Police

[Guest Anonymous]

poor choice o place to stop , but also poor driving slamming up the ers o a truck

[Ghostrider]

^^ Agreed. I would think it would be fair to say no-one involved is blameless.

 

As the Police actions are right at the front of the chain of events, its probably the logical place to start attributing percentage of "blame", if any. Kinda surprised that there's no a tandem claim against the truck driver/owner as well, get it all sorted out in a wanner. That can maybe only follow later though, once the upline actions are known cast iron facts and figures.

[bug]

From the outset of this thread there seems to be a presumption that the police were "parked" in the exit from Petersons site (da cattle grid) and aspiring to catch "speeders". However, if they were infact waiting to pull out and enter the lane of traffic, and had espied the truck, van, car et. al. traversing down the hill, they would quite correctly have stayed put until it was appropriate for them to proceed to enter the "highway".

[lerwick]

What buisness would they have had on this private site? that should be in the police report or were they joy riding wasting all our tax money ?

[Logie-Bear]

What buisness would they have had on this private site?

 

The same as any other person, there is no gate on that track so it could have been a member of the public, it just so happens it was a cop car.

[Guest Anonymous]

al no witter on , but i still maintain its a bodys resopsibility to mind how they go. i.e. not go bullin on like a halfwitt slamming inta trucks etc, is kinda for your ain gud an everybody elses to read traffic an conditions, a truck wi brake lights n an indicator on is weel wirt watchin in any event an folk can stop for any number a reasons, christ, some stop to let hrdgehogs cross , an why no. Safe responsible driving and witless parking can wirk, hammerin at like a fule and witless parking doesna surely , i rest my case m'lud

[Ghostrider]

From the outset of this thread there seems to be a presumption that the police were "parked" in the exit from Petersons site (da cattle grid) and aspiring to catch "speeders". However, if they were infact waiting to pull out and enter the lane of traffic, and had espied the truck, van, car et. al. traversing down the hill, they would quite correctly have stayed put until it was appropriate for them to proceed to enter the "highway".

 

All right in theory, but take a look at Spinner72's picture. There's at least two car lengths between the grid walls and tarmac edge of the main road. The east grid wall is exceptionally high, presumably the west one is likewise. Even if it isn't its uphill with high ground to the west, the grid is in a cutting, its questionable just how much of worth, if anything they could see up the road when on the grid.

 

Even if they could see the truck approaching, they should have seen it indicating to turn in (presumably it did indicate, otherwise you'd have expected the truck driver to have been charged with 'driving without consideration for other road users', or whatever the correct wording of that charge is). If they did see it indicating and stayed put on the grid, that IMHO puts them in a far more culpable position than if they didn't see or know about it. They were in effect forcing the truck to either stop on the road or pull in on the hard shoulder and wait until they moved.

 

If they were indeed exiting the road rather than being parked on it, it raises the question of whether they were correctly positioned for the manouvere. The grid is far enough back from the road that if anyone came to a halt that far back from a junction when taking their test, they'd be failed on the grounds they were far too far back to have an adequate view of the junction they intended to use. If they were further out, where would be considered the "correct" distance back from a junction to stop at, and positioned correctly, there should have been enough room for the truck to get in alongside them. Again, check the picture, there's a considerable width of road to be seen below where the truck is. Also, if further out, the issue of the truck driver being able to see them when he was a considerable distance away and indicate/brake earlier then normal to warn those following him becomes an issue.

 

Just about the only scenario which cuts the Police a bit more slack is if they were in the act of driving out through the road, and the truck turned in, neither seeing the other until they were virtually bumper to bumper on the grid, but only a very little. As to end up in that situation would suggest they weren't paying much attention to where they were going, which I'm not sure whether is better or worse than parking someplace where you can't be seen and blocking a road.

 

At the end of the day you have to bear in mind that the wife raising the claim was stuck behind a van, she very probably could see very little else besides the van's back end and was driving according to how he drove. He almost missed the truck, but when he started doing funny things in order to do so, she had firstly to respond to trying to avoid hitting him, and it was only once he'd scraped passed the tail of the box that she could properly see what the real problem was. By that time, especially having had to respond to one emergency situation, what chance did she have of assessing and effectively reacting to a second one.

 

Good Luck to her, at the very least she's entitled to a full explanation of why what happened, did happen, and a court case is just about the only way you can go to get that properly aired. The Police would normally be the folk you expected to be impartial investigators of a wreck, this time they cannot be that, seeing as they were a factor in it.

[Logie-Bear]

Another thing that is vital in this whole incident is the timing....

 

It have been that the lady and van were seconds behind the lorry, i find it hard to believe that the lorry and police car would have been sitting there for any longer than a few minutes.

 

So lets take it the cop car was sitting there with its engine off, the lorry pulls in, the police officer see's this and begins to start the car, then try to either pull forward or reverse.. all this has taken a minute or two.

 

Its no like the lorry was sitting in that position for upwards of 20 mins or anything!

 

Seconds i reckon is how long it took for this accident to happen.

