A traffic officer killed on duty

[Ayahuasca]

I have seen a few 'near miss' videos - including one on this thread where Boss Hog said it was a similar incident to the one that killed his friend - and in them the officers on foot approach the stopped car / incident with their backs to the oncoming traffic.

Should not they make a point of approaching the incident facing the traffic? And then return to their own vehicle by walking on the far side of the crash barrier?

[BossHogg]

Where the incident occurred, it was a sheer rock face with a waist high double barrier. There was only 6" between the rock face and barrier so nowhere to stand. Both officers were watching the traffic, it happened so fast, they didn't have time to take avoiding action. When you work up here, the traffic travels so fast, we watch the traffic constantly, even more so since we lost Adam. We in Cumbria can't afford to be complacent and let our guard down.

[anonymous-user]

Article in the paper now
http://dailym.ai/2iMYGno

Rather than concentrating on what happened/is happening to the driver whilst the trial is ongoing have a read of the link below and consider how at least the late Adams wife is doing something worthwhile in his memory and she has my full respect for it after following the FB story over the last year.

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/julie-labbe...

Edited by anonymous-user on Monday 30th October 23:04

[BossHogg]

I was on a British Red Cross first aid duty last November, it was a chill swim as part of her Challenge 51. The water was absolutely freezing, but fair play to her, she completed the swim!

[greygoose]

LaurasOtherHalf said:

Not sure if it’s a rule in Europe but it’s something I picked up when I started driving to the ring years ago, I’d seen people doing it and thought it a good idea.

Not sure if it's a rule in Europe judging by the foreign lorries that do not move over on our motorways when something is stopped on the hard shoulder. I always move out just in case.

[AshVX220]

OldGermanHeaps said:

I started after a driving holiday in america where it is law in a lot of states, makes sense. Gets some peoples back up though.
The americans have a few good ideas when it comes to driving, i wish the uk wasn't so backwards about a lot of things.

They also have some of the worst driving standards I've seen!

[BossHogg]

Firstly it was mobile phone use, now its excessive speed for the prevailing conditions!
http://www.newsandstar.co.uk/news/Football-agent-a...

[LaurasOtherHalf]

I don't think the exclamation mark is necessary, you're not a tabloid reporter.

His average speed for his journey was one that many will on this site have done themselves. The prosecution's role is to prove this was dangerous for the conditions. The key points seem to be;

He was using his phone during the journey but not at the time of the accident.
His average speed on the whole journey was above the speed limit.

Neither of those points conclusively prove they contributed to the accident.

[BossHogg]

LaurasOtherHalf said:

IHis average speed for his journey was one that many will on this site have done themselves.

Not me, we don't speed in the patrol cars and I've never had a speeding ticket in 31 years of driving.

[AW111]

BossHogg said:

Not me, we don't speed in the patrol cars and I've never had a speeding ticket in 31 years of driving.

The "everyone speeds including me" and "ignore limits and drive to the conditions" brigade may struggle here, as he was apparently averaging 80 mph in appalling conditions and heavy traffic.

He was also allegedly texting the whole time : but that involves a whole different set of apologists.

[Gargamel]

LaurasOtherHalf said:

I don't think the exclamation mark is necessary, you're not a tabloid reporter.

His average speed for his journey was one that many will on this site have done themselves. The prosecution's role is to prove this was dangerous for the conditions. The key points seem to be;

He was using his phone during the journey but not at the time of the accident.
His average speed on the whole journey was above the speed limit.

Neither of those points conclusively prove they contributed to the accident.

He received a reply to his previous text message 45 seconds before the crash. Only he will know whether he was just reading it then, or had already read it, or had ignored it.

what we do know was that he was happy to average more than 80 mph in the previous 20 miles, including a stretch of 50 limit, and send numerous messages including a video.

We don't know if he was on the phone or not.

[Sheepshanks]

Derek Smith said:

I've noticed that a lot of drivers in the n/s lane will pull out when there a recovery vehicle on the hard shoulder. I've taken to doing so myself now.

Going back 20 years we did defensive driver training with Met Police driving instructors and they taught "move over" then.

[AW111]

Sheepshanks said:

Derek Smith said:

I've noticed that a lot of drivers in the n/s lane will pull out when there a recovery vehicle on the hard shoulder. I've taken to doing so myself now.

