Seven Killed After Deadly Rally Crash in Spain (Video)

Spain is NOT a sucky place, why are you saying this? Yes, it's going through an economic downturn right now, but that doesn't mean that life there is miserable. And, it's a great place to vacation.

"Ever wonder how many women & kids your local transit authority has killed..?" Yeah, when I lived in Chicago the CTA drivers painted little mommy and kid silhouettes on the bus right under their side window like fighter pilots did with swastikas and meatballs. o_O

My problem was that doesn't work all of the time. At least for me. Most of the time, you aren't thinking about the spectators at all. They don't or barely register. You're concentrating on the road, your instructions and the car. You're driving so fast that it's all a blur anyway. Then someone near or close to your path makes a particular sudden motion that registers to your brain as human motion. I don't know why it happens in any given particular situation. Maybe it's the angle and just the right spot between your peripheral and central vision, maybe it's the color someone is wearing, I don't know. But in an instant, your other instincts, your street driving instincts that tell you to slow the hell down want to kick in. Your foot lifts a tiny bit off the pedal and in many situations, that's a call for disaster. At best, you've unsettled the car and have to fight to bet it back into line a little more. It's insane. And of course, Michele Mouton drove at a time when the spectators were even nuttier. And at a higher level, with more spectators. Maybe she got it to work and the psychology of the best drivers are such that their focus either precludes this instinct or their confidence is such that it's not an issue. For me, the proximity of spectators on rally stages is completely assinine. Not to mention that I never really got motorsports as a spectator sport in the first place.