Police have a arrested a man following the death of a 32-year-old cyclist after a hit-and-run crash on Monday night in East London involving a suspected joyrider racing along a major road
The 21 year old man was arrested on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving and for and failing to stop at the scene of a collision – police confirmed that he was the driver of the car they believe was involved in the incident. He has been interviewed by police officers and bailed to a date in mid-January.
According to the police the driver of another car, who witnessed the collision, has also provided them with a detailed statement.
The male rider was hit near the junction of Commercial Road (the A13) and Cavell Street at about 10pm on Monday November 24.
He was taken to an east London hospital, but later died of his injuries.
The Evening Standard reports that the victim has been named locally as Asaad Ahmed, a primary school teacher and father of two.
Mr Ahmed was making his way home when he was hit by what is believed to be a white VW Golf. The driver then sped off.
Police are still hunting the driver of the car, who was seen racing another driver along the A13 moments before the collision.
A resident of the area told the Standard: “You get people racing each other all the time along here. It’s a really dangerous road at night.
“It was inevitable that something like this would happen.”
Nasher Ahmed, 52, a taxi driver, who lives nearby, saw the incident unfold.
He said: “He was trying to cross the road on his bike when he was hit by the car that was racing the other.
“He was a real nice guy and had two young children, it’s very sad. He was just on his way home.
“His wife and brother went to hospital with him in the ambulance.
“As soon as the driver hit the cyclist he just did a U-turn and drove away. He didn’t even stop.”
A Metropolitan police spokesman said: "A car that was suspected of being involved in the collision has been located but officers would still like to hear from any witnesses to the incident."
Anyone with information about the crash is asked to call the Serious Collision Investigation Unit at Chadwell Heath on 0208 597 4874 or call Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.
-1024x680.jpg "“Clear anti-cyclist bias”: Lawsuit filed against Toronto police after cop doored cyclist… before ticketing rider over incident")
76 thoughts on “Update: Arrest made following death of cyclist killed by A13 ‘street-racing’ driver”
The reporting over at the
The reporting over at the Evening Standard includes possibly the most inappropriate comment from a witness you could imagine following such an incident.
A tragic and sadly not uncommon event. I posted on here just the other week about how common street racing is becoming in London, there have been a number of high profile crashes and deaths in the last year.
For me it raises the question of speed limiters. Not necessarily sophisticated GPS based system, but the simple matter of why are todays cars capable of speeds way above the national speed limit. Preventing this would require nothing more than a small software change to the engine management systems, it’s a zero cost option.
bikebot wrote:
For me it
Not sure it is that easy, in theory the engine management could be designed to prevent the car doing more than 130kmph which I believe would cover most of Europe, the issue would be how to prevent the software being amended to remove the speed limiter. If the solution is legal, well who currently enforces the rules???
I believe that London also has an issue with uninsured drivers, again it is illegal but it doesn’t stop it happening. We really need more traffic police tasked with zero tolerance to driving offences, and then to back them up with an adequate legal system. However going by evidence, whether it is workload or attitude, a lot of police don’t really seem bothered by traffic offences today??
mrmo wrote:
Not sure it is
I completely agree, but I consider enforcement as a separate matter. Modifying the engine management software so as to bypass the speed limit should be illegal. Make it a notifiable offence if it’s detected during an MOT or service. If someone is caught speeding or involved in an accident and the car has been illegally modified, that should be reflected in the punishment.
As with all enforcement, you can’t 100% prevent, but you can discourage.
bikebot wrote: If someone is
well for a start, your insurance would be void same as if you are involved in a crash and the assessor comes round and finds a defect with one of your tyres
bikebot wrote:
For me it
Really? Your first comment is that vehicle speeds should be limited? Not all car drivers drive like idiots and ignoring the fact that limiters can be removed, you’d limit vehicles to 70mph – would that have done anything for the poor cyclist in this case? Absolutely not! Think before you post inane rubbish.
Wrong place, wrong time. RIP 🙁
AyBee wrote:bikebot
And your first thought was to attack me, well done you. Have a golf clap =D>
There have been multiple deaths on London’s roads in the last year due to people racing cars late at night. These aren’t people driving too fast, these are people holding races. Here are some of the incidents.
