Auto Accident at SANE Conference Kills One

Several people have submitted news from SANE 2004 that a car crash involving several Free Software developers has killed one and injured two others. Richard Stallman was in the car earlier but apparently had been dropped off prior to the accident.

In case of /. effect

[Anonymous Coward]

Report as of 10:56 EDT:

Car accident details

There have been a bunch of rumours about a car accident involving some free software folks today. Since there seems to be no central place for all information I am trying to gather all information here.

If you have any other information please drop me an email at [e-mail] [mailto]

All mentioned times are in CEST (UTC +0200).

• There has been a car accident returning from a trip to bring Richard Stallman (RMS) from SANE 2004 [nluug.nl] to Paris. (confirmed by several sources)
• they collided with a truck which merged onto their lane while driving in fog (unconfirmed)
• Exact time of the accident is unknown. It was on the morning of September 30th before 09:00.
• Richard Stallman was dropped off in Paris and no longer in the car (confirmed by Rop and Richard).
• At the time of the accident Hans Bakker (mclightje), Edwin Hermans (madeddie) [madtech.cx], and Sebastian S. (webmind) were in the car. (confirmed).
• The car belongs to Rop Gonggrijp, who lent it to the travelers. RMS was staying with Rop during SANE. (confirmed by Rop)
• Hans Bakker (photo [slashdot.org], homepage [www.hans.cx]) did not survive the crash. (confirmed by girlfriend)
• Edwin Hermans has a broken hip and has been transfered to a different hospital for surgery. Sebastian is (or was by now) in surgery for broken bones but is not in critical condition.

Bad information

• This Yahoo France accident report [yahoo.com] is from another accident which occured later and the car was traveling in the wrong direction

Press

• Webwereld [webwereld.nl] (Dutch)
• NedLinux.nl [nedlinux.nl] (Dutch)

Re:FAA?

[Sidicas]

First Assasination Attempt?

No, but it's the 2nd car accident within the past 6 months. The first [debian.org] was in Spain

Coralize it first!!!

[hacker]

For those that want to see this article, please use the Coralized version:

http://www.wiggy.net.nyud.net:8090/tmp/accident/

Re:In case of /. effect

[Anonymous Coward]

As reported by Webwereld, the site http://www.ne2000.nl/ has been switched to black after the loss of Hans Bakker.

Site is slow: text of the site

[Saib0t]

Car accident details

There have been a bunch of rumours about a car accident involving
some free software folks today. Since there seems to be no central place
for all information I am trying to gather all information here.

If you have any other information please drop me an email
at wichert at wiggy dot net

All mentioned times are in CEST (UTC +0200).

* There has been a car accident returning from a trip to bring Richard
Stallman (RMS) from
SANE 2004 to Paris.
(confirmed by several sources)

* they collided with a truck which merged onto their lane while
driving in fog (unconfirmed)

* Exact time of the accident is unknown. It was on the
morning of September 30th before 09:00.

* Richard Stallman was dropped off in Paris and no longer in the car
(confirmed by Rop and Richard).

* At the time of the accident Hans Bakker (mclightje),
Edwin Hermans (madeddie), and
Sebastian S. (webmind) were in the car. (confirmed).

* The car belongs to Rop Gonggrijp, who lent it to the travelers.
RMS was staying with Rop during SANE. (confirmed by Rop)

* Hans Bakker (photo,
homepage)
did not survive the crash. (confirmed by girlfriend)

* Edwin Hermans has a broken hip and has been transfered to a different
hospital for surgery. Sebastian is (or was by now) in surgery for
broken bones but is not in critical condition.
* This appears to be the traffic report for the accident, as taken
infotraffic.

