MEXICAN GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS and event organisers have blamed the driver of a monster truck for losing control and ploughing into a crowd of spectators, killing eight and injuring dozens.
Motor-sports experts pointed to the organisers, saying the setup of the state-sponsored show was deficient and life-threatening.
Organisers of the “Extreme Aeroshow” said that hundreds of families had gathered without permission in what was supposed to be the pit area of the makeshift arena in a park in the capital of the border state of Chihuahua.
One organiser said the spectators weren’t moved because “crowd management is very difficult.”
The pit area was unprotected by any barrier and sat feet from where the monster truck known as “Big Show” was crushing a pair of old cars, leaping into the air and rolling over their hoods and roofs.
Video of the accident shows the truck coming down hard off the second car, bouncing, then speeding out of control into the crowd.
Disaster
It was the second disaster in less than a month to focus attention on Mexico’s patchy and loosely enforced system of consumer safety.
Experts widely blamed much of the billions of dollars’ worth of damage from Tropical Storm Manuel and Hurricane Ingrid, which killed 157 people and displaced thousands, on the government’s failure to prevent home construction in floodplains and enforce building standards for highways and bridges.
Chihuahua state Governor Cesar Duarte and organisers of the event tried to pin responsibility for the truck accident on the driver, saying he should only have driven in one direction over the cars, away from the pit area.
"He turned and came back in the wrong direction, came back to do a jump, and that's unfortunately where this accident happened," Duarte told Milenio Television this morning.
Duarte said the driver said he drank a couple of sips of beer, but didn't have enough alcohol in his blood to be considered intoxicated. He said the driver apparently hit his head and lost consciousness after crushing the parked cars, explaining why the truck continued to accelerate even after it hit the crowd.
Veteran monster-truck show organisers said spectators should never have been standing that close to the arena floor unprotected, regardless of the trajectory of the truck.
Properly organised shows take place in arena with as many as two dozen empty rows of seats between the trucks and the audience, and the vehicles are equipped with remote-controlled switches that can shut down a truck the moment something appears to be going wrong, said Stephen Payne, a spokesman for Feld Entertainment, whose Monster Jam is the world's largest touring monster truck show.
Payne, who saw video of Saturday's accident, said, "The setup at that event is not something we would ever, ever permit at one of our shows."
Crowd management
Jorge Cuesta, president of the group that organised the Chihuahua event, said it wasn't possible to prevent families from gathering in the pit area.
"Crowd management is very difficult," he told reporters in the state capital after the accident. "I was there and this is a tragedy that couldn't have been avoided."
Payne said his firm seals off the first rows of arenas with a tent of orange cloth. If any spectators move into that area, "the show stops," he said. "We don't even let people put jackets on it."
Of the 79 hurt in the accident, a dozen remained in intensive care.
Marty Garza, spokesman for the Monster Truck Racing Association, the industry's primary safety organisation, described the safety situation at the Chihuahua event as "about as bad as it could get."
He said a remote shut-down system should have been triggered the moment the driver pointed his vehicle in the direction of the crowd.
He also said members of his organisation would never have allowed spectators to sit at the end of the track.
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