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/north-circular-crash-three-young-men-killed-in-fireball-and-two-injured-as-highspeed-cars-hit-lorry-9021643.html
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/east-london-bus-crash-one-dead-and-13-others-injured-in-clapton-smash-with-car-9481901.html
I’ve made this point multiple times, this is just the latest incident. You cannot race cars on the public road at such high speed if they are speed limited. If the owners illegally modify them for the purposes of racing, that offers the Police the opportunity to impound the cars and prosecute the drivers before they kill someone.
bikebot wrote:The reporting
You don’t work for ubisoft do you?
No, it isn’t zero cost at all. Yes, it would certainly harm people who have legitimate reasons [i]you clearly haven’t thought of[/i] to go faster than 70mph.
Yes, it is fundamentally trivial to bypass any protection on a computer you own and always will be – and you’ve just given a [i]whole load of people[/i] a good reason (aforementioned good reasons to exceed 70) to do so. Google “the coming war on general purpose computation”, preferably before you suggest any law related to computers again.
nuclear coffee wrote:it would
going OT, so when is is legitimate to break the law?
nuclear coffee wrote:[
You
No, I don’t work for ubisoft.
I do work as a software engineer and systems architect, and that includes many years building security systems, including some DRM technologies that have ended up in the consumer market. There’s a good chance you’ve used something I’ve designed.
It is a zero cost option, it’s a configuration change at the point of manufacturer and is already adopted for all cars sold in Japan. It is not fundamentally trivial to bypass a protection system, the task can be made very difficult. It is however fundamentally impossible to prevent it, which I believe is the point you were trying to make. It is also fundamentally impossible to prevent the detection of such a change, which is where the role of enforcement comes into play.
The system would need to be
The system would need to be hooked up to GPS to limit the cars to the local speed limit though. 70mph would not be sufficient on this road, and going back to my original point; there’s a massive legacy issue of retrofit.
Bit of a mute point really?
jimbo2112 wrote: there’s a
Lets not try and improve anything ever then?
mrmo wrote:jimbo2112 wrote:
And insurance premiums help with the legacy issue.
jimbo2112 wrote:there’s a
The MOT already considers this for other safety sub-systems: e.g. if you have ABS fitted on your car then it needs to be working to pass the MOT; but if your car is old enough to not have ABS fitted then that’s just fine.
GrahamSt wrote:jimbo2112
Yup… you can include indicators in that as well. They only need to work if they are fitted.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big technology advocate, but I’m being pragmatic. We are pushing on open doors when it comes to wanting better for our fellow cyclists, but outside of this website there are a multitude of issues and opinions which make this a difficult thing to resolve. Just try jumping to PistonHeads.com and suggesting automated speed limiters and you will have a tsunami of vitriol in your inbox within minutes. I originally said this is not possible in the short to medium term. I do, however believe we will have this standardised in 20 years along with optional self drive cars.
Ok, here is one area where my
Ok, here is one area where my home country kinda gets this right. NZ. Smallllllll country, the main highway is basically a B road. LOTS of drunk driving in the 70s, lots of speeding, massive holidays tolls.
Basically here’s what they did/do.
Traffic cops (not police – and this has changed, but into the 80s, cops in cars on motorways)
Mobile radars – cops with speed guns in awkward areas at any time (not fecking big yellow boxes)
Holiday specials on fines – last Xmas when I was back 10kph over the 100k limit got you something like the equivalent of 3 points and a massive fine, NO ONE was speeding
Just about zero alcohol tolerance – and traffic cops and cops running ‘gates’ where everyone is breathalyzed
Targeted cop runs on known boy-racer patches (plus trying to get them into legitimate racing, a bit doomed I think)
Of course this all takes money and time, but it worked and it continues to work. It is noticeably slower and more cautious on motorways and the arterials – which is just as well because NZ drivers are fecking terrible (another day for why).
