147mph on motorway

[ghe13rte]

vonhosen said:

I'm saying a fatality has no bearing on the decision as to whether driving was dangerous or not. For it to amount to dangerous driving the same driving would have to had amounted to dangerous driving if there had been fatality.

If the driver was involved in a fatality at those speeds the fact it was a fatality makes no difference to the driving assessment, it only makes a difference to the eventual charge.

The standard test for dangerous driving in death by dangerous driving is exactly the same standard test for the stand alone offence of dangerous driving, the death does not alter the actions that the driver committed to.
The test for dangerous driving looks at the driving not the outcome, the outcome is considered when it comes to what charge after that or for sentencing.

While that's a nice idea that isn't what is done in practice when very high speeds are seen in a collision scenario.
If a collision has occurred and a vehicle can be seen to be at 150mph before that collision then most, if not all will end up with a dangerous driving charge, more so if there is a death or injury.
Contract that when no collision, damage or injury is caused, hardly any dangerous driving is used to charge, as we have seen by this example.
I wonder if some people have an issue with the word "danger" the definition of which is: the possibility of suffering harm or injury.
It most certainly is not HAS suffered harm or injury.

[anonymous-user]

cb31 said:

La Liga said:

s above, it's prudent to potentially gather a bit more information on what you're dealing with.

How coincidental that he potentially gathered the necessary information just as his 330d ran out of puff. Sorry but I don't believe it for a second.

Believe what you want, it's standard practice for police officers to want to gather information on a vehicle they're going to stop prior to stopping it.

It's a wholly reasonable consideration.

I'd also add a traffic officer would likely be well aware that S / RS Audis are heavily targeted by criminals. Assuming he could see what it was, that could strengthen the case for gathering more information.

[vonhosen]

ghe13rte said:

vonhosen said:

I'm saying a fatality has no bearing on the decision as to whether driving was dangerous or not. For it to amount to dangerous driving the same driving would have to had amounted to dangerous driving if there had been fatality.

If the driver was involved in a fatality at those speeds the fact it was a fatality makes no difference to the driving assessment, it only makes a difference to the eventual charge.

The standard test for dangerous driving in death by dangerous driving is exactly the same standard test for the stand alone offence of dangerous driving, the death does not alter the actions that the driver committed to.
The test for dangerous driving looks at the driving not the outcome, the outcome is considered when it comes to what charge after that or for sentencing.

While that's a nice idea that isn't what is done in practice when very high speeds are seen in a collision scenario.
If a collision has occurred and a vehicle can be seen to be at 150mph before that collision then most, if not all will end up with a dangerous driving charge, more so if there is a death or injury.
Contract that when no collision, damage or injury is caused, hardly any dangerous driving is used to charge, as we have seen by this example.
I wonder if some people have an issue with the word "danger" the definition of which is: the possibility of suffering harm or injury.
It most certainly is not HAS suffered harm or injury.

They don't necessarily end up with convictions though.
For a collision to have happened it would have to be demonstrably different than what we saw in the video, it's the demonstrably different bit in the circumstances that makes it dangerous driving, not the outcome itself. If it had been a near miss rather than a collision resulting in death it would still probably amount to dangerous driving (if it would have been dangerous driving had there been a death) because the driver hadn't managed circumstances as they should have.
High speeds & then something completely freaky happening that could not have reasonably been foreseen & a collision as a result doesn't necessarily result in it amounting to dangerous driving.
Ergo it's not the death/collision taking place, it's the driving actions relative to the circumstances at the time, of course the poorer that is the more likely there may be a collision/damage/injury/death, but it's not dependent on them occurring.

[SeeFive]

La Liga said:

SeeFive said:

If the offender was “dangerously” pointing a loaded gun at someone, would you wait for the potential offence to be increased?

How is that a relevant comparison?

It's advantageous to gather further information on the vehicle prior to putting a stop in. This includes checking the vehicle out on the PNC to ensure it is suitable for a stop.

Basic officer safety and the sort of procedure that contributes to us to having unarmed officers.

