Advanced / Police Driver Training

[vonhosen]

StressedDave said:

Len Woodman said:

Must have been difficult to deal with. Questioning why a well-trained driver did something so wrong. Again it is having the ability but choosing to use it that is an issue. I see that on a daily basis with my fleet drivers.

I didn't do the live scene as it was Cambs rather than Met, but coming to it a week late, the skid marks (Car didn't have ABS and the driver's mind was concentrated on the thing he was going to hit at 50mph rather than looking for escape routes or cadence braking) were still present and somewhat long as were reasonably large chunks of Citroen AX hatch. ISTR the pressure marks for the 2nd car, which did have ABS and only avoided the fate of the first car by using the other half of the carriageway, were still visible too.

As I alluded to, the psychological issues were of more interest than the scene, that being res ipsa locitur. It was very surprising how many of the other occupants of the cars weren't paying attention to the driving and instruction that was going on and had no knowledge whatsoever as to what had occurred. At least until the CC of Cambridgeshire stuck them all on for s.1... Allegedly the perpetrator had a reputation for 'overdriving' when his student was more talented, which begged the question why this hadn't been picked up by those more senior prior to the incident.

Quite why the charge was lessened from s1. is another discussion.

Acquitted of s1, found guilty of s3 (there being no offence of s2B in existence at the time).

[angoooose]

For the civvies amongst us, what are S1/S2B/S3 etc?

[vonhosen]

s1 = Death by dangerous driving
s2 = Dangerous driving.
s2B = Death by careless driving
s3 = Careless driving.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/52/conte...

[p1esk]

Beg pardon, but is this the case where a young nurse was killed while waiting in her car at the tail end of a queue at roadworks/temporary traffic lights, and was hit in the rear by a police car during training?

If it is, I'd have thought something rather more serious than 'careless driving' would have been the verdict. It clearly contravened the 'safe stopping' rule, which I thought was always to be complied with.

What might have been the verdict if a normal member of the public had run into the back of her car in such a spectacular manner? After all, this wasn't just a minor misjudgement.

Am I evaluating this wrongly?

[FiF]

p1esk said:

Beg pardon, but is this the case where a young nurse was killed while waiting in her car at the tail end of a queue at roadworks/temporary traffic lights, and was hit in the rear by a police car during training?

If it is, I'd have thought something rather more serious than 'careless driving' would have been the verdict. It clearly contravened the 'safe stopping' rule, which I thought was always to be complied with.

What might have been the verdict if a normal member of the public had run into the back of her car in such a spectacular manner? After all, this wasn't just a minor misjudgement.

Am I evaluating this wrongly?

Yes, but he was prosecuted for both dangerous and careless driving, found not guilty on the former, guilty on the second. We have to rely on the judicial system to look at the evidence and decide, presumably it was thought that the dangerous charge would hold up. Let's not forget Mark Milton was prosecuted for dangerous at 159 on the M54, and he didn't hit anything.

[vonhosen]

p1esk said:

Beg pardon, but is this the case where a young nurse was killed while waiting in her car at the tail end of a queue at roadworks/temporary traffic lights, and was hit in the rear by a police car during training?

If it is, I'd have thought something rather more serious than 'careless driving' would have been the verdict. It clearly contravened the 'safe stopping' rule, which I thought was always to be complied with.

What might have been the verdict if a normal member of the public had run into the back of her car in such a spectacular manner? After all, this wasn't just a minor misjudgement.

Am I evaluating this wrongly?

Yes that's the case.

Is it the case that everybody who hits a stationary object in the road is guilty of dangerous driving?
Not in my experience, it can result in no conviction, careless or dangerous driving. It will dependent on the full surrounding circumstances, not just that something stationary in the road was hit.

The way it tends to go with dangerous driving is that rather than it being a single error of judgement or piece of bad driving, the prosecution likes to be able to show a whole series of events or a course of conduct that is ultimately dangerous.
The prosecution in this case believed they had that, but the jury disagreed that what was presented to them amounted to dangerous driving (in reference to the offence criteria as outlined to them by the judge).

You're evaluating it without all the evidence that the jury had (it would have been death by careless if the offence had existed & this sort of event is exactly why the offence of death by careless was called for by victim's families etc).

[vonhosen]

FiF said:

p1esk said:

Beg pardon, but is this the case where a young nurse was killed while waiting in her car at the tail end of a queue at roadworks/temporary traffic lights, and was hit in the rear by a police car during training?

