uk.news.yahoo.com/m6-crash-death-lorry-driver-sentenced-185540824.html#Wof4hH0
So a 64 year old lorry driver ignores speed reducing signs and runs into the back of a stationery car and kills a child. Tragic and it sounds to me that he was maybe travelling on cruise control till the last second.
But 4 and a half years in jail? To a 64 year old man with 42 years of clean truck driving?
No doubt if it was my daughter I would want that sentence and more. But I just can't see what benefit there is to locking him up? Denying him an income, costing the taxpayer to hold him and no doubt huge repercussions for his own family being denied their breadwinner.
Every day I read of people carrying knives, robbers, muggers etc all getting community service orders where I think they should perhaps be locked up to keep general society safe from them.
But with this case, I really just don't know if prison is the right punishment but what else could we offer in the way of punishment?
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There but for the grace of God go i and every one of us.
I don't know if the punishment was appropriate or not, but each and every HGV or PSV driver knows that if they cause by their negligence or stupidity the death or life changing injury to an innocent person they are going to be severely dealt with.
Yes the driver concerned may well not have a conviction to his name, but that doesn't lessen the enormity of the tragedy that happened.
I feel for the driver concerned as well as the family of the child.
I don't know if its a factor in this case, but modern lorries are too easy to drive now IMO, too quiet comfortable and the driver in many cases only has to steer with no other input, factor in mind numbingly slow speeds its no wonder we have so many lorry accidents in the small hours, CC should not feature on lorries it should be replaced by driver programmable speed limiters (some lorries have both) which require the driver to maintain throttle pressure to keep max set speed up.
Be honest here, how many of us have found ourselves slowing up in the we small hours as we started to nod and the pressure on the throttle lessened, CC just lets the vehicle speed on.
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Disregarding the advisory speed limits I can understand. But missing the REAL slowing of traffic and the car with hazards on is well up the scale of careless/dangerous.
Sentence is at top end but not unreasonable.
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Does any body think he wasn't asleep or nodding immediately immediately before the crash?
Presumably he wasn't asleep before he ignored the speed advisories. Had he knocked the cruise off then, there might have been a diffferent outcome. Ignoring those advisories was probably very serious.
I admit I don't immediately drop right down to an advisory speed either, but it does suggest to me that there is something to watch out for - there is always a reason, even if the moment has passed as is often the case, and the first response should be to ease off, extend any gap in front and be ready for whatever is ahead.
I'm surprised cruise control is allowed on heavy vehicles, given the pervasive nanny culture. Don't trains all have a dead man's switch or a vigilance device?
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>> I'm surprised cruise control is allowed on heavy vehicles, given the pervasive nanny culture. Don't
>> trains all have a dead man's switch or a vigilance device?
You can get cruise control on trains., However they have (mostly) train protection systems ( ATPS - which auto apply brakes) or a signal warning system (AWS) that will apply brakes if a signal is passed at anything other than green and a warning is not acknowledged.
You need it tho, you cant imagine anything more brain numbing than driving a modern train.
As far as the lorry driver goes? he was asleep or brain dead way before the warning speed limits, so as such they were not a factor, merely an indication of what happened.
Last edited by: Zero on Mon 25 Feb 13 at 22:07
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Should have said he was on the phone which was in his lap.
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2278048/Collette-Carpenter-Death-crash-policewoman-escapes-prosecution-mobile-phone--lap.html
And I'm afraid the title 'Policewoman' (not exactly PC) is bestowed on fulltime Officers. I'm afraid she's in the 'Hobby Bobby' league or at best a Special Constable. But then it is the Mail.
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All I know is we were lucky to survive being rear ended by an HGV in Italy. Had I been an inch or two taller I'd probably be dead.
Eventually the lorry driver was found guilty apparently. Did we try to get compensation or hope he got into big trouble? No. We were thankful to survive and wanted to move on. And I think from what I was told, the lorry driver thought I had been killed and wanted to see for himself I was okay. Probably changed his life too - and he may have lost his job too for all I know.
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It depends if the sentence is aimed at what he did or what happened.
In my opinion running into the back of something is a level of accident. Someone dying is not relevant (not relevant to the scale of punishment, I mean).
He should have been punished according to what he did - so for me it would be down to just how stupid he was and just how reckless or careless it was. I wouldn't factor in the dead child.
And, again IMO, prison was the wrong sentence and 4.5 years is ridiculous.
I'd rather have seen significantly onerous community service in the shape of teaching road safety to truck drivers guilty of minor infractions or incidents for a considerable period of time.
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I agree it was harsh, though I think there is culpability suggested by the apparent ignoring of speed advisories.
This man didn't kill anybody, but better deserves a 4 year sentence if not longer in my opinion - the wilful nature of the harm is the difference, and he may well have intended to kill.
uk.news.yahoo.com/man-jailed-random-punch-attacks-160110909.html#JCMLRPz
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>> In my opinion running into the back of something is a level of accident. Someone
>> dying is not relevant (not relevant to the scale of punishment, I mean).
I feel the same way, but alas the law does not reflect that. Causing death by careless or dangerous driving is a specific offence.
In the case of the law, its all about the outcome, not the act.
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Other than Sec 1 - 'Death by Dangerous, 'death by' has only been added to a number of offences in the statute books in recent years. Historically the outcome was not relevant as it was the circumstances leading up to the collision that were considered by the courts.
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I fully agree with all that has been said above. It's what we all fear the most, a moments lapse of concentration can end up with a custodial sentence.
I rarely felt comfortable using CC in a lorry and agree with GB.
However, I do think this
>>Booth pleaded guilty on the second day of a trial at which he claimed he may have fallen asleep due to obstructive sleep apnoea syndrome, rather than tiredness, in the run-up to the crash.<<
had a lot to do with the length of the sentence.
It was proved not to be sleep apnoea then he pleaded guilty.
This is the reason the childs family feel aggrieved and accuse him of showing no remorse.
Far better to have held his hands up at the time and shown some tenuous mitigating circumstances, as well as expressing his remorse.
Pat
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Different circs but similar outcome was the recent case involving crash for cash scammers on the A40.
The scam crash failed but caused an immediate accident behind the intended victim. The driver of one of that car got out but the obstruction was then hit at speed by a folowing van who'd had 300m/9secconds to see and react but didn't. A fatality resulted.
IIRC he got a suspended sentence and a long ban.
There was a link ti the judges sentencing remarks around last week but I cannot find it now.
Will post later.
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>>
>> In the case of the law, its all about the outcome, not the act.
>>
That's a good point, but easy to forget.
It's sometimes tempting to muse on the idea that the act should attract the punishment.
But that would involve locking up an "innocent" person because in a momemt of absentmindedness he didn't kill someone and caused no damage, but could have done.
We'd all be in prison on that basis.
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Lorry driver sentenced - -