In my 13 years in the UK I am not sure I have seen a cop actually doing anything related to traffic beyond stopping and searching vans… I guess the priority is terrorism, because that kills hundreds a year, right?
Witness Sally Dunstone
Witness Sally Dunstone tweeted: “Terrible accident involving a cyclist on Commercial Road. If you cycle in London always wear a helmet.”
What a stupid F***ing tweet. Like wearing a helmet protects you from being killed by being hit by a speeding car. I suppose this idiot thinks that you can be whacked by racing cars and huge lorries but as long as you have your helmet on then it’s gonna be alright.
I was on that road a couple
I was on that road a couple of weeks ago and was passed by a couple of bellends in the usual bellend type cars(german sports) doing easily upwards of 100mph.
There is no reason for any car to be capable of more than 100mph and it IS easily achievable.
IanW1968 wrote:I was on that
With the exception of emergency services vehicles, I think ALL cars on public roads should be limited (by design) to the national speed limit.
I do hope those PCSO’S
I do hope those PCSO’S permanently stationed at traffic lights looking to predominantly FPN cyclists and the pillocks speed gunning cyclists in Hyde Park struggle to sleep at night.
Shame on the lot of them.
It must be possible for all
It must be possible for all new cars to have a built in GPS that can limit the cars top speed based on the speed limit of the road its on.
While it is pretty silly to
While it is pretty silly to have cars capable of over 100mph on sale for use on roads where the limit is 70… I’m not sure that an automatic limit is the answer. There is a danger that it could lead to a false sense of security as people assume cars are safer.
Its possible to be a dangerous dick at 20mph just as it is at 100mph.
The problem in this country is that speed enforcement has for years been seen as a ‘money making’ exercise rather than a genuine attempt to improve safety – hence the proliferation of speed cameras onto the safer roads. We need to get to police out from behind the cameras, and looking at reckless driving, rather than the actual speed.
Must be Mad wrote:While it is
This is the thing, I believe that cars should be gps limited making it impossible to drive excessively fast in urban areas. I am also convinced that some drivers would then go around foot to the floor at all times and rather than “drive”, just rely on the speed limiter to control their speed.
Quote:This is the thing, I
That is exactly my concern also.
And it doesn’t address the root problem of people not realizing how much damage they can do in a car.
Quote:This is the thing, I
That is exactly my concern also.
And it doesn’t address the root problem of people not realizing how much damage they can do in a car.
Instead of limiting speed,
Instead of limiting speed, how about when the vehicle breaches the limit, the airbags are disabled, the driver’s seatbelt unfastens and a spike comes out of the middle of the steering wheel?
It’s amazing how many of the general public have bought this “speed cameras are for raising money” thing. There’s no objection to the detection of most crimes. If you don’t like a law, fine, campaign against it. Don’t campaign against the enforcement of that law – that’s just stupid.
SteppenHerring wrote:It’s
Indeed, I’ve never seen anyone complain that CCTV in shops is a “stealth tax” on shoplifters.
And as usual it is a “cyclist” (i.e. a person) “in collision with a car” (i.e. an inanimate object) – which only reinforces the sub-text that it must be the cyclist at fault.
Why isn’t it a car in collision with a bicycle? Or a motorist in collision with a cyclist?
It’s prejudicial language that is so common you hardly even notice it until it is pointed out.
I’m willing to let Sally
I’m willing to let Sally Dunstable’s stupid tweet go, she’s an amateur who won’t know any better. It’s such a common misconception and it isn’t her fault.
However, the police language seeming to put the cyclist as the active party in this collision makes me fume: “A 32-year-old, male cyclist was in collision with a car that did not stop at the scene.”
The ES put it like this (and they usually get it wrong): “A cyclist was knocked down and killed by a suspected joyrider racing another car through east London.”
Which is very clear, and accurate, and doesn’t blame the dead guy.
RIP.
jacknorell wrote:I’m willing
This should be on the front page with a heading also stating that the driver is being sought to assist with enquiries as a possible suspect in a manslaughter case.