SeeFive said:

The policy needs review IMO if officers truly beleive there is high risk under certain circumstances. And those closing speeds combined with actual speed over ground and MLMs bumbling along highlights a bit of a risk to me to continue it over a prolonged set of passes without trying to reduce the risk / speeds involved with a set of blues.

Why? Has the policy resulted in lots of bad outcomes?

To answer your first point, and I agree it is a percentage risk issue for the safety of the officer, I guess the imminent potential risk perceived by the vocal (after the trial) officer was less than the extremely rare risk of their being a known armed robber or similar in the offending vehicle?

To answer the second on policy change, the chances are that this and numerous other motorists stupidly increased their speed thinking they were being offered a race by a MOP. Therefore, their speed, closing speeds against MLMs and all risks increased in magnitude and time for the sake of not putting on the blues when the speed was clearly way above reasonable.

I, and I would hope the courts would trust an officers judgement on this need for an immediate stop given video evidence immediately available.

[ghe13rte]

vonhosen said:

ghe13rte said:

vonhosen said:

I'm saying a fatality has no bearing on the decision as to whether driving was dangerous or not. For it to amount to dangerous driving the same driving would have to had amounted to dangerous driving if there had been fatality.

If the driver was involved in a fatality at those speeds the fact it was a fatality makes no difference to the driving assessment, it only makes a difference to the eventual charge.

The standard test for dangerous driving in death by dangerous driving is exactly the same standard test for the stand alone offence of dangerous driving, the death does not alter the actions that the driver committed to.
The test for dangerous driving looks at the driving not the outcome, the outcome is considered when it comes to what charge after that or for sentencing.

While that's a nice idea that isn't what is done in practice when very high speeds are seen in a collision scenario.
If a collision has occurred and a vehicle can be seen to be at 150mph before that collision then most, if not all will end up with a dangerous driving charge, more so if there is a death or injury.
Contract that when no collision, damage or injury is caused, hardly any dangerous driving is used to charge, as we have seen by this example.
I wonder if some people have an issue with the word "danger" the definition of which is: the possibility of suffering harm or injury.
It most certainly is not HAS suffered harm or injury.

They don't necessarily end up with convictions though.
For a collision to have happened it would have to be demonstrably different than what we saw in the video, it's the demonstrably different bit in the circumstances that makes it dangerous driving, not the outcome itself. If it had been a near miss rather than a collision resulting in death it would still probably amount to dangerous driving (if it would have been dangerous driving had there been a death) because the driver hadn't managed circumstances as they should have.
High speeds & then something completely freaky happening that could not have reasonably been foreseen & a collision as a result doesn't necessarily result in it amounting to dangerous driving.
Ergo it's not the death/collision taking place, it's the actions relative to the circumstances.

Noted, however consider the tone and object of the comments here if one of the MLM's had simply indicated right and started to move right to overtake his compatriot but slightly slower MLM and Hornby lost control and crashed.
Many of the commentators who think this piece of driving is not dangerous driving will most probably change their opinion. Some would say the MLM was a dangerous driver of course and maintain Hornby was not, I would add though that many would say that the 147mph was dangerous once a collision at that speed had occurred...even though the danger had of course passed.

[Greendubber]

La Liga said:

cb31 said:

La Liga said:

s above, it's prudent to potentially gather a bit more information on what you're dealing with.

How coincidental that he potentially gathered the necessary information just as his 330d ran out of puff. Sorry but I don't believe it for a second.

Believe what you want, it's standard practice for police officers to want to gather information on a vehicle they're going to stop prior to stopping it.

It's a wholly reasonable consideration.

I'd also add a traffic officer would likely be well aware that S / RS Audis are heavily targeted by criminals. Assuming he could see what it was, that could strengthen the case for gathering more information.

Yep, this is the reality of what happens yet plenty of people here who have never had to do it seem to know better.

[ghe13rte]

SeeFive said:

To answer your first point, and I agree it is a percentage risk issue for the safety of the officer, I guess the imminent potential risk perceived by the vocal (after the trial) officer was less than the extremely rare risk of their being a known armed robber or similar in the offending vehicle?

