159mph speeding charge Pc cleared

[mmh]

this makes me VERY angry...

[autopilot]

perhaps some community service? oh, he's already doing that... um...

A well paid job in the police is not quite the same as community service now is it. Community serivce is ment to unpaid.

[Mike Fishcake]

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.

I agree, it isn't just speeding that's the problem. I just had an issue with the people that were saying speeding wasn't a problem.

[Zathras]

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.

That may well be but it certainly doesn't invalidate the argument. It's averaged out across makes and models of car. Would you or would you not agree that hitting somone in your pedestrian friendly 407 at 40mph is more likely to result in a fatality than hitting someone at 30mph? In fact, the more passenger-friendly the car, the more likely that that extra 10mph will mean the difference between a fatality and an injury, as your unfriendly 4x4 example demonstrates.

The argument is about the speed the copper was driving, not which car he was driving. I'd pretty much stand by the model presented by those statistics for his car. If he did happen to hit someone at 30mph there's a one-in-five chance they'd die. Hit them at the speed he was doing through the 30mph zones I'd imagine the chance of a fatality would be pretty close to one-in-one.

The fact you're very likely to kill someone at 30mph in a 4x4 doesn't excuse speeding, otherwise you'd be stating you can drive as fast as you like as anyone you hit is going to be killed pretty much whatever speed you're doing?

Before people jump on me, I do agree for variable speed limits based on vehicle type as an HGV doing 30mph is so much more dangerous in real terms than a moped. It'd be very difficult to police though.

[badass]

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

Well by defualt the gov't are lying as they are incapable of telling the truth. I'll take teh 5 times more likely as just being rounded up for simplicity
TBH I think this further reinforces my point. If you do 20 MPH where there are kamikaze kids around, even if you dont get the chance to brake, they have a good chance of survival. At 30 MPH you are 4 times more likely to kill said child.
I dont know about everyone else here, but I would expect the average person to have at least 5 kids run out right in front of them in their lives, probably more. Most of the time you'll stop well before being near them. Its nice to make sure that if you are unlucky enough to have one run out so close that there is no braking time, that if you do hit them they'll probably just have a grazed knee or similar
However sticking to 30 MPH, according to the governemnt, you are still perfectly safe

[badass]

Before people jump on me, I do agree for variable speed limits based on vehicle type as an HGV doing 30mph is so much more dangerous in real terms than a moped. It'd be very difficult to police though.

variable sped limits of the type you mention already exist and are policed.
A truck can only do 56 MPH on the motorway for instance. In fact british trucks are limited to this speed, hence the off w@nker here and there overtaking at 56.00000000000000000000000000000000914 MPH and causing multiple mile long jams to save 10 seconds of his journey per day.
Vans can only do 60 MPH on dual carriageways and 50 MPH on single carriageways. Lorries can only do 40 MPH on them.
Oddly enough I dont think there is any variance in 30 limits, but I expect they are not necessary as lorries tend not to go fast through residential areas anyway.

[kalniel]

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.

Now there's a suggestion.. make SUVs travel 10mph slower than everyone else. Might reduce the numbers a bit and in the meantime the 10mph slower will save them burning quite so much fuel...

[shaithis]

Blanket calling people who break the speed limit "idiots" is about as narrow-minded as you can get.

There are plenty of times where travelling faster then the speed limit is no more dangerous then driving below it. Germany proves this with the autobhans. In fact its about time this country did change its speed limits on major roads (motorways and a lot of A roads) as car technology has moved on astronomically from when our speed limits were set.

For instance, most cars stopping distances these days are MUCH better then what you have to remember for your driving test.

Still, it doesn't excuse what this guy did, I myself have driven my (at-the-time) 1 year old BMW M3 at a smidging over 150mph (not on a public road) and even in that, it was noticable how much harder it is to control and react - in fact once you hit 100 you can notice the react time lessening more and more. If speed limits were removed on motorways tomorrow, I would still never drive much above 100mph.

160 in a VECTRA? Scary if he hit a stone, had a tire blow out, peddle crack his windscreen etc etc.

[Steven W]

This is so annoying. Unless he is in work and on a job he has no right to drive that fast.

