Driving standards

[Kris]

1 hour ago, ianwales said:

 

Not being "daft"

 

 

In the above quote, how close was the driver when the light turned Red, would hard braking potentially have caused an accident, what is "Nearly" hitting a pedestrian? it is often just someone's opinion whether something was close or "nearly", reporting it to police is just being petty and spiteful in my opinion, others are going to disagree, but, sometimes we need to look at ourselves and what we do before condemning others.

The driver had plenty of time to see the red light. There was no hard breaking. The lights are less than 100m from a roundabout where the driver had joined the road with the pedestrian crossing on. The driver had was not driving at an excessive speed nor accelerating hard. The lights turned from amber to red just after the car joined the road. The driver came to a halt, waited until the pedestrian had just crossed out of the way of the car. The driver then set off through the red lights. The pedestrian was obviously shocked and worried by the incident from their reaction. 

 

I reported it to the police because I felt it was dangerous. 

[ejstubbs]

3 hours ago, ianwales said:

In the above quote, how close was the driver when the light turned Red, would hard braking potentially have caused an accident, what is "Nearly" hitting a pedestrian? it is often just someone's opinion whether something was close or "nearly", reporting it to police is just being petty and spiteful in my opinion, others are going to disagree, but, sometimes we need to look at ourselves and what we do before condemning others.

 

All of which questions would be subject to examination by legal process if the police decided that it was warranted.  Kris merely reported something that he thought was dangerous.  It's out of his hands from that point on, he's not the judge, nor the jury, and certainly not the "executioner" (that was the term that struck me as especially daft).

 

By your reasoning, if I see someone breaking in to a neighbour's house and report that to the police, does that make me "judge, jury and execitioner?"  Of course it doesn't.

 

As far as traffic offences are concerned, there are plenty of examples where egregious driving behaviour has been excused by magistrate or jury on the grounds that it was "a mistake that any one of us could have made"*.   That is what can happen if we "look at ourselves and what we do before condemning others" too much, rather than making an objective judgement on whether or not the law was actually broken on the basis of the evidence presented, which is what the courts are supposed to be for.

 

* Or, as Monty Python put it so eloquently in The Mouse Problem sketch:

 

 

[boxbrownie]

4 hours ago, raymw said:

with the very wide angle lens on most dash cams, it is very difficult to determine actual distances. For stuff happening up close, it looks further away on the cam video.

Very true but if required for evidence it is an easy calculation usually by using key points of known distances within the framework, we used this often with requests from Police videos in the edit suite.

[kevinlms]

15 minutes ago, boxbrownie said:

Very true but if required for evidence it is an easy calculation usually by using key points of known distances within the framework, we used this often with requests from Police videos in the edit suite.

But I would suggest that such process is required and worthwhile for exceptional cases, often but perhaps not exclusively, in cases where people are killed or injured.

 

But if the police had to act on every piece of 'evidence' presented by Joe Public, then probably the police would need to take on a huge percentage of additional resources, just to deal with the volume of videos presented.

[johnofwessex]

8 hours ago, ejstubbs said:

 

All of which questions would be subject to examination by legal process if the police decided that it was warranted.  Kris merely reported something that he thought was dangerous.  It's out of his hands from that point on, he's not the judge, nor the jury, and certainly not the "executioner" (that was the term that struck me as especially daft).

 

By your reasoning, if I see someone breaking in to a neighbour's house and report that to the police, does that make me "judge, jury and execitioner?"  Of course it doesn't.

 

As far as traffic offences are concerned, there are plenty of examples where egregious driving behaviour has been excused by magistrate or jury on the grounds that it was "a mistake that any one of us could have made"*.   That is what can happen if we "look at ourselves and what we do before condemning others" too much, rather than making an objective judgement on whether or not the law was actually broken on the basis of the evidence presented, which is what the courts are supposed to be for.

 

* Or, as Monty Python put it so eloquently in The Mouse Problem sketch:

 

 

 

The issue is though that we tolerate bad behaviour by drivers that we would not tolerate in other areas.

 

Would you want to fly as a passenger in a plane whose pilot was playing the fool as so many drivers do?  No.

 

If you are driving in a way that could kill or injure people then you should be dealt with accordingly.

[PhilJ W]

How they deal with runaway trucks in Colorado:-

 

[kevinlms]

3 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

How they deal with runaway trucks in Colorado:-

 

The price of a rescue by tow trucks is mentioned, but the cost of a crash is going to be significantly more.

[TheQ]

There are runaway  lanes like that in the UK in one or two places, not quite as big though they tend to be full of sand over here which brings a rapid stop.. There's one near Scarborough , I remember..

 

Edited July 7, 2021 by TheQ

[raymw]

There's an escape road heading into Wells. a few dozen yards of deep gravel filled trench. When it was first opened, they had to move on the picnickers.