 

Its also likw watching that program on the discovery channel, seconds from disaster, its a chain of bad errors that has caused this accident, be it with the cops, lorry driver, van driver, and indeed the female driver herself, put them all together and you get an accident.

[khitajrah]

Even if nothing else comes of this, I really hope it's raised awareness of how important it is to leave a decent gap between yourself and the car in front, so, heaven forbid, if anything should happen you'll have plenty to time to take action (ie: stop!). As a learner driver I've been very much put off by the number of drivers who tailgate, so much so that I've been afraid of gearing up/down for fear of losing just that little bit of speed and having the massive grill of a truck I can see in my rearview mirror crash into the back of the car. Or is this just a hazing thing all learner drivers have to endure? Will it stop once the L plates are off?

[Guest Anonymous]

At the end of the day you have to bear in mind that the wife raising the claim was stuck behind a van, she very probably could see very little else besides the van's back end and was driving according to how he drove. He almost missed the truck, but when he started doing funny things in order to do so, she had firstly to respond to trying to avoid hitting him, and it was only once he'd scraped passed the tail of the box that she could properly see what the real problem was. By that time, especially having had to respond to one emergency situation, what chance did she have of assessing and effectively reacting to a second one.

 

too fast , too close , too hasty , the exact thing the rozzers dont want

[khitajrah]

At the end of the day you have to bear in mind that the wife raising the claim was stuck behind a van, she very probably could see very little else besides the van's back end and was driving according to how he drove.

 

This doesn't make sense to me - why would you want to be that close behind another vehicle that all you can see is the back end of it? It sounds incredibly dangerous, to me, in my 'learner driver' mind.

[Malcolm]

It could be a case of "Shetland Indicators" they don’t get used till the vehicle is 10-15 feet away from the turning the driver wishes to take!

 

Also stop driving too close to the vehicle in front.

[Evil Inky]

At the end of the day you have to bear in mind that the wife raising the claim was stuck behind a van, she very probably could see very little else besides the van's back end and was driving according to how he drove...

In other words, she was driving dangerously close to the vehicle in front.

Good Luck to her, at the very least she's entitled to a full explanation of why what happened, did happen...

Here's one: she was driving dangerously close to the vehicle in front.

[Ghostrider]

^^ Not quite that simple, she didn't hit the van.

 

Point I was trying to make was that regardless how far back she was, the majority of her view ahead was of the van, she could only to a greater degree be informed of what was going on ahead of the van by second guessing the van's actions, plus she had no choice but react to how the van acted in the first instance.

 

The complication comes in from the fact that the van could not stop before it hit the truck, nor could it pass the truck safely. But it passed the truck anyway. She was faced with the situation of the vehicle ahead of her not stopping, but almost certainly suddenly acting wildly as soon as and immediately after it made contact with the truck, then equally suddenly finding that it was not a van acting wildly she needed to respond to, but a stationary truck back end which she very likely couldn't have known was there before the van cleared it to her line of vision seconds earlier.

 

Yes, if she'd been travelling slower or with a greater gap between her and the van it is very possible that the impact would have been much less severe, or possibly been avoided. But when you're travelling in a line of traffic, even with the recommended gaps, the guy immediately ahead of you is who largely dictates what you have to do and what you can know.

 

The van hit the truck with a fair old glancing blow to rip the corner out of the cab like that, he had to still have a fair bit of speed on at the moment of impact. Her speed you'd expect to be regulated in relation to his, as he was the obvious obstacle she had to avoid, so it follows that what she saw and knew up until the moment of his impact was slowing but still flowing traffic, and it would seem it was, as she didn't hit him. It was only when the van preceding her got out of her line of vision that she could see that although he'd made it through, and even though he was much bigger than her, she'd couldn't follow him and needed to stop that the problem came in. Its a very unusual situation to find yourself in a position of not being able to use the same gap which a larger vehicle immediately in front of you has just used, and at some reasonable speed. I would argue its not a situation anyone can realistically foresee or make preparations for.

 

The test question is, had the van come to a dead halt when it hit the truck, would she have hit the van? If she would have, then she was travelling too fast/too close. With the van acting wildly she presumably did the best she could to avoid him bouncing around, in doing so did she compromise her ability to avoid the stationary truck ahead of the van which she didn't know was there until the last moment when the van was far enough ahead to reveal it. She had to be in a situation of already reacting to one emergency obstacle situation when she was suddenly faced with a second and completely different emergency obstacle situation, these things happen, but only rarely, and no amount of preparation can make much difference, its largely down to luck how they spin out.

[Hobbiniho]

no offence to the lady driver but how the hell did she no manage to see there was a VERY LARGE truck turning into the junction, she is going down hill therefore is sitting higher than the the truck so should easily be able to see it, unless of course she had glued the front bumper of her car to the back of the van in which case she was "driving too close to the vehicle in front" and should at the very least be charged with "Driving without due care and attention or without reasonable consideration for other road users".

 

i do believe the police car sitting on the cattle grid was a contributing factor but it is obscene to blame them for the crash.