubber.
From what I can tell of the report, it is critical of the lack of paperwork and paying for people to check the people doing the checking! That is how my cynical mind and bullshit antennae thinks it is what they are on about.
From what I can tell of the report, it is critical of the lack of paperwork and paying for people to check the people doing the checking! That is how my cynical mind and bullshit antennae thinks it is what they are on about.