If it is, I'd have thought something rather more serious than 'careless driving' would have been the verdict. It clearly contravened the 'safe stopping' rule, which I thought was always to be complied with.

What might have been the verdict if a normal member of the public had run into the back of her car in such a spectacular manner? After all, this wasn't just a minor misjudgement.

Am I evaluating this wrongly?

Yes, but he was prosecuted for both dangerous and careless driving, found not guilty on the former, guilty on the second. We have to rely on the judicial system to look at the evidence and decide, presumably it was thought that the dangerous charge would hold up. Let's not forget Mark Milton was prosecuted for dangerous at 159 on the M54, and he didn't hit anything.

Mark Milton was also prosecuted for dangerous driving a few years later when he hit a bollard at 92mph in a 40mph limit & was acquitted by a jury (He was convicted of dangerous driving for the 159mph case years earlier).

[FiF]

vonhosen said:

FiF said:

p1esk said:

Beg pardon, but is this the case where a young nurse was killed while waiting in her car at the tail end of a queue at roadworks/temporary traffic lights, and was hit in the rear by a police car during training?

If it is, I'd have thought something rather more serious than 'careless driving' would have been the verdict. It clearly contravened the 'safe stopping' rule, which I thought was always to be complied with.

What might have been the verdict if a normal member of the public had run into the back of her car in such a spectacular manner? After all, this wasn't just a minor misjudgement.

Am I evaluating this wrongly?

Yes, but he was prosecuted for both dangerous and careless driving, found not guilty on the former, guilty on the second. We have to rely on the judicial system to look at the evidence and decide, presumably it was thought that the dangerous charge would hold up. Let's not forget Mark Milton was prosecuted for dangerous at 159 on the M54, and he didn't hit anything.

Mark Milton was also prosecuted for dangerous driving a few years later when he hit a bollard at 92mph in a 40mph limit & was acquitted by a jury (He was convicted of dangerous driving for the 159mph case years earlier).

Recall the second case, he claimed he was distracted by a bright light and binned it into a central reservation.

On the original 159mph case 'testing the capabilities of the vehicle' thought he was originally acquitted, then convicted after an appeal by DPP, which was later appealed in High Court who overturned / returned to district court for reconsideration. Perhaps my memory of events is incorrect, but BBC seems to confirm that scheme of things. High Court seems to be saying that the DJ who convicted him was wrong to rule his skills irrelevant, which must surely be a landmark ruling, or?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/shropshire/6457...

[Len Woodman]

vonhosen said:

Mark Milton was also prosecuted for dangerous driving a few years later when he hit a bollard at 92mph in a 40mph limit & was acquitted by a jury (He was convicted of dangerous driving for the 159mph case years earlier).

Again, it's a shame to have people with skills who choose not use them - this particular one being restraint. Hitting a bollard isn't particularly skillful! And chasing a "suspected" stolen Audi is not a good reason to start a pursuit.

But I suppose we also have other professions from which some practitioners make mistakes because of ego or believing they are above everything.

Anyone have any information on the involvement of ambulances and fire appliances involved in crashes?

[vonhosen]

He was acquitted, on appeal by the Crown convicted, then he appealed that & it was sent back to the district judge who reviewed in light of the appeal judge's ruling (that his skills should be considered relevant) & still upheld conviction even after taking into account skills..

https://www.shropshirestar.com/news/2007/07/24/spe...

Whether 'skills should be considered as relevant' (as per Milton appeal ruling) has been superseded by the Bannister ruling.

http://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/format.cgi?doc=/ew/c...

Edited by vonhosen on Wednesday 3rd January 13:31

[vonhosen]

Len Woodman said:

vonhosen said:

Mark Milton was also prosecuted for dangerous driving a few years later when he hit a bollard at 92mph in a 40mph limit & was acquitted by a jury (He was convicted of dangerous driving for the 159mph case years earlier).

Again, it's a shame to have people with skills who choose not use them - this particular one being restraint. Hitting a bollard isn't particularly skillful! And chasing a "suspected" stolen Audi is not a good reason to start a pursuit.

But I suppose we also have other professions from which some practitioners make mistakes because of ego or believing they are above everything.

Anyone have any information on the involvement of ambulances and fire appliances involved in crashes?