GPS limiters will just lead
GPS limiters will just lead to GPS jamming, and then you won’t be able to record your ride!;)
Also, I wonder whether limiting to the speed limit on all roads could lead to lazy drivers with their foot on the floor at all times, without considering whether the speed limit is an appropriate speed to drive.
I wonder whether self-driving cars will be any better at driving safely?
DaveE128 wrote:GPS limiters
Can’t get a signal? Car doesn’t move, simple 🙂
DaveE128 wrote:I wonder
Yes, they will.
Didn’t say I was against the
Didn’t say I was against the enforcement of speed limits – just that I think its currently done in the wrong way.
[edit: and I can campaign against that as I have an interest in safer roads]
Forget speed limiters. In the
Forget speed limiters. In the bigger picture, a single tragic incident, indeed many of them put together, is not going to bring automated speed limiters into force. The bad guys will always work around them even if they did, and even then, are we going to retrofit them to a cost of all drivers of older cars? Not feasible in the short to medium term.
The tweeter is not the axis of evil here. She’s just uninformed.
The police have standard non-committal speak for describing an incident prior to investigation, so they are not to blame either.
The scumbag who killed this poor man and was so cowardly as to not care for his outcome deserves 14 years for this, which I think is the maximum sentence.
Let’s concentrate on this rather than the law, the bystanders and the people are trying to apprehend the motorised thug that ended a life for the fun of a race.
jimbo2112 wrote:
The scumbag
But, of course, even if after a lot of hard work by the Police this scumbag is caught the law will consider a small fine and 3 points (or a driver awareness course) will send the right message X(
Locally the boy-racers have a circuit (named after the Nurburgring) with times published on the ‘net. The Police (of course) know nothing about it, I suspect some have times on the leaderboard!
In other news; the local paper had a letter in it complaining about cyclists in brightly coloured clothing using the road as a race track.
“Terrible accident involving
“Terrible accident involving a cyclist on Commercial Road. If you cycle in London always wear a helmet.”
– This is why I get more and more anti-helmet every day….
There must be at least one
There must be at least one cctv camera that has recorded what happened?
Some one is likely now getting a car repaired after last night’s hit and run or knows what happened.
It’s an awful feeling being hit and run.
Fortunately I survived.
When cycling on roads a head cam facing front and rear are now essential pieces of cycling kit.
RIP.
I’d much rather see more
I’d much rather see more widespread use of average speed cameras.
Lots of traffic lights already have cameras on top, if they can do ANPR then it would be possible to install a system measuring average speeds betweens sets of lights relatively simply. That would effectively target speeding in built-up areas where there is a high potential for harm.
We are on the cusp of smart
We are on the cusp of smart cars and roads that could limit cars speeds and actions or disable them altogether should they not be mot’d insured etc, itll be here in 10years gaurenteed and quite easy to implement should we choose to do it.
Thats not really the issue though, its still about the perception that road cars can be legimate “sporting” devices. The manufacturers business models rely on it and their ranges and adverts reflect it and theres always people who think their more capable than average and should be allowed to use vehicles without restriction.
That could change tommorow but collectively we choose fast cars at the expense of a few dead people.
The solutions are easy the will to do something is missing.
Quite frankly anyone speeding
Quite frankly anyone speeding along the A13 really needs to be locked in a padded room and not allowed out unsupervised ever again.
freespirit1 wrote:Quite
Once you get past Dagenham, that would be everyone. The Essex stretch of the A13 is fast, German fast.
on the speed limiters, ok a
on the speed limiters, ok a tad higher, but I most of the German manufacturers have an agreement to limit to 250kmph, so that it can be done is fact. You can pay extra to have it undone I believe.
If they do not get him we
If they do not get him we should campaign to remove all surveillance equipment in the country as they are useless. Every time i have had to rely on cameras the footage is mysteriously not there. Lets hope they do catch him and he gets more than a slap on the wrist which is what i suspect will happen. Maybe 3 years for running. The idiot should have stopped and not talked since i am sure that would have netted him less time in the slammer.
