Lucky to be alive.
Discussion
Greg66 said:
TooMany2cvs said:
KungFooPanda said:
The traffic officer attending has explained to me that the police car was doing 83mph on the approach
Irrelevant.KungFooPanda said:
he braked to 56mph 5 seconds before the accident
125 metres away. Yet you didn't see him in that time.KungFooPanda said:
3 seconds before the accident he put his blue lights on.
75 metres away. Yet you didn't see him in that time.KungFooPanda said:
By this time I had already pulled away and was looking left as I crossed the junction.
At night, and you didn't notice approaching headlamps in five seconds and 125 metres, and you didn't notice blue strobe lights being added to them in three seconds and 75 metres?And if the police car was doing 56 mph 125m from the collision and already on the brake (he had been doing 83 previously) why wasn't he well able to stop before hitting the OP?
And why didn't the police driver notice a car in his way, and do something different to avoid the collision?
I was sitting at the traffic light junction of a dual carriageway. The stop line is approx 10m back from the junction. My light turned green. I looked right and saw lights in the distance (no blue lights). I assumed that the vehicles would be slowing as they had a red light so I proceeded to pull out of the junction looking left. (Its a wide junction and a main route to a port so there are many foreign vehicles use the road some of which failed to stop in the past resulting at deaths at this junction). When I then looked right again I saw the front end of an armed response vehicle with blue lights flashing. He hit me on my front drivers quarter, my front axle taking the impact, spinning me round coming to rest parallel with the dual carriageway. The ARV driver and the attending traffic officers all asked why I had not seen the blue lights and I told them I didn't know. I'd driven out of this junction for 14 years and this question bugged me for two weeks until some of the information from the data recorder started to trickle through. I rang the attending traffic officer one morning and explained I still couldn't understand why I had not seen the ARVs blue lights. He told me 'I will put your mind to rest, he didn't have them on until 3 secs before he hit you'. He thought this was strange, I thought it was unbelievable that I had been led to believe that he had his blue lights on whilst travelling down the dual carriageway. He also explained to me that as an advanced driver he should have approached in the outside lane to give himself more room if a car had come out of the junction. I told him that he couldnt go into the outside lane as there was another police car in that lane not far behind him. (During the crah this car came across the front of me and stopped down the road). If I hadn't have braked then I would have been hit by two police cars!
Obviously this is my account of the event. In the police statement (which I will be receiving next week) they were travelling 'at no more than 30mph through the junction', one statement which the data recorder proves a lie. What annoys me most about this is I am a great supporter of the uniformed services (being ex-military). We all have/had a difficult job to do and sometimes we get things wrong. The way that this has been turned on its head to make the police the victims is disgraceful and I having nothing but contempt for the officers involved in this incident.
This is the junction the night after the accident, same time, same weather but it was raining the night of the incident. The kerbing on the left is @75m, the point at which the ARV blue lights were turned on, the ARV was doing @56mph (83mph before that). My vehicle was sat behind the direction sign you can see at the end of the slip road waiting to turn right.
Would you say that 56mph is an appropriate speed for these conditions, this far from a red light when you are supposed to treat it as a give way?
56 Mph Braking Distance (fast reactions)
Thinking Distance: 45 ft (14 m)
Braking Distance: 314 ft (96 m)
Stopping Distance: 359 ft (109 m) - 34m past the junction?
When, if you were approaching this junction, would you say was the right time to put on your blue lights to alert traffic of your position?
Which lane and how, as an advanced driver would you approach this junction?
Edited by KungFooPanda on Monday 23 March 03:07
jith said:
Alright KFP, my take on this, because I can keep silent no longer.
I am advanced; did it in the early '70s when it really meant something, and I've added 45 years experience onto that, so I make no apologies to younger officers who have trained recently, but I'm afraid the standard is nowhere near what it used to be.
There are various issues here that need explained, but the one thing that is to me glaringly obvious and totally unacceptable, is the lack of blues and twos on pursuits or high speed emergency driving. I have been on about this for years, so once again I'll repeat, it should be utterly mandatory that sirens are blaring and lights flashing in circumstances such as this.
Not to do so endangers the safety and lives of both the officers and public. This is an absolutely classic example of why this principle should be observed and put into practice at ALL times. Had they been used on all the police vehicles in this instance, there is virtually no doubt that the OP would have both seen and heard the approaching vehicles and gone no further onto the junction. I personally would find it impossible to drive an emergency vehicle at those kinds of speeds without lights and sirens; my instincts would be screaming, switch them ON!!
