159mph speeding charge Pc cleared

[autopilot]

I'd like to know what kind of emergency justifies 85 in a 30.

What good is responding to an emergency if you are putting lives at risk on the way there ?

Nail. Head. Hit.

[Steve A]

I'd like to know what kind of emergency justifies 85 in a 30.

What good is responding to an emergency if you are putting lives at risk on the way there ?

Very good point, however i would see justice in increased speeds as long as there sensible ie 40 in a 20 or 60 in a 40 and so on, 85 in a 30 is over double which is in everyway you look at VERY DANGEROUS.

[nichomach]

Sorry to reawaken this one, but the PC has had his acquittal overturned on appeal by the High Court (two judges sitting). Case to be reheard by reconstituted bench of magistrates in Ludlow:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/s...re/4669594.stm

[autopilot]

And so it should have been. If only for having that "Look at me, I'm a policeman" moustache he has. He will have to shave it off now if he gets fired, unless he gets a job in the porn industry. But yeah, this guy was blatently taking the piss. Even if he had just put his blue lights on it might have been better.

[project187]

remeber the advert hit me at 30 and there is a 70 percent chance ill live??
hit me at 80 and you will break me into pieces tbh i dont care if he has an advanced driving licence,lets face it michael shumacher could not avoid a kid runing into the road at 160, and i would say that without a shadow of a doubt he is one of the best drivers on this earth, and the fact that he was driving a vauxhall vectra makes it worse not really the type of car made for going 160 is it. and yes as you said there is no point causing accidents on your way to save lifes or watever

[headbrace]

I'm glad to see that this case is being re-evaluated.

I agree with most of what has been posted here- Police and other emergency services do need to get to emergencies quickly, but a line must be drawn somewhere, just because you can handle narrow residential streets at 80 mph, very few people will be expecting you to.

As for the 159mph copper- So he's highly trained? There are very few cars that are well balanced and sorted at 159mph. The Vauxhall, according to the books, isn't capable of that speed. Whilst it will have been modified as a police vehicle, will it have been modified enough to overcome the inherent limitations in the car? Plus, as I'm sure some enthusiastic tuners have found out, drastically enhancing the top speed of the car will play havoc with the aerodynamics in as much as the car was never built with that speed in mind. All in all, rather dangerous.

For the sake of argument, I also agree with the 150mph M5 driver having the charge of Dangerous Driving rejected. Blanket generalisations won't work, so hopefully other police drivers won't take the same chances he did.


As for the reference to Schumacher, Nigel Mansell was banned 6 months (I think) for speeding. At 90-ish mph. In his high-speed Bentley.

Still, they both have moustaches, so I guess they're just as good drivers, eh?

[autopilot]

will it have been modified enough to overcome the inherent limitations in the car?

Indeed, and just how to you overcome the inherent limitations of everyone else on the road also.

[TheAnimus]

remeber the advert hit me at 30 and there is a 70 percent chance ill live??
hit me at 80 and you will break me into pieces tbh i dont care if he has an advanced driving licence,lets face it michael shumacher could not avoid a kid runing into the road at 160, and i would say that without a shadow of a doubt he is one of the best drivers on this earth, and the fact that he was driving a vauxhall vectra makes it worse not really the type of car made for going 160 is it. and yes as you said there is no point causing accidents on your way to save lifes or watever

any kid in the motorway at 5am really needs removing from the gene pool, and i'd feal more sorry for the driver!

But people speed dosen't kill, its bad driving, the whole hit a child at 30...... I'd rather take the risk of been hit by someone like my dad at 100, than the risk of been hit by another friend (female... oooh i'm been sexist) at 30mph. Because i'd be about 50 times more likely to be hit by Tammy.

Its worth noting that there are plenty of people in the UK who've driven down the autobahn's of germany at 140+mph, very safely. Just because this person is a police officer shouldn't give him the right to have fun!

If he'd turned on his blue lights however, then it would be a different matter. But if he wants the fun of driving fast, then he can do what other plebs in this country have to, goto a track day, or goto germany.

[project187]

i meant at 80 in the thirty soz but no if a kid runs out in a 30 area and ur goign 80 u cant stop obv its proven,hence the speed limit

[Zathras]

But people speed dosen't kill, its bad driving

It doesn't have to be bad driving at all. The driver controls only his own car, not everything that's going on around him. A kid coming out chasing a football, something kicked up off the road, a puncture, someone else's bad driving, there're hundreds of external events that could happen that even the best driver in the world can't control. Whether it's the kid's fault for running out into the road, the other driver's fault, a complete freak accident, whatever, it doesn't matter, hit someone at 40mph and you're almost five times more likely to kill them than if you hit them at 30mph. Speed may not have caused the accident but it sure as hell affects the outcome.