30-09-2004 13:50 ACCIDENT MORTEL à ASSEVILLERS (80) sur A1 (sens SUD-NORD)
ENTRE PERONNE ET ROYE
Debut : 30-09-2004 06:48
VICTIMES : 1 TUE(S)
VEHICULES EN CAUSE : 2 POIDS LOURD(S), 3 VEHICULE(S) LEGER(S)
OBSERVATIONS :SENS PARIS LILLE, SORTIE CONSEILLÉE A29 SAINT QUENTIN
.BOUCHON DE 4 KM.
Evenement termine depuis 30-09-2004 13:50

Translation:

30-09-2004 13:50 DEADLY CRASH at ASSEVILLERS(80) on A1 highway (SOUTH-NORTH)
BETWEEN PERONNE AND ROYE
Start: 30-09-2004 06:48
VICTIMS: 1 KILLED
VEHICLES INVOLVED: 2 TRUCKS, 3 CARS
OBSERVATIONS: DIRECTION PARIS LILLE, EXIT RECOMMENDED A29 SAINT QUENTIN.
TRAFFIC JAM 4 Km (2.5 miles)
Event stopped since 30-09-2004 13:50

Those are people who died, died...

[WormholeFiend]

Also, John E. Mack [telegraph.co.uk] was killed earlier this week after being hit by a drunk driver while crossing the street on foot.

Re:Coralize it first!!!

[caluml]

For those that wonder what this is about, like I did, this page explains it [nyu.edu].
It's bascially a distributed caching system that anyone can use.
You just go to www.sitename.com.nyud.net:8090/rest/of/uri/

For anyone whom doesn't know...

[Ramsey-07]

http://images.google.com.au/images?q=Richard%20Sta llman&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab= wi [google.com.au] http://www.stallman.org/ [stallman.org] Richard Stallman founded the GNU Project in 1984. He is the principal or initial author of GNU Emacs, the GNU C Compiler, the GNU Debugger GDB and parts of other packages. He is the President of the Free Software Foundation (FSF).

Re:Somebody dies in an accident

[lukewarmfusion]

I took a look at -1.... those aren't funny and you're definitely right that they're "not of a coping nature."

Shocked

[pigeon]

I knew Hans, the guy who died in the accident. I was very shocked, I met him only recently, and I just discovered that there was a picture of me on his site. Last time I spoke he told me he wanted to join geekcorps or something similar, to do something useful for the world. It pains me that that won't happen.

Re:In case of /. effect

[boa13]

The Yahoo France accident report appears to be the correct one, but it is missing one line, the time of the accident: 30-09-2004 06:48, which is consistent with what is reported by Wichert. The time you see on Yahoo (13:50) is the time the road was cleared, and the traffic jam dissolved.

All other informations in the accident report (highway, location, direction, vehicles) is consistent with what has been reported here.

The fog condition is not unlikely early morning in that area, at this time of the year. Unfortunately, many others have died in similar crashes (sometimes dozens of cars crashing one after the other).

Here's a more complete and hopefully stable URL to Infotrafic web-site: http://www.infotrafic.com/perturbations.php?Region =NORD&AC=1774966287 [infotrafic.com].

(Note: it appears that when Infotrafic is under heavy load, they redirect to a single summary page of traffic condition around Paris - try again later, then.)

Re:Paypal Fund Set up

[scovetta]

Even better: click to: Donate $10 [paypal.com]

Re:Information Please !

[wichert]

FYI: I have been in contact with Loic.

Re:I am deeply sorry for the loss of life

[Anonymous Coward]

the overall safety picture is not good for SUV drivers.

You're right: for drivers as they tend to take more risks. It has nothing to do with the car/SUV.

Re:Paypal Fund Set up

[Anonymous Coward]

to help with medical bills

Here in Europe you usually don't need to pay for medical bills, unless you decide to use a private medical center. This is why every worker pays some taxes to their goverment.

Re:"From the turn down a glass dept"

[CdBee]

I believe the tradition is that a glass used to remember a lost friend may never again be used for a lesser purpose. It is placed upside-down, so it cannot be refilled.

