Friday 14th February 2003

She Stopped in the Outside Lane

Resulting accident resulted in death of driver

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[toby tucker]

Well , here is a women with police indirectly responsible for causing an accident in which some poor innocent guy gets killed and they all get off relativley lightly . I am just so Pi&^* off about the lack of consistency on how the law is applied in this country.


>>> Edited by toby tucker on Friday 3rd October 12:05

[apache]

my sympathies TT, the law is indeed shameful in this respect. In control at 100mph or out of control at 70mph, go figure, the fact that cruising speeds on autobahns is usually 100mph regardless of traffic density shows how stupid this is

[kevinday]

IMHO the Transit driver was not innocent, I bet he was travelling in excess of 70 and not paying enough attention. She was doing 95, he was doing 70 according to the story so how could he not stop or avoid the daft lass? Also how were they thrown from the van, no seatbelts perhaps?

[paolow]

thats absoulutely fcking outrageous. Why is she not being done for manslaughter? The law is truly inept

...

[Simon5480]

They should have just followed her until she slowed down why were they not "done" as well, it is this "we gotta get the motorist" syndrome the Police are executing and now some poor sod is dead. Why make her retake the same test its short coming are why she stopped in the fast lane

Undertaking is such a dangerous feature but the Police they exempt I think...

[skid]

Words fail me at the absolute ineptitude of the stupid ****ing girl.

I think the indication of her total inability to drive is that the cops couldn't attract her attention and had to pull aling side.

I say she should have had manslaughter minimum as her actions are inconprehensible.

Maybe Mr Vab Driver was speeding but lets put it into perspective; A family has lost a loved one.

end.

[gilese]

Plod drivers are a law unto themselves. They come through my village doing 120mph in a 30 zone on a Sunday morning with kids and walkers at the side of the road - and where's there's only narrow pavement and only on one side!

[pistol pete]

F'ing joke!!!

a) Why was she driving at that speed on a busy motorway with (what appears) to be a serious lack of experiance. -Dangerous driving, yea, makes sense, but I think it shows more at fault with the driving test than anything else.

b), More importantly... So, the driver in front of you stops suddenly and you hit them. -you fault, (From what it says here) the van driver was just as bad for tailgateing -obviously to close to do anywhing about it. - Also, if you had a police car beside you - trying to attract the attention of the car infront, wouldnt you be aware of this and back off??...

Pete

[schueymcfee]

Well if the driving test had been upto the job of teaching people how to drive properly in the first place, like for instance driving on the motorway and how to respond to a cop car requesting you to stop.

So what happens, she's ordered to retake the test - which doesn't include motorway driving!

She was probably so shocked to actually see a patrol car she slammed on the anchors.

The scary part is these incompetent people are able to drive at 95MPH, but are unable to respond to a simple request from a patrol car to pull over.

These are exactly the people who should not be driving at all.

WTF

[Tom Lyden]

With regard the driving test...should do what they do in Ireland..they had the worst record for death through danderous driving. So in your first year tou can only travel at a maximum of 45miles and hour, and are not allowed on Motor-Ways for that first year...

[CB-Dave]

gilese said: Plod drivers are a law unto themselves. They come through my village doing 120mph in a 30 zone on a Sunday morning with kids and walkers at the side of the road - and where's there's only narrow pavement and only on one side!

I very much doubt this somewhat... 4x the limit on what appears to be a single or very very narrow two way road...

Do you know how fast 120mph appears to be if you're a pedestrian? covering 2 miles every minute means you'd probably not see much of the car as it passed.

[dandarez]

Something don't add up here. Imagine. She's tanking along at 95mph being CHASED by police car. Van driver is doing 70 it is said - if that's the case cops and inexperienced young woman driver would have been leaving the van well behind. Also, if you had in front of you a cop car, blue lights flashing, etc would you continue in van accelerating? I would wager the cop car was UNMARKED, hence why she took no notice until they changed lanes and got alongside and the shock of seeing ACTUAL cops in the car and her total inexperience set the panic button and she hit the brakes. The Van driver would also continue belting along because he had no idea it was a cop car if unmarked, (the only time I see van drivers slow is when a MARKED police car is about or they get lost!).
So while I agree, the inexperienced girl driver caused the accident, so did the police!
However, if the police were in an obvious police car with lights all going, then the van driver could not have had full attention either!
I luv driving but you can only do so with absolute and total attention whether it's at 30mph or 130 mph. Today, 90% appear to have no attention span at all, they are constantly aware of everything EXCEPT that which is going on around them, blindly driving at speed while on mobiles (getting worse imo), and that's why the attention hold you require is greater than it's ever been.
To illustrate, recently overtook a gaggle of tailgaters. Came upon a long vehicle with unsafe load of wood/pallets, some of which began to shift and crash onto the road and verge. I hold back seeing the danger and all those behind overtake me totally oblivious in spite of my flashing headlights. Amazing!

[Graham.J]

It's because *most* learner/just passed drivers nowadays only focus on the bumper and brake lights of the car in front of them.
This is the main reason why they have introduced the hazard perception test into the theory part now, to try and get them to concentrate on what's going on around them.