There are three decent
There are three decent arguments I can think of against flat 70mph limiters off the top of my head:
1) The “getting out of trouble” argument: e.g. you’ve misjudged an overtake and *really* need to speed up and get past before an upcoming obstacle. Removing that ability *might* cause crashes. Easy solution to that though: the limiter allows 70 to be exceeded for a short period of time (with an audible warning).
2) It doesn’t target the most harm. This is probably true. Motorways are statistically the safest roads in the UK. The real problems start when motorised traffic meets other road users, pedestrians and other inconvenient obstacles.
3) If you limit boy racers to 70 then they’ll take their races to places where doing 70 requires a lot of skill (i.e. city centres). Likewise if people can only do 70 on the motorway they may attempt to “make up time” on other roads.
We don’t need automated speed
We don’t need automated speed limiters as some have suggested nor GPS tracking nor average speed cameras. We have the technology and its used every day in Iraq – armed drones! That’ll make sure they don’t do it again 😉
I think that some sort of
I think that some sort of limiter on cars driven by people who have more than a certain number of points on their licence would be a good idea. Many people go crying to the court claiming hardship if they lose their licence. OK, but you get limited, remove the limiter, banned for life, sorted!
SideBurn wrote:I think that
That’s a really good suggestion. I would also suggest it would be useful with new drivers if they commit certain violations.
Yeah that’s not a bad idea.
Yeah that’s not a bad idea.
Also it would be pretty easy to fit a black box device that records “driving characteristics” (such a thing is offered by several insurance companies already so the technology already exists)
This could be checked for erratic driving (e.g. frequent harsh acceleration or braking, ABS activation, etc) which would then influence further sentencing.
GrahamSt wrote:Yeah that’s
Being honest it is probably easier and a better solution to have every car fitted with a black box. What you record and what the data dump would be? But if it is only recording the last hour it might assist in crash reconstruction, if it records erratic behaviour it provides evidence of the driver etc etc.
Tag GPS to it and the driver is free to do what they like but if they have an incident it provides a bit more evidence of what they were doing prior to the incident.
mrmo wrote:GrahamSt
Being honest it is probably easier and a better solution to have every car fitted with a black box. What you record and what the data dump would be? But if it is only recording the last hour it might assist in crash reconstruction, if it records erratic behaviour it provides evidence of the driver etc etc.
Tag GPS to it and the driver is free to do what they like but if they have an incident it provides a bit more evidence of what they were doing prior to the incident.— GrahamSt
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20143969
Make this mandatory for all new drivers and ones with 6+ points. It’s passive, but much easier to manage as there’s a captive audience, who are either desperate to start driving or desperate not to get banned from driving.
This does not stop the illegal drivers though as they don’t bother with insurance or that other obstacle of actually owning the car they choose to drive. I would *seriously* support public humiliation of stocks in the local market square. One currency they understand is street cred and this would really make them fear the consequences.
mrmo wrote:
Being honest it
Everything required to do that will be mandatory in all new cars next year. Everything that is except the political will.
From October 2015 all new cars within the EU will implement the eCall legislation, which requires GPS position and speed monitoring. If the car is involved in an accident, it will automatically be detected and the emergency services notified. The technology is obviously capable of storing the cars position, speed and all the engine and control telemetry data as a “black box” recording, but it won’t. Because the UK government didn’t want that.
This is a quote from the DfT on the matter – “The UK government was concerned about data protection and has made amendments to the proposed system so that no data is retained. It self-deletes. It will only store the three most recent location fixes so Big Brother won’t know where you are at all times; only the emergency service at the point the alarm was raised.”
None the less, this is how the Daily Mail reported the legislation back in May – http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2625244/EU-bug-car-UK-tracker-chips-Ministers-admit-powerless-stop-Big-Brother-technology.html
“EU to bug every car in UK with tracker chips – and Ministers admit they are powerless to stop the Big Brother technology”
I disagree with such views as I believe technology is part of the solution to dangerous roads. It’s the routine monitoring of our lives that endangers our privacy, not the justified intrusion that should occur to allow an investigator to understand the cause of an accident.