The phrase is used in many places, among them, Edward Fitzgerald's translation [tripod.com] of the 10th-century Persian poetry of Omar Khaiyyam.

The Russian tradition of smashing a shot glass after a toast stems from the same source

Re:I'm shivering...

[plover]

And BBSs didn't really catch on until after the rise of the PC. MECC predated PCs by about 8-10 years. There were a few Apple II based BBSs that existed a little earlier, and even a few BBSs built on other, older gear, but they were pretty inconsequential as far as I was concerned.

All us MECCies were really spoiled. After having spent so much time with so many people on the big cyber at MECC, BBSs absolutely sucked. A lot. They were tiny, overcrowded, noisy places that I never cared much about, and we couldn't ever get more than a few people together at one time to chat or game. It was like going from a coach-seat party bus to the back seat of a Ford Escort.

IM. Hans Bakker

[F242]

Dear All, please be aware of the initiative of the
Dutch irc community regarding the tragic accident of Hans Bakker.

I am Posting on their behalf. Also note the following urls

the text below: http://www.xs4all.nl/~mariekek/hans-im-eng.txt
th e condolences: http://www.condoleance.nl/registers/register_3254. html

Please direct to the ppl mentioned in the announcement for any further information.

Dear All,

Today 30 september we received the sad news of Hans Bakker's
(for the most of us known as McLightje) tragic accident in
the northern part of France in which he lost his life.

More information can be found at http://www.wiggy.net/tmp/accident/

In order to pay a proper tribute to our dear friend we
(Wiggy, JohnR and Tatsel) are organizing a fund to have
an obituary placed in one of the Dutch newspapers or otherwise.
Every action from our side will be done in close co-operation
and approval of Hans' family and relatives.

If you want to contribute please send an e-mail to the
address below [e-mail] for further information
on how to contribute to Hans' tribute.

Thank you all in advance for your support.

Wiggy, JohnR and Tatsel

PS As you are all aware of McLightje's activities, please distribute this
e-mail to anyone you think Hans was involved with.

Condolence link here

[Krafty Koder]

you can post condolences to Hans and his family and friends on this site [condoleance.nl].
This wikipedia page [wikipedia.org] has already gone up for Hans. So if anyone can find out about his biography and post something up as a lasting memorial to the guy, then please do so. Thanks

Re:Paypal fund

[kasperd]

Would someone who knows the deceased set up a fund

Unfortunately it is not unusual to see fake funds. Would you pay if you had no way of knowing if the fund was real?

Eye witness report

[anticypher]

I saw this accident scene this morning. Driving back from Paris to Brussels, there was a large traffic jam which took about 20 minutes to get through. The accident occured just after a rest stop, just after the point where the rest stop traffic merges back into the autoroute. Since its where I usually stop for a rest about an hour north of Paris, I can imagine they either stopped for a rest and were merging back onto the autoroute, or else they got caught in a bunch of trucks scooting around someone merging slowly. Lots of accidents happen at the far end of rest areas. It was pretty foggy this morning, its that season.

There was quite a bit of heavy equipment on the scene, a mobile crane on the slip road, and a bucket-crane truck with a dump truck picking up what was left of the one truck's load, it looked like scrap metal. There was the cab and remnants of a trailer, very shredded, on flatbed trucks on the slip road. There was obviously a fire, since parts of the guard rail were burned, and the asphalt was scorched. There were some Pompiers (firefighters) and about a dozen Gendarmes from the B.E.A (Bureau d'Enquetes Accidents) standing around, but they had obviously finished all of their report gathering by 10:30 AM when I passed.

I know Rop, and I've probably met the others at various linux/hac-tic/2600/CCC/EC patent protest events. My heart goes out to the families and loved ones of those involved, and here is wishes for a speedy recovery for the injured. This accident affects all of us in the techie, hacker-in-the-good-sense-of-the-word, and linux scenes here in Europe. Lets remember Hans for the good things he accomplished in his life.

the AC