[project187]

the point i was making above there its almost certain death to hit someone at 80

[badass]

It doesn't have to be bad driving at all. The driver controls only his own car, not everything that's going on around him. A kid coming out chasing a football, something kicked up off the road, a puncture, someone else's bad driving, there're hundreds of external events that could happen that even the best driver in the world can't control. Whether it's the kid's fault for running out into the road, the other driver's fault, a complete freak accident, whatever,

I would call breaking the speed limit or even driving at the speed limit where that is possible to happen bad driving. If you're driving through a housing estate with greens around and you see kids playing ball games near the road, do you sit there at 30 thinking you're a perfect driver because you aren't travelling over an arbitary figure set for all roads of a certain type, or do you slow down, knowing that allthough this time its unlikely a kid will fly out in front of you, but you can bet it will happen to you a couple of times in your life at least?
How fast do you drive past parked cars? Do you come off the throttle when you see a car at a side turning waiting to pull out just in case they dont see you? Even when its not your fault, its not teh speed that kills. Its speeding innapropriately.

it doesn't matter, hit someone at 40mph and you're almost five times more likely to kill them than if you hit them at 30mph. Speed may not have caused the accident but it sure as hell affects the outcome.

Either you or the government are lying.
The gov't claim in their adverts that only 50% of people survive 30 MPH accidents.
This is why the whole "speed kills" argument is rubbish. The gov't are brainwashing the public about, like the do for many things as they know if you tell the public the same thing often enough, whether its true or not, eventually they will believe it.
Yes, you cant control other road users, but if you are driving down a road with no side roads and nothing within 20 meters of the road, including palces for people to hide behind, then going a little over the speed limit is completely harmless.
Another example - motorways/dual carriageways where they have finished and removed everything, except the speed limit signs. Its 3am and visibility if good. doing 70 in a 40 there simply isn't dangerous.

[Mike Fishcake]

But people speed dosen't kill, its bad driving, the whole hit a child at 30...... I'd rather take the risk of been hit by someone like my dad at 100, than the risk of been hit by another friend (female... oooh i'm been sexist) at 30mph. Because i'd be about 50 times more likely to be hit by Tammy.

Sorry to be confrontational, but that is rubbish.

Absolute crap.

Kids are taught street sense, and to cross if the road is clear. However, if they look at a car which is very far away, they might think "Oh, I have enough time to cross the road", then someone driving nearly 3 times the speed limit will get closer to them, well, 3 times as fast!

I don't care what your dad's reactions are, the braking distance of a car increases the faster you go. If he's some sort of uber-reaction superdad, then his thinking distance might be better than average, but the actual slowing and braking distance will still be much, much higher. You could have the best reactions in the world, but you can't stop the car immediately. That's not opinion - that is 100% FACT.

Although a lot of speed limits don't make sense (30MPH around small residential streets where it should be 20, 30MPH on busy main roads where it should be at least 40 etc), there is not one single person in the world that is able to control a car safely at over 80MPH down a residential street graded at 30. It's stupid, it's irresponsible and whoever does that needs to have the book thrown at them. Hard.

[schmunk]

hit someone at 40mph and you're almost five times more likely to kill them than if you hit them at 30mph.

Either you or the government are lying.
The gov't claim in their adverts that only 50% of people survive 30 MPH accidents.

Edit: Zathras is correct, or both he and the Gov't are lying...

Sustrans report

• A pedestrian struck by a car driven at 20 mph has a 95% chance of survival. If struck by a car driven at 30mph, the
survival chance is 80%. For a pedestrian struck by a car driven at 40mph, the pedestrian’s chances of dying rises to 90%.(14)

Edit: On average, TiG, you pedant...

14. DfT (2005) Think Road Safety Campaign, at http://www.thinkroadsafety.gov.uk/ca...n/slowdown.htm

[TiG]

I'm afraid that set of stats is also completely useless too, as it depends so much more on the type of vehicle that hits you, You get hit by a 4x4 doing 30 and you are pretty much guarenteed to be dead. Get hit by the new Pedestrian friendly 407 and you stand a much much better chance.

As with statistics you can make them say anything you like. But i'm firmly of an opinion that speed is not the killer people are.

People drive tired, thinking of problems at home, talking to their passenger, on the phone all of these combined with excessive speed for the road conditions are all a reciepe for disaster.

It is not speed that is the problem on its own, reducing speed gives people more chance, but then again if they had their full attention on the road, they would less likely be speeding anyway.

The policeman should be punished for his actions, it sets a bad example to the public and was without a shadow of a doubt extremely dangerous.

TiG

[shiato storm]

tough one this, he was doing it at a time when theres almost no one around apparently, ok so he was going twice the national speed limit. he's a trained high speed driver. but he could have had an accident. so what to do? not put him away, perhaps some community service? oh, he's already doing that... um...