This business of the police hiring anything they can get their hands on and then using these vehicles in pursuits is in itself potentially dangerous. The policy in years gone by was that the police purchased every single car they used, they were suitably and intensively modified and serviced to a very high standard, (well they were in my shop), and the same officers would drive "their" car. That meant they would get to the point where it was a classic case of man and machine in perfect harmony.
This particular vehicle is once again a classic case of the wrong car in the wrong place doing the wrong job. The BMW X5 and the Range Rover Sport have one thing in common; the wheels are too wide. In the wet they aquaplane very badly, far too much surface area and the tread lifts on top of the water instead of cutting in and gripping. That, combined with the bulk and weight of these cars dramatically increases the braking distance in the wet, far more so than on a performance saloon for example. Do you think the driver was aware of these peculiarities? I think it unlikely, because I would doubt that he has ever been trained to think about that.
The business of him being in the inside lane is completely at odds with driving at high speed in an emergency situation. You never, ever drive in the inside lane on a road like this, especially when approaching a junction: again, my instincts would have been screaming, get to the outside!! I don't know how anyone could do this.
The issue of blame is dead simple. The police or indeed any emergency driver is 100% responsible for the manner in which they control their vehicle. This is particularly relevant in a high risk location such as a controlled junction. This driver knew that vehicles would be almost certain to come through on a green light and should have been on the brakes way before the junction. It was his sole responsibility to come down to the appropriate speed to allow for a complete stop if required, and to compensate for the wet conditions. It is absolutely not the responsibility of joe public.
Those of you on here who are actually trying to infer that the OP should share responsibility for this need to seriously waken up, particularly the BiB.
The final aspect of this is, for me, the worst. This driver, who was clearly grossly incompetent, would appear to be lying his ass off and attempting to apportion blame onto the OP. This kind of copper makes me sick to my stomach. If you make a mistake for gods sake hold your hands up and admit it. If you attempt to lie your way out of trouble it will backfire with a vengeance and it could cost your career. Why do officers do things like this? I have never understood it and probably never will.
You need to fight this all the way OP and make sure you are compensated fully. The only saving grace is that it could have been a lot worse.
J
Thanks for this reply Jith. I was trying to judge whether the actions taken by the ARV on that evening were satisfactory given the vehicle/conditions/situation. Your reply has convinced me that they were not. As one of the posters suggested would you be willing to look through the evidence when I recieve it all? I only wish your professional opinion and will not involve you any further. Thanks again for your reply.I am advanced; did it in the early '70s when it really meant something, and I've added 45 years experience onto that, so I make no apologies to younger officers who have trained recently, but I'm afraid the standard is nowhere near what it used to be.
There are various issues here that need explained, but the one thing that is to me glaringly obvious and totally unacceptable, is the lack of blues and twos on pursuits or high speed emergency driving. I have been on about this for years, so once again I'll repeat, it should be utterly mandatory that sirens are blaring and lights flashing in circumstances such as this.
Not to do so endangers the safety and lives of both the officers and public. This is an absolutely classic example of why this principle should be observed and put into practice at ALL times. Had they been used on all the police vehicles in this instance, there is virtually no doubt that the OP would have both seen and heard the approaching vehicles and gone no further onto the junction. I personally would find it impossible to drive an emergency vehicle at those kinds of speeds without lights and sirens; my instincts would be screaming, switch them ON!!
This business of the police hiring anything they can get their hands on and then using these vehicles in pursuits is in itself potentially dangerous. The policy in years gone by was that the police purchased every single car they used, they were suitably and intensively modified and serviced to a very high standard, (well they were in my shop), and the same officers would drive "their" car. That meant they would get to the point where it was a classic case of man and machine in perfect harmony.
This particular vehicle is once again a classic case of the wrong car in the wrong place doing the wrong job. The BMW X5 and the Range Rover Sport have one thing in common; the wheels are too wide. In the wet they aquaplane very badly, far too much surface area and the tread lifts on top of the water instead of cutting in and gripping. That, combined with the bulk and weight of these cars dramatically increases the braking distance in the wet, far more so than on a performance saloon for example. Do you think the driver was aware of these peculiarities? I think it unlikely, because I would doubt that he has ever been trained to think about that.