To answer the second on policy change, the chances are that this and numerous other motorists stupidly increased their speed thinking they were being offered a race by a MOP. Therefore, their speed, closing speeds against MLMs and all risks increased in magnitude and time for the sake of not putting on the blues when the speed was clearly way above reasonable.

I, and I would hope the courts would trust an officers judgement on this need for an immediate stop given video evidence immediately available.

IMHO the police officer was perfectly entitled to gather the evidence of the high speed. He made the measurement and then brought the incident to an end quickly afterwards.
Should the officer really have seen someone doing 147mph then lit them up and measured their speed as they came to a much slower speed?
Even when the police make these measurements a lot of defendants reject and challenge it. What do we expect is reasonable? An officer sees someone doing 150mph then lets them slow and measures than at 75mph and says I know you were going much faster than that but didn't measure it...I think it was 140mph, 150mph or close to that. I can't see that playing out well, providing a deterrent effect and slowing traffic from 3-figures to sub 70mph on the motorways and dual-carriageways.

[anonymous-user]

SeeFive said:

To answer your first point, and I agree it is a percentage risk issue for the safety of the officer, I guess the imminent potential risk perceived by the vocal (after the trial) officer was less than the extremely rare risk of their being a known armed robber or similar in the offending vehicle?

It's a relativity rare risk, but it's a high impact one (the armed robbery). Although I'd speculate the probability of there being high risk occupants increases with vehicles travelling at such speeds.

The consistent application of safe practices reduces overall risk i.e. if the police, over the country, are stopping hundreds of thousands of cars per year, then they're going to find information on some of the vehicles through pre-stop checks that helps them remain safer on occasions. They'll also occasionally avoid potential life and death stops.

SeeFive said:

To answer the second on policy change, the chances are that this and numerous other motorists stupidly increased their speed thinking they were being offered a race by a MOP. Therefore, their speed, closing speeds against MLMs and all risks increased in magnitude and time for the sake of not putting on the blues when the speed was clearly way above reasonable.

Maybe, but if it happens lots of times over many years, and there aren't really any bad outcomes, then it becomes hard to point at a process being flawed.

[vonhosen]

ghe13rte said:

vonhosen said:

ghe13rte said:

vonhosen said:

I'm saying a fatality has no bearing on the decision as to whether driving was dangerous or not. For it to amount to dangerous driving the same driving would have to had amounted to dangerous driving if there had been fatality.

If the driver was involved in a fatality at those speeds the fact it was a fatality makes no difference to the driving assessment, it only makes a difference to the eventual charge.

The standard test for dangerous driving in death by dangerous driving is exactly the same standard test for the stand alone offence of dangerous driving, the death does not alter the actions that the driver committed to.
The test for dangerous driving looks at the driving not the outcome, the outcome is considered when it comes to what charge after that or for sentencing.

While that's a nice idea that isn't what is done in practice when very high speeds are seen in a collision scenario.
If a collision has occurred and a vehicle can be seen to be at 150mph before that collision then most, if not all will end up with a dangerous driving charge, more so if there is a death or injury.
Contract that when no collision, damage or injury is caused, hardly any dangerous driving is used to charge, as we have seen by this example.
I wonder if some people have an issue with the word "danger" the definition of which is: the possibility of suffering harm or injury.
It most certainly is not HAS suffered harm or injury.

They don't necessarily end up with convictions though.
For a collision to have happened it would have to be demonstrably different than what we saw in the video, it's the demonstrably different bit in the circumstances that makes it dangerous driving, not the outcome itself. If it had been a near miss rather than a collision resulting in death it would still probably amount to dangerous driving (if it would have been dangerous driving had there been a death) because the driver hadn't managed circumstances as they should have.
High speeds & then something completely freaky happening that could not have reasonably been foreseen & a collision as a result doesn't necessarily result in it amounting to dangerous driving.
Ergo it's not the death/collision taking place, it's the actions relative to the circumstances.

