Tragic though it is, what on earth possesses someone to drive in close proximity of wild animals, let alone lions, with the windows down? The park has warnings not to do so, and yet, a seemingly educated young woman decides it's worth the risk for a good photograph.

American woman mauled to death by lion named as Game of Thrones special effects editor - World - News - London Evening Standard

Education and common sense are not necessarily mutually inclusive

It seems that she was taking pictures through the open window. Obviously couldn't have the reflection from the glass showing up in the pictures, so thought having the window open was a good idea.

I suspect she was very smart, no I'm being serious. I know quite a few people who are incredibly smart, but severely lacking common sense, so it may not be the case of "the rules don't apply to me", but thinking that it's a long shot the big cat is going to get *that* close.

It is strange that. I had a friend who was super intelligent, academically, but wasn't able to work out why his beefburgers would burn under the grill. All those brains don't mean you should automatically be able to cook, but you really should be able to work out that cooking on a lower setting is less likely to burn.

That's nothing. I know a professor who openly supports NUFC.

Love that headline, what a clever lion to have worked on Game of Thrones.......

I think the guy in the video said the cat was 1m away.

I wonder if some people are getting so imbued with friendly/talking CG lions, tigers, and bears in films, that their primal fear mechanism is getting disengaged.

Open windows isn't normally an issue in the natural environment- look at your typical Kenyan/Tanzanian safari wagon, which is open.

This place is nothing like a native environment though.

Would the Kenyan driver allow a lion to get that close without flooring it and getting the hell out of there though?

Correct. And he'd have a gun.

I was once dropped off (chucked out of) a safari van in a Kenyan game park. It was probably a 10-15 minute walk to the camp, but it seemed a lot longer.

"flooring it" in a hacksawed hiace with 100,000k on the clock before it got shipped to the Serengeti is an interesting concept...

Anyhow shouldn't these people have been carrying guns? They are americans after all!

Do tell what did you do to deserve that fate? (or will that involve breaking site rules)

That's funny. So do I. (incoming K)

Nothing rule breaking! Hitch hiking at park entrance. Germans who were paying for the van were happy to pick us up. Driver very keen to get rid of us. They did take us on a game drive the next day though.