The business of him being in the inside lane is completely at odds with driving at high speed in an emergency situation. You never, ever drive in the inside lane on a road like this, especially when approaching a junction: again, my instincts would have been screaming, get to the outside!! I don't know how anyone could do this.
The issue of blame is dead simple. The police or indeed any emergency driver is 100% responsible for the manner in which they control their vehicle. This is particularly relevant in a high risk location such as a controlled junction. This driver knew that vehicles would be almost certain to come through on a green light and should have been on the brakes way before the junction. It was his sole responsibility to come down to the appropriate speed to allow for a complete stop if required, and to compensate for the wet conditions. It is absolutely not the responsibility of joe public.
Those of you on here who are actually trying to infer that the OP should share responsibility for this need to seriously waken up, particularly the BiB.
The final aspect of this is, for me, the worst. This driver, who was clearly grossly incompetent, would appear to be lying his ass off and attempting to apportion blame onto the OP. This kind of copper makes me sick to my stomach. If you make a mistake for gods sake hold your hands up and admit it. If you attempt to lie your way out of trouble it will backfire with a vengeance and it could cost your career. Why do officers do things like this? I have never understood it and probably never will.
You need to fight this all the way OP and make sure you are compensated fully. The only saving grace is that it could have been a lot worse.
J
Edited by jith on Monday 23 March 12:25
jith said:
KungFooPanda said:
jith said:
Alright KFP, my take on this, because I can keep silent no longer.
I am advanced; did it in the early '70s when it really meant something, and I've added 45 years experience onto that, so I make no apologies to younger officers who have trained recently, but I'm afraid the standard is nowhere near what it used to be.
There are various issues here that need explained, but the one thing that is to me glaringly obvious and totally unacceptable, is the lack of blues and twos on pursuits or high speed emergency driving. I have been on about this for years, so once again I'll repeat, it should be utterly mandatory that sirens are blaring and lights flashing in circumstances such as this.
Not to do so endangers the safety and lives of both the officers and public. This is an absolutely classic example of why this principle should be observed and put into practice at ALL times. Had they been used on all the police vehicles in this instance, there is virtually no doubt that the OP would have both seen and heard the approaching vehicles and gone no further onto the junction. I personally would find it impossible to drive an emergency vehicle at those kinds of speeds without lights and sirens; my instincts would be screaming, switch them ON!!
This business of the police hiring anything they can get their hands on and then using these vehicles in pursuits is in itself potentially dangerous. The policy in years gone by was that the police purchased every single car they used, they were suitably and intensively modified and serviced to a very high standard, (well they were in my shop), and the same officers would drive "their" car. That meant they would get to the point where it was a classic case of man and machine in perfect harmony.
This particular vehicle is once again a classic case of the wrong car in the wrong place doing the wrong job. The BMW X5 and the Range Rover Sport have one thing in common; the wheels are too wide. In the wet they aquaplane very badly, far too much surface area and the tread lifts on top of the water instead of cutting in and gripping. That, combined with the bulk and weight of these cars dramatically increases the braking distance in the wet, far more so than on a performance saloon for example. Do you think the driver was aware of these peculiarities? I think it unlikely, because I would doubt that he has ever been trained to think about that.
The business of him being in the inside lane is completely at odds with driving at high speed in an emergency situation. You never, ever drive in the inside lane on a road like this, especially when approaching a junction: again, my instincts would have been screaming, get to the outside!! I don't know how anyone could do this.
The issue of blame is dead simple. The police or indeed any emergency driver is 100% responsible for the manner in which they control their vehicle. This is particularly relevant in a high risk location such as a controlled junction. This driver knew that vehicles would be almost certain to come through on a green light and should have been on the brakes way before the junction. It was his sole responsibility to come down to the appropriate speed to allow for a complete stop if required, and to compensate for the wet conditions. It is absolutely not the responsibility of joe public.
Those of you on here who are actually trying to infer that the OP should share responsibility for this need to seriously waken up, particularly the BiB.
The final aspect of this is, for me, the worst. This driver, who was clearly grossly incompetent, would appear to be lying his ass off and attempting to apportion blame onto the OP. This kind of copper makes me sick to my stomach. If you make a mistake for gods sake hold your hands up and admit it. If you attempt to lie your way out of trouble it will backfire with a vengeance and it could cost your career. Why do officers do things like this? I have never understood it and probably never will.