Lets not lose sight of the
Lets not lose sight of the issues here. These morons appear to have been engaging in street racing, not just driving a little bit over the speed limit, but RACING which has claimed the life of some one who got in their way. If CCTV was in operation, any half competent operator should have been able to spot what was going on and got the police involved pretty damn quick. Just because a small minority of morons use the roads like their own race track doesn’t mean the rest of us have to suffer. What is needed here is more traffic police, unmarked cars, targeting these morons making their lives really difficult. When they are caught they need to charged and prosecuted for very serious offences not let off with a slap on the wrists. Once convicted judges need to hand down severe sentences for such aggravated offences. 15 years minimum in prison and a life time driving ban and cars crushed. Also seize any assets the morons might have to give to the victims in addition to any civil claims.
It sounds like these drivers were out of control and destined to hit some one or something. It just happened to be this cyclist.
I would like to see the driver who did this put up agin a wall and shot but this is never going to happen. Films such as Fast and Furious glorify this sort of moronic dangerous behaviour, but the reality is people are killed, lives wrecked and families destroyed.
RIP.
Just get rid of the cars.
Just get rid of the cars. Price them fairly for the amount of damage they cause and they’ll be out of the budget of most people.
Ush wrote:Just get rid of the
great! how do i get to work? how can i take my sister out and about, as she is wheel chair bound? another nutty idea!
badbobb wrote:Ush wrote:Just
Cars have their place, and are useful in some situations. But I think Ush is talking about all the privately owned cars sitting in traffic jams into and out of cities during “rush hour” (wow, isn’t that a misnomer nowawadays?) with just one person in them (the driver). Its not an efficient use of the apparently limited space we have in our urban areas. If someone really needs some form of motorised private transport to get around then fair play, but most people really don’t.
(They are also very useful for going long distances).
badbobb wrote:Ush wrote:Just
When you’re an old man and incompentent to drive how are you going to take your sister out and about? How are you going to get from wherever you live to wherever is important if you HAVE TO USE A CAR?
Or you could start planning on making cycling safe for those of us that are capable and willing and segregating the rest of you onto manageable, safe public transport.
Or you could just give up and continue the obviously stupid current situation while pointing to your own needs.
void
void
What’s this “society” i’m
What’s this “society” i’m living in? It’s not as if we weren’t pouring billions into police and “Justice”; apparently, much easier to fine hundreds of cyclists in London for a total of 1,000,000 £ …
Sometimes, i’m asking myself why cyclists are fined and harassed? because we don’t drive a car ? We don’t spend fortunes in insurance, fuel, maintenance ? Why these guys can drive at speed in London? Why all those drivers using their smartphones end tablets while driving?
There is a reason.
http://road.cc/content/news/136619-cyclists-fined-over-£1000000-london-police-crackdown
Given the ability for your
Given the ability for your satnav to know and communicate the local speed limit, it should be perfectly possible to fit intelligent speed limiters that react to local limits – with dynamic updating to allow for temporary or permanent changes. Add inertial or accelerometer-based navigation to cater for GPS signal loss, and a car so fitted could never exceed the speed limit. Self-driving cars will of necessity be fitted with such technology, so fitting it to cars with the 2015 eCall system should be straightforward. All earlier cars can be retrofitted with a GPS-based black box which can only be interrogated by the police or accident investigators. It can be done – if there’s the political will, as mentioned by several above. In the meantime, I hope they get this little scrote. RIP Assad Ahmed.
TimC340 wrote:… RIP Assad
Indeed. RIP… poor man. I hope your family sees justice one day.
If you are prepared to take a
If you are prepared to take a course of action, then you must be prepared to accept the consequences.
Someone who Is racing on the road, must say to themselves that what they are doing is so important, that If a child or an adult, a bike or another car gets in their way, they don’t care.
The court should hit them hard.
It’s almost as if this country believes in divine destiny at government level; it’s your fate so It wasn’t preventable. They don’t really care when someone dies on the road, or they would do everything to prevent it and give appropriate sentences.
Someone famous has to die before they act.
In this case it was a criminal act, but we’ve been here before with ‘accidental’ deaths too.