Noted, however consider the tone and object of the comments here if one of the MLM's had simply indicated right and started to move right to overtake his compatriot but slightly slower MLM and Hornby lost control and crashed.
Many of the commentators who think this piece of driving is not dangerous driving will most probably change their opinion. Some would say the MLM was a dangerous driver of course and maintain Hornby was not, I would add though that many would say that the 147mph was dangerous once a collision at that speed had occurred...even though the danger had of course passed.

If the circumstances were different so that it was reasonable to expect such actions from someone in lane 2 & the driver had not altered their approach accordingly, then we have different circumstances & evidence heading to us considering dangerous driving with or without any collision.
Hence my earlier comments in relation to the video & Volvo/Audi.
But that's different circumstances, not what we are presented with.

[Red 4]

von - thanks for the replies.

Simple question;

Fatal. Driver who caused the collision was doing 140 MPH.

Charge with Death by Dangerous or not ?

[vonhosen]

Red 4 said:

von - thanks for the replies.

Simple question;

Fatal. Driver who caused the collision was doing 140 MPH.

Charge with Death by Dangerous or not ?

Simple answer.

Depends on the full circumstances.

[thesmurfs]

La Liga said:

I'd also add a traffic officer would likely be well aware that S / RS Audis are heavily targeted by criminals. Assuming he could see what it was, that could strengthen the case for gathering more information.

This is a good point and very true.

[anonymous-user]

La Liga said:

Greg66 said:

La Liga said:

Is it better to have two cars at 150 for 5 miles or one car at 150 for 50 miles, for example?

That's a misdirection though, at least in the context of this thread (one of the points being why the pursuing vehicle didn't light up at lower speeds).

A more realistic choice would be two cars at 120 for 30/60 seconds (1/2 miles) or two cars at 150 for 30/60 seconds (1.25/2.5 miles).

(besides which, there can't be many (any?) 50 mile stretches of UK motorway on which one could hold a sustained 150. That's pretty hard to do on the motorways we must not mention in the country whose name we dare not speak).

The figures were merely illustrative and simplistic to make a point about an increase in short term risk being justified to decrease probable longer-term risk.

I understand that. I was highlighting the different point being made in this thread though, which is to question why either car was driving at 150 in the first place.

[SeeFive]

La Liga said:

SeeFive said:

To answer your first point, and I agree it is a percentage risk issue for the safety of the officer, I guess the imminent potential risk perceived by the vocal (after the trial) officer was less than the extremely rare risk of their being a known armed robber or similar in the offending vehicle?

It's a relativity rare risk, but it's a high impact one (the armed robbery). Although I'd speculate the probability of there being high risk occupants increases with vehicles travelling at such speeds.

The consistent application of safe practices reduces overall risk i.e. if the police, over the country, are stopping hundreds of thousands of cars per year, then they're going to find information on some of the vehicles through pre-stop checks that helps them remain safer on occasions. They'll also occasionally avoid potential life and death stops.

SeeFive said:

To answer the second on policy change, the chances are that this and numerous other motorists stupidly increased their speed thinking they were being offered a race by a MOP. Therefore, their speed, closing speeds against MLMs and all risks increased in magnitude and time for the sake of not putting on the blues when the speed was clearly way above reasonable.

Maybe, but if it happens lots of times over many years, and there aren't really any bad outcomes, then it becomes hard to point at a process being flawed.

Some fair comments made. I think we may be at the stage of splitting hairs on this from different sides of the fence. I can see that officers will have encountered risks beyond simple speeding, and need to be prudent in dealing with such situations. I also see that they need to assess the public risk under such circumstances, and the feeling on here is that the risk of inadvertently apprehending an armed robber rather than a speeding motorist quoted by the arresting officer as being lucky not to cause an accident takes precedence.

From my perspective, Hants unmarked cars, as stated earlier have unsuccessfully tried to goad me into higher speeds on two occasions in their method of recording my speed over time. I must have missed many that haven’t over the miles I travel in Hampshire, so please do not think that I am tarring all with the same brush.