You need to fight this all the way OP and make sure you are compensated fully. The only saving grace is that it could have been a lot worse.
J
Thanks for this reply Jith. I was trying to judge whether the actions taken by the ARV on that evening were satisfactory given the vehicle/conditions/situation. Your reply has convinced me that they were not. As one of the posters suggested would you be willing to look through the evidence when I recieve it all? I only wish your professional opinion and will not involve you any further. Thanks again for your reply.I am advanced; did it in the early '70s when it really meant something, and I've added 45 years experience onto that, so I make no apologies to younger officers who have trained recently, but I'm afraid the standard is nowhere near what it used to be.
There are various issues here that need explained, but the one thing that is to me glaringly obvious and totally unacceptable, is the lack of blues and twos on pursuits or high speed emergency driving. I have been on about this for years, so once again I'll repeat, it should be utterly mandatory that sirens are blaring and lights flashing in circumstances such as this.
Not to do so endangers the safety and lives of both the officers and public. This is an absolutely classic example of why this principle should be observed and put into practice at ALL times. Had they been used on all the police vehicles in this instance, there is virtually no doubt that the OP would have both seen and heard the approaching vehicles and gone no further onto the junction. I personally would find it impossible to drive an emergency vehicle at those kinds of speeds without lights and sirens; my instincts would be screaming, switch them ON!!
This business of the police hiring anything they can get their hands on and then using these vehicles in pursuits is in itself potentially dangerous. The policy in years gone by was that the police purchased every single car they used, they were suitably and intensively modified and serviced to a very high standard, (well they were in my shop), and the same officers would drive "their" car. That meant they would get to the point where it was a classic case of man and machine in perfect harmony.
This particular vehicle is once again a classic case of the wrong car in the wrong place doing the wrong job. The BMW X5 and the Range Rover Sport have one thing in common; the wheels are too wide. In the wet they aquaplane very badly, far too much surface area and the tread lifts on top of the water instead of cutting in and gripping. That, combined with the bulk and weight of these cars dramatically increases the braking distance in the wet, far more so than on a performance saloon for example. Do you think the driver was aware of these peculiarities? I think it unlikely, because I would doubt that he has ever been trained to think about that.
The business of him being in the inside lane is completely at odds with driving at high speed in an emergency situation. You never, ever drive in the inside lane on a road like this, especially when approaching a junction: again, my instincts would have been screaming, get to the outside!! I don't know how anyone could do this.
The issue of blame is dead simple. The police or indeed any emergency driver is 100% responsible for the manner in which they control their vehicle. This is particularly relevant in a high risk location such as a controlled junction. This driver knew that vehicles would be almost certain to come through on a green light and should have been on the brakes way before the junction. It was his sole responsibility to come down to the appropriate speed to allow for a complete stop if required, and to compensate for the wet conditions. It is absolutely not the responsibility of joe public.
Those of you on here who are actually trying to infer that the OP should share responsibility for this need to seriously waken up, particularly the BiB.
The final aspect of this is, for me, the worst. This driver, who was clearly grossly incompetent, would appear to be lying his ass off and attempting to apportion blame onto the OP. This kind of copper makes me sick to my stomach. If you make a mistake for gods sake hold your hands up and admit it. If you attempt to lie your way out of trouble it will backfire with a vengeance and it could cost your career. Why do officers do things like this? I have never understood it and probably never will.
You need to fight this all the way OP and make sure you are compensated fully. The only saving grace is that it could have been a lot worse.
J
Edited by jith on Monday 23 March 12:25
I can look at the papers for you, but please remember I'm not a solicitor so can only pass opinion on the technical aspects of what transpired. You need to keep this out of the public domain now so drop me a line through my profile and I'll come back to you.
J
mph1977 said:
Mk3Spitfire said:
It is very true that a lot of calls require a "silent approach". That said, it is down to the individual driver to chose to follow this. Ultimately, it is all well and good for someone in Ops room to ask for a silent approach, but it is the driver of the car involved who has to justify his actions if he chose not to use the blues and twos, and was involved in a collision.
also silent approach doesn;t necessarily mean no blues ... on a quiet night you can hear sirens from hundreds of metres and 'real' two tones even further away where the blues are far less visible in town BTW....Popped into the police station the other day to get a complaint form for IPCC. He asked why I wanted it. Told him I had been hit by an Armed Response Vehicle...that would be a Tactical Response Unit. Well lock me up!!!!!!
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