What's so absurd about it? We know that murder-suicides happen, that's a well established phenomena. We know that murder-suicides committed by pilots who crash their airplanes happen as well. That's well documented, with Germanwings Flight 9525 being maybe the most infamous example. Furthermore, doesn't it make a lot of sense that some portion of plane crashes attributed to pilot error might in fact be murder-suicides? That makes sense to me; many believe Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 was a murder-suicide, but concrete evidence for that is missing.
Of course if some portion of fatal plane crashes could be murder-suicides without any suicide note or other proof, then the same could be expected for lethal car crashes too, right? A suicidal person drives their car into the opposing lane, or into a tree or down into a river without leaving any suicide note. That could happen too.
In fact a subsequent study found such an effect:
> "Tarde and other classical sociologists paid a great deal of attention to the concepts of imitation and suggestion, but these concepts have been virtually ignored in modern sociology. This paper presents new findings indication that imitation and suggestion have a powerful have impact on social behavior: Three days after a publicized suicide, automobile fatalities increase by 31%. The more the suicide is publicized, the more the automobile fatalies increase. The age of the drivers is significantly correlated with the age of the person described in the suicide story. Single-car accidents increase more than other types just after the publicized suicide. After persentation of these and related findings, the paper discusses some ways in which the concepts of suggestion and imitation can be incorporated into sociological theory."
Phillips, David P. “Suicide, Motor Vehicle Fatalities, and the Mass Media: Evidence Toward a Theory of Suggestion.” American Journal of Sociology, vol. 84, no. 5, 1979, pp. 1150–1174. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2778220.
Of course if some portion of fatal plane crashes could be murder-suicides without any suicide note or other proof, then the same could be expected for lethal car crashes too, right? A suicidal person drives their car into the opposing lane, or into a tree or down into a river without leaving any suicide note. That could happen too.
In fact a subsequent study found such an effect:
> "Tarde and other classical sociologists paid a great deal of attention to the concepts of imitation and suggestion, but these concepts have been virtually ignored in modern sociology. This paper presents new findings indication that imitation and suggestion have a powerful have impact on social behavior: Three days after a publicized suicide, automobile fatalities increase by 31%. The more the suicide is publicized, the more the automobile fatalies increase. The age of the drivers is significantly correlated with the age of the person described in the suicide story. Single-car accidents increase more than other types just after the publicized suicide. After persentation of these and related findings, the paper discusses some ways in which the concepts of suggestion and imitation can be incorporated into sociological theory."
Phillips, David P. “Suicide, Motor Vehicle Fatalities, and the Mass Media: Evidence Toward a Theory of Suggestion.” American Journal of Sociology, vol. 84, no. 5, 1979, pp. 1150–1174. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2778220.
(http://sci-hub.se/10.1086/226904)