[Fat Controller]

13 minutes ago, TheQ said:

There are runaway  lanes like that in the UK in one or two places, not quite as big though they tend to be full of sand over here which brings a rapid stop.. There's one near Scarborough , I remember..

 

There's one on the approach to Dover Harbour from the A2. There's another one on the old route from Dover to Folkestone via Capel le Ferne; I remember seeing the consequences of a HGV having to use that one. The tractor was perched on top of the roundabout; its trailer was on its side, and its load of citrus fruit was everywhere.

They've both got (multi-lingual) 'No Picknicking' signs....

[kevinlms]

22 minutes ago, raymw said:

There's an escape road heading into Wells. a few dozen yards of deep gravel filled trench. When it was first opened, they had to move on the picnickers.

Yes, I was thinking that, the last thing you'd want as a driver out of brakes, is a car load that have ignored the signs. A hard decision for a driver, but one I suspect they don't have a choice with.

[Dave 46]

There is a gravel trap on the roundabout at the bottom of Marlow Hill in High Wycombe that Michael Rodd (I think) drove an articulated lorry into for Tomorrows World a good few years (decades) ago.

 

Dave

 

[Reorte]

Here's a list of escape lanes for the curious: https://www.sabre-roads.org.uk/wiki/index.php?title=Escape_lane

[boxbrownie]

4 hours ago, Reorte said:

Here's a list of escape lanes for the curious: https://www.sabre-roads.org.uk/wiki/index.php?title=Escape_lane

Missing the one entering St Blazey…….and that’s the first I looked for 

[Guest]

This one on the A628 is at the site of a number of awful crashes before they completely re-did that stretch of road.

The escape lane is actually just after where you would have previously flown off a tight bend with adverse camber.

https://goo.gl/maps/qZ5mpyrtdDxxbB7P6

[johnofwessex]

8 hours ago, raymw said:

There's an escape road heading into Wells. a few dozen yards of deep gravel filled trench. When it was first opened, they had to move on the picnickers.

 

I have seen a car in it - for real

[Enterprisingwestern]

17 hours ago, TheQ said:

There are runaway  lanes like that in the UK in one or two places, not quite as big though they tend to be full of sand over here which brings a rapid stop.. There's one near Scarborough , I remember..

 

 

Never seen a lorry on the beach in Scarborough!

 

Mike.

[boxbrownie]

1 hour ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

Never seen a lorry on the beach in Scarborough!

 

Mike.

Bank holiday weekend….all sorts on the beach 

[PhilJ W]

Not sure if it was on this thread or another, but the subject was driving on pavements. An incident reported in the press recently. A householder was complaining about a telecommunications junction box that was installed in front of her property actually blocking in one of her cars. As it turned out she had converted the front garden into a car parking area but hadn't bothered to have a dropped kerb put in. The telecoms company had permission from the local planning authority to install the box that stated exactly where it was to go and thats where it was placed. If the householder wants it moved it will cost her £5,000 and all because she didn't have a dropped kerb installed.

[Guest]

7 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

Not sure if it was on this thread or another, but the subject was driving on pavements. An incident reported in the press recently. A householder was complaining about a telecommunications junction box that was installed in front of her property actually blocking in one of her cars. As it turned out she had converted the front garden into a car parking area but hadn't bothered to have a dropped kerb put in. The telecoms company had permission from the local planning authority to install the box that stated exactly where it was to go and thats where it was placed. If the householder wants it moved it will cost her £5,000 and all because she didn't have a dropped kerb installed.

 

I think the box was actually a replacement for one that already existed in the same spot. The new one was just a bit larger.

[kevinlms]

41 minutes ago, 30801 said:

 

I think the box was actually a replacement for one that already existed in the same spot. The new one was just a bit larger.

It happens here in Oz that people want to do a knock down and rebuild of their property. If they don't think about it, the architect designs them a house that has the driveway on the other side. So when the driveway goes to get built - the last thing of course, they discover that the telecommunications pits are in the middle of the driveway!

 

So they ring up to get a quote for relocating the pit, which works out to be highly expensive. So onto the architect to abuse them. What they don't realise is that increasingly the architect has designed their house - never having been to the site, or least a brief visit only.

 

The other problem is, the pit owner is in no hurry to relocate their pit and infrastructure each side (extra pits to join cables in), so all the property owner can do is wait. After all the pit owner, isn't the one that had a pressing need to alter a thing.

 

As they say, 'Your lack of planning, is not my emergency!'.

[Jonboy]

There are a couple of councils have been known to install bollards on the pavement to block such driveways and protect the pavement and kerb from damage.

 

https://news.merton.gov.uk/2019/01/21/council-installs-bollards-outside-homes-to-stop-illegal-crossover-parking/ 

 

[PhilJ W]

If you've ever wondered about the safety in an accident between a modern car and an older car.

 

[Sidecar Racer]

 

 

[boxbrownie]

11 hours ago, Sidecar Racer said:

 

 

Not surprised that’s all he was worried about TBH