On a different note, there was a pub called The Station, right next to the police station, where I used to go after I finished work at 4am. It was full of police at that time (lock-ins obviously) and they'd just get in their cars and drive home plastered.

It's about time that they were exposed and stop covering up for each other. An offence is an offence whether they are police or not

[autopilot]

I used to go clubing with a guy in CID. I could tell you some stories, but would not want to get him in trouble. Police are just human beings at the end of the day, but when something impacts other peoples lives something needs to be done. If he was let off, it would send the signal that what he did was acceptable. Obviously, if people carried on like this it would be just a matter of time before someone got killed for no good reason at all. I can believe that any sound minded person could think that behaving above the law and dangerously as this could be alright.

[hitman67]

Personally I think he should be locked up, I know I don't always obey the Limit but I've never been doing almost 100mph more.

And hehe, from outside it read "159mph Speeding Charge by Dangerous Dom"

[TheAnimus]

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.

Any child crossing an autobahn deserves to be removed from the gene pool.

Whats a built up area got to do with it, I'm talking about motorway? I'm just saying that you can unilaterally say speed kills, NO it dosen't, dangerous drivers do, the dangerous ones will speed often in dangerous areas, but its quite possible to kill someone at 10mph.

But this is what gets me about your reply mike, why would you have to break down *that* much? For instace on the motorway breaking would be one of the most dangerous thing you could do.

Now something i did which won me no friends was reporting someone i knew in for drink driving (he got suspended, and only just avoided castodial). An artard like him at 20mph would be bad enough.

Breaking distance and such are very stale and take no account of the car, lets not get into this.

All i'm saying is the reason police are allowed to drive fast is because they can fairly safely, now, he shouldn't be allowed to do that in his own time, he should have to goto a track, or say germany.

Sharpe Kitchen Knifes Kill Too, should we make them all blunt? Or just ensure people use them responsably?

[mike_dowler]

Blanket calling people who break the speed limit "idiots" is about as narrow-minded as you can get.

Why? Every driver knows (or ought to know) the speed limit. If you drive faster than that, then you are saying that saving a few minutes on your journey is more important than the increased risk to another person's life (it's not just the small increase in stopping distance etc. - it's the fact that your speed is outside the range that other drivers should have to expect to deal with. That's why driving very slowly can also be hazardous, though not to the same degree). It seems to be that it is both selfish and idiotic, given the remarkably small time saving possible.

I'm not saying that I've never gone over the speed limit, just that I'm not proud of when I did, and that I'm very grateful that nothing went wrong...

Hey, it's just my opinion

Anyhoo, in this case, I heard that one of the guy's arguments in defence was that he was 'testing the car out'. Now surely, "testing" = "doesn't entirely know how it's going to behave" = "really really bad idea at stupidly high speed in 30 zone"?

[Mike Fishcake]

Animus - I assumed you were talking about built up areas, due to you mentioning 30MPH driving and people being hit by cars.

[kalniel]

IMO it's not even the question of whether it's safer to drive within the speed limit or not, it's a question of law.

We voted for the government, the government sets the law, we agree to obey the law. If you don't think the law is right you shouldn't just decide to ignore it, you should go about getting the law changed. But somewhere along the line the powers that be believe the law to be there for good reason - if you don't agree with them, vote for someone who represents your views. I believe Max Power tried to run in a constituancy once Maybe they'd get this guys vote

[Big RICHARD]

IMO it's not even the question of whether it's safer to drive within the speed limit or not, it's a question of law.

We voted for the government, the government sets the law, we agree to obey the law. If you don't think the law is right you shouldn't just decide to ignore it, you should go about getting the law changed. But somewhere along the line the powers that be believe the law to be there for good reason - if you don't agree with them, vote for someone who represents your views. I believe Max Power tried to run in a constituancy once Maybe they'd get this guys vote

There is a specific allowance for police in the Road Traffic Act that states that no compulsory speed limit shall apply for police if it would hinder their role. He argued that he wasn't speeding (correctly in my opinion) because he was performing his job. (You could argue that he was just pissing about and he wasn't on a REAL job, but he does need to learn the characteristics of the car). However, I think that 159mph even on a (relatively) clear motorway is just too much of a risk and is just simply dangerous and the guy should have been banged up for dangerous driving.