Bad crash at my local boy racer meet

[matjk]

So tonight it finally happened , a car pulled out In front of a Nisan racing at about 70, he was forced into the central reservation where about 20 people were standing ! It’s looks really bad , I’d be amazed if no deaths ! This is a local meet in Stevenage.
Lots of videos circulating , it was a crazy dangerous situation and I’m surprised it’s taken this long

Edited by matjk on Tuesday 23 July 00:37

[matjk]

This was the car that pulled hit the crowd

Edited by matjk on Thursday 18th July 23:54

[matjk]

I cant believe people stood there every week ! It’s madness , also all the onlookers block the view of cars pulling out, Ive seen about 30 near misses in the last 4 weeks , really close near misses ! It’s by my house so I’ve seen the carnage ! So many people hurt

[matjk]

Only 2 would be a miracle, ive seen the video , and if you know the road and where people stand you would understand why

[matjk]

I have just been sent the video, the Nissan was tanking it , but they all do

[matjk]

Our young sales guy used to go weekly , some of the cars have over 700bhp driven by 20 year olds , just undeclared mods . There was a Ferrari and a V10 R8 last week , down to old MK3 Escorts ! Oddly they put a barrier in the car park today to keep them out , but it’s not operational till tomorrow. They where moaning on the Cruise Herts website about it

[matjk]

They don’t race as such , it’s more of a hill climb I guess , go as fast up the hill as they can , but the junction is tricky and you can’t see cars pulling out due to crowd . I would say the Nisan driver is going down for this if someone dies

[matjk]

Loads of videos on Facebook , still no official numbers on deaths if any (hopefully it’s none)

[matjk]

https://streamable.com/al0cm

[matjk]

Camelot1971 said:

matjk said:

They don’t race as such , it’s more of a hill climb I guess , go as fast up the hill as they can , but the junction is tricky and you can’t see cars pulling out due to crowd . I would say the Nisan driver is going down for this if someone dies

Of course they were racing and you're naive if you think otherwise.

I’m not naive at all, but maybe readings not your strong point. What I wrote is entirely accurate .

[matjk]

The police turned up most weeks , they parked a marked car up along the road . This did stop the bad behaviour but as soon as it left it started up . A few weeks ago they were recording cars and making a note of the regs.
A few weeks ago there was a lady with a pram and baby and several toddlers in the central reservation with their parents (using that word in the weakest possible sense).
The “meet” has been shifted round the local car parks, this new venue is when the really bad driving started. Lots of people watching , lots of people showing off

[matjk]

Yes looks like no Deaths , it amazing how resilient the human body is , plus the great work of bystanders giving first aid and emergency’s services stopped this being a total bloodbath !
I wonder if the police here will get new powers to deal with this kind of event .

[matjk]

This shows just how bad it could have been.
Warning it’s not nice
https://streamable.com/43viu

[matjk]

I wasn’t there fortunately, the “meet” is about 1/3mile from my house and I live on the road it’s takes place on. The accident point is on my evening dog walking route as there’s a path that runs next to the road up a 50ft bank.
There would have been a good 200 spectators, is it likely the police would bother trying to prosecute any of them ?
Everyone is up in arms now as there have been complaints for months now and knew this was going to happen yet nothing was done to stop it !
What I couldn’t understand is why they didn’t covertly record the goings on ( plain clothes with camcorder or phone) then send out NIPs in the post , just a few handed out would have sent a shockwave around the drivers and nipped it in the bud

[matjk]

End of this gives an idea of what went on every week
https://youtu.be/kZp4TXHhpBo

[matjk]

Wow , people got pretty decent sentences for watching , seems like a catch 22 , people drive like idiots , people watch, more people drive like idiots , more watch etc , etc .
In the Stevenage example the KFC stayed open latter and had extra staff to coupe with the “spectators” financially benefiting from it .
I’d say if they did go after spectators in this case then the police need to take some of the blame for not stopping it .
They used lack of resources and blamed the council recently for not taking action but there where plenty of police available after the accident

[matjk]

Standing around in dangerous spots watching dangerous things isn’t a new thing , 84 dead at leMans in 1955 , 31 dead at Farnborough in 1952 , there’s a bit of human nature that likes this kinda behaviour, maybe an adrenaline buzz It made me wince some of the near misses I saw at those meets . I like the cars and they do sound and look good in many cases ! Young people aren’t really worried by stuff like this , it will be happening again next week somewhere else no doubt .

[matjk]

Hungrymc said:

But he’s also said he was in the crowd right by the incident and had to drag a friend to safety.

I based my comment on the discussion earlier in the thread that spectators can (have in the past) be charged with inciting dangerous driving. Hard for an organizer to be part of that crowd watching (and therefore encouraging) the dangerous driving and claim it was static. There may also be history of it not being confined to a static event and they’ve carried on organizing it.

I may be wrong.

You may be wrong ! But you aren’t .
The organiser knows exactly what went on every week , same format , lots of cars parked up , granted . But lots racing up and down the road .
The usual format was for the baying crowd to be yelling “send it!” Which I’ve translated to mean boot it out of the junction drifting the corner then floor it up to the roundabout, round that then back down .
The speed the Nissan got up to on the uphill section was nothing to the speed they hit on the downhill , often cars would race with less than a few feet between them , and these were fast modified cars like focus RS , golf R etc .
The bad driving really started when they changed to this location at the beginning of Spring , there have been a few accidents that I’ve seen videos of but mainly just damaged alloys or suspension damage.
I drove past this morning and someone has laid 18 roses out, still the odd news reporter about and the road is covered in yellow markers from the accidental investigation team ,
The police have over 140 whiteness details and are looking for more , I’d think they'd had enough now

[matjk]

And so it begins !!

[matjk]

I would say it might be if those leaving have a minority of lunatics who’s driving falls well below usual standards. If they continually use a minor disclaimer like “please leave sensibly , we’ve had load of complaints you lot hoan it out of the exit” this continues for years and years. The police occasionally attend to stop this know behaviour but nothing is really done .
IF the organiser WAS responsible there is no way he would have organised because the Stevenage case was bound to happen .
With the Sunday service they could argue they didn’t know this was going on and that people where at risk .
If you organised a recovering pedo day out at Legoland over Facebook but put “no touching this time please” disclaimer you would be hard pressed to say it’s not partly your fault if something happens