The Daily Goodbye

A belated roundup this Thursday afternoon:

Hiromu Naruse, Toyota's chief test driver, was killed yesterday in a head-on collision in Germany. The accident occurred on a public highway near the Nuerburgring racetrack where the makers of sports cars test their creations.

According to Autoblog, Mr. Naruse was driving a Lexus LFA when he apparently swerved into oncoming traffic and hit a BMW that was also being piloted by a test driver. Autoblog has horrific photos and video of the crash scene, as does the Rhein-Zeitung German newspaper.

Mr. Naruse had worked for Toyota since 1963.

Gerald Heaney, 92, a federal judge for more than 40 years whose decisions were instrumental in the effort to desegregate schools, died Tuesday.

In 1980, Judge Heaney wrote an opinion for the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals in Liddell vs. Board of Education, a case in which a black woman named Minnie Liddell challenged St. Louis' still-segregated school system. The opinion allowed black children to transfer to suburban schools and required the state to pay for the students' transportation costs.