{"id":10711,"date":"2021-01-20T07:44:43","date_gmt":"2021-01-20T07:44:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=152182"},"modified":"2021-01-20T07:44:43","modified_gmt":"2021-01-20T07:44:43","slug":"the-mechanics-of-an-absurd-crash-why-driver-error-not-the-kgb-killed-camus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/01\/20\/the-mechanics-of-an-absurd-crash-why-driver-error-not-the-kgb-killed-camus\/","title":{"rendered":"The Mechanics of an Absurd Crash: Why Driver Error, Not the KGB, Killed Camus"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/p>\n

The wreck of Michel Gallimard\u2019s Facel Vega near the town of Villeblevin, France. Still from Il y a 60 ans, Albert Camus perdait la vie dans un accident dans l\u2019Yonne. France 3.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

In his most recent column, CounterPunch editor Jeffrey St. Clair noted the resurrection of an old theory that the KGB had a hand in the death of the French writer Albert Camus. Here\u2019s why that\u2019s unlikely.<\/p>\n

1. \u201cThe Rebel\u201d is a great book.<\/p>\n

2. I don\u2019t like Sartre, he did nothing for the Resistance (Camus did much), and nothing worthwhile against postwar Stalinism (Camus did much), and his gal-pal was a sexual predator.<\/p>\n

3. I could easily believe Stalin putting a hit on Camus, but not Khrushchev (key point).<\/p>\n

4. The Facel Vega model car<\/a> Camus was killed in was:<\/p>\n

\u2013 heavy (1.75 tons, 3500 lb),<\/p>\n

\u2013 had drum brakes (which \u201cfade\u201d \u2013 lose stopping ability because of friction heating during heavy use \u2013 significantly more than disc brakes, which were first adopted by Jaguar in 1955, following airplane practice, and increasingly by others thereafter),<\/p>\n

\u2013 was nose heavy, because of its big Chrysler V8 front engine, and which leads to \u201coversteering\u201d \u2013 swinging wider than intended by the angle of the steering wheel (meaning you have to \u201cundersteer\u201d as you go into a turn at speed, to go where you want) \u2013 which is why race car manufacturers (the best ones) increasingly went to mid-engine configurations after 1960-1963,<\/p>\n

\u2013 had an \u201cox cart\u201d rear suspension (live axle with semi elliptic leaf springs), the rear configuration least adept for precise \u201chandling\u201d (response to road surface conditions\/bumpiness, response for precise directionality of the vehicle), but the front suspension (independent) was pretty good,<\/p>\n

\u2013 fast because despite its high weight, it had lots of horsepower (250hp, thus 14lb\/hp), up to to 120-128mph top speed,<\/p>\n

\u2013 does not appear to have had any seat belts (and air bags were ~20 years in the future).<\/p>\n

An experienced driver (like a race driver) of the day would know how far to go in balancing:<\/p>\n

\u2013 speed,<\/p>\n

\u2013 steering wheel angle,<\/p>\n

\u2013 progressive and anticipatory braking (to avoid brake fade from a last-second panic-braking stomp, something now done by ABS: automatic braking systems WITH disc brakes), and<\/p>\n

\u2013 control sliding (which is highly dependent on road surface, dust-dirt and especially water and ice cover making sliding much more dangerous and very easily uncontrollable).<\/p>\n

So I think that:<\/p>\n

\u2013 Camus\u2019 publisher and the owner of the car was unlikely to have had driving skill as refined as a competition driver of the 1950s,<\/p>\n

\u2013 that a wealthy and self-satisfied \u201chot\u201d luxury car owner could easily drive in a manner beyond his skill level (this remains routine),<\/p>\n

\u2013 that the car in question had a much lower threshold of uncontrollability than cars of subsequent years, and especially of even the most modest of budget cars today,<\/p>\n

\u2013 and that this type of car lacked all of the safety improvement that have been developed since \u201cUnsafe At Any Speed.\u201d<\/p>\n

So my estimation is that Camus died as a result of car crash in a powerful fast heavy slow-braking poor-handling no-safety-equipment luxury car driven too fast for the skill level of its wealthy owner-driver. In brief: DRIVER ERROR.<\/p>\n

Q.E.D.<\/p>\n\n

This post was originally published on Radio Free<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The wreck of Michel Gallimard\u2019s Facel Vega near the town of Villeblevin, France. Still from Il y a 60 ans, Albert Camus perdait la vie dans un accident\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":279,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10711"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/279"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10711"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10711\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10712,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10711\/revisions\/10712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}