I bet that most, if not all 'older' (than me) PistonHeaders, when motorway driving, RARELY look at the car in front.

I bet/KNOW that you are too busy looking way up the road to see what's going on up there or what's going on around you, watching what all the other numpties on the road are doing.

I've been brought up and learnt to drive with one piece of advice.....

"Treat every other road user as a complete TW@T who doesn't know what they are doing, but don't be over cautious"

[james_j]

Does the driving test still not cover motorway driving in any detail? No point not learning to drive on the motorway if you're going to drive on it as soon as you pass your test.
I guess the test doesn't stress lane discipline (lane hoggers) either.

[dcb]

james_j said: Does the driving test still not cover motorway driving in any detail?

Absolutely correct. You could pass your test without
any mway driving.

Crap, innit ?

I'd make ten miles of dual carraigeway or mway driving the
minimum requirement during a driving test.

Mind you, I'd also drag in the thirty million UK drivers
who don't seem to know about mway lane discipline,
for a good stiff talking to, as well.

[ahonen]

Graham J, your last statement is correct: I trust no-one on the road, because hardly any of them seem to know what they're doing. Milton Keynes' roundabouts and dual-carriageways are classic examples. Zero indication from most people, straightlining of two-lane roundabouts and nearly taking my front off (happens every day - I just like watching their faces when they realise that I'm alongside), selecting the right-hand lane two roundabouts before they wish to turn right then dawdling along and forcing you to undertake (a practice I abhor at any other time, but what else can you do?). Oh, and stopping at every roundabout before looking to see if the coast is clear and disrupting the traffic flow.

Really winds me up. You have to be a bloody mind reader to survive.

[DanH]

, and stopping at every roundabout before looking to see if the coast is clear and disrupting the traffic flow.

I blame road engineers for that, as they design obstructions so that you can't a) see over the roundabout, b) can't see the nearest entrance until you are really close (hedges etc). In my car I have to stop all the time since I can't see over those bloody hedges =/

[madcop]

gilese said: Plod drivers are a law unto themselves. They come through my village doing 120mph in a 30 zone on a Sunday morning with kids and walkers at the side of the road - and where's there's only narrow pavement and only on one side!

Bit of an exaggeration there gilese, I think You make it sound as though Sundays is part of a Traffic man's Grand Prix.
Have you possibly witnessed a Police vehicle travelling at high speed through your village on a couple of occasions by any chance. How did you know how fast they were going?

This thread isn't even about speeding Police officers. It is about a confused inexperienced driver, who through lack of experience made a serious mistake for which she has been dealt with by the courts.

Are you saying that the Police should not have stopped her for exceeding the limit?
Surely a newly passed driver who is as inexperienced as she obviously was, should not have been travelling at anywhere near that speed and should have been quite rightly stopped. Police officers are not able to control where someone stops when they require them to do so. They can only attempt to direct someone where to stop by using hand signals and indicators unless they get alongside them and speak to them through the respective windows. That would not be easy if she was in lane 3 as the passenger window would have been the only access for the officers to talk to her through. If she did not have electric windows, then she would not have been able to hear. If she was travelling at any speed above 30mph, it would have been difficult for her to hear in any case.

I do not know the circumstances of this incident anymore than what has been posted but if the Police officers had been trying to stop her for some time without effect, I imagine that they would have warning equipment illuminated. The van driver must have been negligent to some degree to come unstuck in that manner if this was the case. This may be nothing like what actually happened, but without the full circumstances it is very difficult to pass a judgement on whether the Plice officers were to blame for the outcome.

They will have been included in the accident report as their Police vehicle was indirectly involved in the RTA. If they had been culpable in anyway, then the Police Complaints Authority would have proceeded with them for the relevant offences.

The PCA automatically supervise incidents where police are involved if someone dies, regardless of the circumstances of the death. This is the case from Police shootings to deaths such as this one.

The bottom line in this is that

1) The girl should not have been speeding
2) The girl should not have stopped in lane 3
3) The van driver was not paying enough attention.
4) Unless the full circumstances are published, we will never know the extent of the Police officers culpability

All very tragic for everyone involved.




>> Edited by madcop on Monday 17th February 02:20

[schueymcfee]

DanH said:

, and stopping at every roundabout before looking to see if the coast is clear and disrupting the traffic flow.

I blame road engineers for that, as they design obstructions so that you can't a) see over the roundabout, b) can't see the nearest entrance until you are really close (hedges etc). In my car I have to stop all the time since I can't see over those bloody hedges =/

Errr, that's exactly why they put hedges there. To make you stop first and look. It stops people looking at whats coming before they get to junction realising its clear and assuming the numpty already at the junction is going to move off. When they don't move off and you run into the back of said numpty, you also assume it's numpties fault for hesitating. It's not. It's your fault for assuming!

Did you think the hedges were there to remove Co2 from the air?

>> Edited by schueymcfee on Monday 17th February 16:09

[voyds9]

Make everyone ride a motorbike for two years. It certainly increased my road awareness. Plus it should weed out some numpties.