All I will say, is that I have personally seen precedent of officers in unmarked cars in that area dubiously applying evidence collecting policy on the basis of achieving a bigger outcome. My question would be, if the unmarked car put on blues at say, the original lower speed, and it was an armed robber, would he have stopped or hit the loud pedal? Secondly, if the unmarked car put on the blues behind a dumb speeding motorist, would he have slowed and immediately reduced the risk, albeit potentially reducing the offence at the same time?

Also, if checks were not done, and you had suspicions that it was not a simple motoring situation, what is wrong with sitting back at a safe distance with blues still on until the checks are complete and your safety is assured and necessary backup is secured after securing the original risk at the scene?

I know, every situation is different but in this instance, I would suggest that we would be oooking at a lesser offence from the idiot MOP, and a much reduced risk over a shorter timeframe.

Edited for typos - rushing as iPad nearly out of battery.

Edited by SeeFive on Tuesday 23 January 15:59

[Red 4]

vonhosen said:

Red 4 said:

von - thanks for the replies.

Simple question;

Fatal. Driver who caused the collision was doing 140 MPH.

Charge with Death by Dangerous or not ?

Simple answer.

Depends on the full circumstances.

Ha.

I knew you were going to say that.

It really doesn't though.

[vonhosen]

Red 4 said:

vonhosen said:

Red 4 said:

von - thanks for the replies.

Simple question;

Fatal. Driver who caused the collision was doing 140 MPH.

Charge with Death by Dangerous or not ?

Simple answer.

Depends on the full circumstances.

Ha.

I knew you were going to say that.

It really doesn't though.

Of course it does.

The chances of there being a dangerous driving where there is a fatality are naturally greater, because the chance they haven't managed risk appropriately is greater & that they haven't acted how they should have in the presence of a reasonably foreseeable threat, but it is not an automatic because of the fatality. It's what the threat was, how reasonably foreseeable it was & what they did/didn't do in relation to it.
ie The circumstances.

[Toltec]

cb31 said:

I think part of the problem is that people perceive that the police driver partly encouraged the speeding. As people have mentioned 100mph is too fast for our motorways so he could have stopped him at that point and reduced the danger and risk to everybody.

If I had to guess the policeman was enjoying it and wanted audi man to get as high a speed as possible, only when his 330d started to hit the limiter at 155mph did he decide to call a halt to proceedings. To then pontificate about how dangerous it was is a bit off in my opinion.

And no I am not condoning audi man in the slightest.

Without the start of the video it isn't clear, we don't know what speed the police car or Audi were doing when one passed the other.

[anonymous-user]

SeeFive said:

La Liga said:

SeeFive said:

To answer your first point, and I agree it is a percentage risk issue for the safety of the officer, I guess the imminent potential risk perceived by the vocal (after the trial) officer was less than the extremely rare risk of their being a known armed robber or similar in the offending vehicle?

It's a relativity rare risk, but it's a high impact one (the armed robbery). Although I'd speculate the probability of there being high risk occupants increases with vehicles travelling at such speeds.

The consistent application of safe practices reduces overall risk i.e. if the police, over the country, are stopping hundreds of thousands of cars per year, then they're going to find information on some of the vehicles through pre-stop checks that helps them remain safer on occasions. They'll also occasionally avoid potential life and death stops.

SeeFive said:

To answer the second on policy change, the chances are that this and numerous other motorists stupidly increased their speed thinking they were being offered a race by a MOP. Therefore, their speed, closing speeds against MLMs and all risks increased in magnitude and time for the sake of not putting on the blues when the speed was clearly way above reasonable.

Maybe, but if it happens lots of times over many years, and there aren't really any bad outcomes, then it becomes hard to point at a process being flawed.

Some fair comments made. I think we may be at the stage of splitting hairs on this from different sides of the fence. I can see that officers will have encountered risks beyond simple speeding, and need to be prudent in dealing with such situations. I also see that they need to assess the public risk under such circumstances, and the feeling on here is that the risk of inadvertently apprehending an armed robber rather than a speeding motorist quoted by the arresting officer as being lucky not to cause an accident takes precedence.