Which is why I said earlier that how they are trained (addressing values/belief systems) is every bit as important as, if not more than, the physical skill they are trained in & why courses need/needed to be altered to help address that importance.

[vonhosen]

Len Woodman said:

Anyone have any information on the involvement of ambulances and fire appliances involved in crashes?

They happen.

http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/cambridge-new...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-north-west-wale...

Their stats aren't as easy to find as Police though.

[FiF]

vonhosen said:

He was acquitted, on appeal by the Crown convicted, then he appealed that & it was sent back to the district judge who reviewed in light of the appeal judge's ruling (that his skills should be considered relevant) & still upheld conviction even after taking into account skills..

https://www.shropshirestar.com/news/2007/07/24/spe...

Whether 'skills should be considered as relevant' (as per Milton appeal ruling) has been superseded by the Bannister ruling.

http://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/format.cgi?doc=/ew/c...

Edited by vonhosen on Wednesday 3rd January 13:31

Thanks, obviously I misunderstood the last line of the BBC report, where it said he had been acquitted by the mags I took it to be referring to the retrial not the original hearing.

[StressedDave]

vonhosen said:

They happen.

http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/cambridge-new...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-north-west-wale...

Their stats aren't as easy to find as Police though.

IME, Ambulance accidents were very rare; Fire Engine accidents somewhat less so. It wouldn't surprise me if their rate of collision would have been greater, in terms of crashes per mile travelled, than the Police.

But then if you consider that the driver could have been woken from his slumber 30 seconds before leaving the station and almost certainly has the life or death aspect in the forefront of his mind, it is perhaps unsurprising.

[vonhosen]

London ambulances 2007.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/ambulances-in-cras...

[waremark]

vonhosen said:

Whether 'skills should be considered as relevant' (as per Milton appeal ruling) has been superseded by the Bannister ruling.

http://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/format.cgi?doc=/ew/c...

Edited by vonhosen on Wednesday 3rd January 13:31

So now a police driver who has an accident while travelling on emergency business must have his driving assessed by lay personnel against a standard which takes no account of his additional training. It may be an appropriate interpretation of the law but I consider the outcome regrettable.

[anonymous-user]

waremark said:

So now a police driver who has an accident while travelling on emergency business must have his driving assessed by lay personnel against a standard which takes no account of his additional training. It may be an appropriate interpretation of the law but I consider the outcome regrettable.

http://www.polfed.org/documents/Driver_Advice_Final_Letter_5_2017_(3).pdf

[p1esk]

I questioned the 'relevance of advanced skills' aspect previously (many years ago) in relation to the Mark Milton case and his 159 mph 'evaluation' of the car he was driving, and I've always been told that this is irrelevant, but it still seems totally illogical to me. The official approach seemed to be that any incident could only be judged in relation to what might be expected of a 'competent and careful' driver - or words to that effect.

There are all manner of activities and tasks that one may carry out, and the degree of success or failure, or the degree of danger presented, is to my mind heavily dependent on the level of skills deployed by the person carrying out the task. To take an extreme example, whereas a surgeon can open up a person and remove the appendix and make a complete success of it, how safe would it be if, in an emergency, I decided to have a go at performing the operation on someone? Surely the ability / skills / qualifications of the individual have a huge bearing on whether or not the activity can be carried out safely. If judgements are to be rational and fair, how can skills that are clearly relevant to the task be ignored?

[vonhosen]

waremark said:

vonhosen said:

Whether 'skills should be considered as relevant' (as per Milton appeal ruling) has been superseded by the Bannister ruling.

http://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/format.cgi?doc=/ew/c...

Edited by vonhosen on Wednesday 3rd January 13:31

So now a police driver who has an accident while travelling on emergency business must have his driving assessed by lay personnel against a standard which takes no account of his additional training. It may be an appropriate interpretation of the law but I consider the outcome regrettable.

http://www.lancashirepolfed.org.uk/pursuit2.pdf

http://www.lancashirepolfed.org.uk/pursuit1.pdf

[p1esk]

OK, so the law as made by parliament is what it is, and the courts and juries etc. have no alternative but to examine cases and make judgements on that basis. In my view this law should be changed so that relevant skills are taken into account when a highly trained police officer finds himself in court charged with a serious driving offence while simply trying to do his job.

Failure to make such a change in the law will continue to leave police officers in a quite intolerable position. I can tell you that if I were in their position it would take me a while longer to complete an emergency response, and pursuits would be pretty much a waste of time.