Going back 20 years we did defensive driver training with Met Police driving instructors and they taught "move over" then.

I will do this if possible. It seems the sensible thing to do.

[anonymous-user]

Yup, I started doing it a while back, promoted by reading reports of the dangers to people on the hard shoulder. When I see families milling around stopped cars on hard shoulders, and not taking positions behind the barriers, I want to yell at them! Sometimes you see two cars stopped close together and people standing in the killer position in between the two cars. Yikes!

[Sylvaforever]

AshVX220 said:

OldGermanHeaps said:

I started after a driving holiday in america where it is law in a lot of states, makes sense. Gets some peoples back up though.
The americans have a few good ideas when it comes to driving, i wish the uk wasn't so backwards about a lot of things.

They also have some of the worst driving standards I've seen!

"When he said Norfolk, he didn't mean Norfolk, Virginia, USA...

[BossHogg]

"All I saw was a rockface" no mention of my two friends he collided with.

http://www.newsandstar.co.uk/news/A-football-agent...

[Countdown]

Gargamel said:

LaurasOtherHalf said:

I don't think the exclamation mark is necessary, you're not a tabloid reporter.

His average speed for his journey was one that many will on this site have done themselves. The prosecution's role is to prove this was dangerous for the conditions. The key points seem to be;

He was using his phone during the journey but not at the time of the accident.
His average speed on the whole journey was above the speed limit.

Neither of those points conclusively prove they contributed to the accident.

He received a reply to his previous text message 45 seconds before the crash. Only he will know whether he was just reading it then, or had already read it, or had ignored it.

what we do know was that he was happy to average more than 80 mph in the previous 20 miles, including a stretch of 50 limit, and send numerous messages including a video.

We don't know if he was on the phone or not.

I think you see this a lot on the dashcam threads. No matter how blatantly twuntish somebody's driving is, somebody else will always try and make excuses for it (possibly because they know they drive in exactly the same way and feel criticism by proxy).

My deepest sympathies to both families.

[LaurasOtherHalf]

Countdown said:

I think you see this a lot on the dashcam threads. No matter how blatantly twuntish somebody's driving is, somebody else will always try and make excuses for it (possibly because they know they drive in exactly the same way and feel criticism by proxy).

My deepest sympathies to both families.

Ah now hang on a moment, at no point did I try to defend what he has or hasn’t done nor made excuses.

I merely explained that driving at 80+mph on a motorway is not rare behaviour and people only have the facts as reported by one (extremely poor) local rag.

The prosecution have to construct their case around the facts and the jury has to make a decision on those and the defence’s claims. At present there seems to be evidence of his behaviours before the accident, not during.

I’d also suggest that however many hours in court each day distilled into a headline on a local newspaper isn’t being in full possession of the facts.

Going by the large media presence outside court this afternoon I’d gather the facts may be of impact.

My condolences to all families involved as well.

[Digga]

AW111 said:

Sheepshanks said:

Derek Smith said:

I've noticed that a lot of drivers in the n/s lane will pull out when there a recovery vehicle on the hard shoulder. I've taken to doing so myself now.

Going back 20 years we did defensive driver training with Met Police driving instructors and they taught "move over" then.

I will do this if possible. It seems the sensible thing to do.

Agreed, the same even with a broken down vehicle - you don't know what emergency there is (fire on board, or just the after effects of last night's vindaloo) and how quickly people might be exiting. This is most definitely the case if people out of the vehicle, for safety and courtesy.

[Boydie88]

LaurasOtherHalf said:

I don't think the exclamation mark is necessary, you're not a tabloid reporter.

His average speed for his journey was one that many will on this site have done themselves. The prosecution's role is to prove this was dangerous for the conditions. The key points seem to be;

He was using his phone during the journey but not at the time of the accident.
His average speed on the whole journey was above the speed limit.

Neither of those points conclusively prove they contributed to the accident.

I doubt in conditions as bad as stated.

He also may have been doing other st on his phone that isn't recorded like looking up links of goals to send/in the middle of typing a message which he then deleted. Unless phones have a record of the time of every button touch?

The guy has shown enough lack of respect to the law in my opinion that I'm fully hoping the book is thrown at him.