From my perspective, Hants unmarked cars, as stated earlier have unsuccessfully tried to goad me into higher speeds on two occasions in their method of recording my speed over time. I must have missed many that haven’t over the miles I travel in Hampshire, so please do not think that I am tarring all with the same brush.

All I will say, is that I have personally seen precedent of officers in unmarked cars in that area dubiously applying evidence collecting policy on the basis of achieving a bigger outcome. My question would be, if the unmarked car put on blues at say, the original lower speed, and it was an armed robber, would he have stopped or hit the loud pedal? Secondly, if the unmarked car put on the blues behind a dumb speeding motorist, would he have slowed and immediately reduced the risk, albeit potentially reducing the offence at the same time?

Also, if checks were not done, and you had suspicions that it was not a simple motoring situation, what is wrong with sitting back at a safe distance with blues still on until the checks are complete and your safety is assured and necessary backup is secured after securing the original risk at the scene?

I know, every situation is different but in this instance, I would suggest that we would be oooking at a lesser offence from the idiot MOP, and a much reduced risk over a shorter timeframe.

Edited for typos - rushing as iPad nearly out of battery.

I feel for you having to type that on an iPad! I couldn't use non-physical keys (assuming it doesn't have an attacked keyboard).

You're quite right, there is a balance.

The immediate risks outweigh the potential unknowns. If an officer judges the risks too high whilst trying to get more information they can simply let the vehicle go and not get involved.

The problem with incidents like these is we're seeing 25ish seconds of footage in hindsight we can go over time and time again. As Kahneman (name dropping psychologists now...) writes, "What may seem prudent in foresight may seem negligent in hindsight".

Decisions have to be made at the time and 25 seconds in real time goes quite quickly. If we're the one having to make the decisions at the time then our minds will be operating differently. We'll narrow our focus and revert to our training and what we've done in similar situations before.

Ultimately, considering the bigger picture and overall road safety benefit, I'd suggest it's probably better to have this chap off the road for a while and have him go through something that is going to change his behaviour when he drives again. Whether, in hindsight he could have stopped earlier is partially unknown and practically doesn't really make much difference.

[SeeFive]

La Liga said:

You're quite right, there is a balance.

The immediate risks outweigh the potential unknowns. If an officer judges the risks too high whilst trying to get more information they can simply let the vehicle go and not get involved.

The problem with incidents like these is we're seeing 25ish seconds of footage in hindsight we can go over time and time again. As Kahneman (name dropping psychologists now...) writes, "What may seem prudent in foresight may seem negligent in hindsight".

Decisions have to be made at the time and 25 seconds in real time goes quite quickly. If we're the one having to make the decisions at the time then our minds will be operating differently. We'll narrow our focus and revert to our training and what we've done in similar situations before.

Ultimately, considering the bigger picture and overall road safety benefit, I'd suggest it's probably better to have this chap off the road for a while and have him go through something that is going to change his behaviour when he drives again. Whether, in hindsight he could have stopped earlier is partially unknown and practically doesn't really make much difference.

I agree with almost everything you say there, apart from the making little difference. In my case, had I taken the opportunity to put distance between the unmarked car that I passed at a moderate speed, and increased my speed to prevent him accelerating and undertaking me immediately as I was looking to pull back left to L1, then I would probably be on the bus too rather than gaining a fpn.

Perhaps it was one of those officers. The one I met was certainly sanctimonious enough with me to point out when reading my insurance documents that I was not insured to race!

Seriously!! A 3 pointer in a 190mph car racing...

[Red 4]

Von - Anyone causing death whilst travelling at 140 + MPH anywhere on UK roads would likely be charged with Death by Dangerous.

You're just struggling a bit because you've spent the last 13 pages saying 140 + MPH is not dangerous.

The guy was convicted of speeding.
If he'd caused a collision it would have been a different charge.
Simple.