Some days I ask myself what I’m doing. The truth be told, cycling is taking your life into your own hands…actually no, it’s putting yourself at the mercy of idiot car drivers.
A man has now been arrested
A man has now been arrested on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving.
What i find most distasteful
What i find most distasteful in this article is the fact that out of 54 comments there are only 4 who express there condolences towards the man and his family.
A family man with 2 children has passed away and all we seem to be able to do is have an arguement over speed limiters, such a shame.
RIP young man.
stumps wrote:What i find most
Really?
I find it hard to say what I find most “distasteful”, although really it would be more apt to describe it as “upsetting”. However at the moment it’s split somehow between the following:
* Your post which, instead of simply stating what you feel about it, takes the opportunity to berate other forum posters for trying to come up with a way to avoid the problem in the future instead of posting anodyne formulae of condolence
* The conjunction of the story about the police pfaffing about with speedguns on the Bristol-Bath bikepath while cars are, according to the local residents in this tragedy, known to race regularly on the section of road
* The victim-blaming in the story attributed to the uninformed-but-not-afraid-to-voice-her-ignorant-opinion witness
* The inevitability that this horrible tragedy will contribute to the perception that cycling is dangerous
Reflects how accustomed we’ve
Reflects how accustomed we’ve become.
Why isn’t such a tragic death and all the others like it in the national news?
RIP
IanW1968 wrote:Reflects how
Quite. It took six people to die in quick succession for it to make the news last year. It takes a thousand people to sit in the street to get a mention.
Today, two children woke up without a father because some prick thought that the A13 was a suitable place to drive like he was playing Grand Theft Auto. But the breakfast news will have told them about video bloggers who don’t declare when they’re advertising. It’s shameful.
IanW1968 wrote:Reflects how
There were 1713 recorded deaths on the roads of Great Britain in 2013. An average of 4.7 per day. They just wouldn’t have the time to report them all. That’s how bad it is. But of course the far bigger killer is the pollution caused by traffic, and that gets even less coverage. RIP indeed.
What a tragic waste of life,
What a tragic waste of life, I feel for the family. I hope the person who caused this is locked away for a long time, especially as he sped off from the scene. This is what I find so concerning, the moral compass of some people and the lack of any care or thought in peoples actions seems to be getting worse. As a society we are in trouble.
Poor chap was just going
Poor chap was just going about his business and now 2 kids will grow up without him. RIP
Sadly nothing will change, the prick that killed him will get a telling off and that’s all. the law, or robust enforcement of the laws we have, will not change until someone with influence looses a child.
mrchrispy wrote:Poor chap was
My gut feeling is that nothing will change, the death rate on the UK’s roads is quite low, I am by no means saying this is right, please don’t misunderstand. The electorate “accepts” that people die on the roads and as long as it isn’t them or their families really aren’t that interested. I think cyclists have more of an issue because it could be them who die through no fault of theirs. For a driver cocooned in their nice warm bubble….
I wish I knew how the UK could adopt the Dutch stop de kindermoord movement, I would argue it takes a society that actually cares about one another. From looking around there is a huge proportion who simply don’t give a s*** about anyone but themselves and their immediate family.
I worked for a steel manufacturer and historically it was accepted that steel was dangerous and people died, just one of those facts, it took a lot of effort to get people to understand that accidents don’t happen, that people don’t have to die, that if someone does die something has gone drastically wrong and every effort needs to be taken to understand why and to stop It happening again.
On the roads, there simply isn’t the effort, low sun, fog, ice, etc. shit happens people die, these are things that happen every year, that can be prevented, but no, nothing changes.
RIP , hope there is some
RIP , hope there is some justice.
as for using gps and so on to limit speed, be careful what you wish for… limiting and issuing tickets for braking or accelerating hard, really?
how about gps on bikes, jump a red light, get automatic fine, do it 3 times, and your bike gets crushed ….
i ride bikes, but hate when drivers and riders both flout the law, if the gov bring in technology to “fix” this, it will be a blunt axe …
to put it into context, the
to put it into context, the roads are very safe, the tragic event of the above is rare.
death from poor diet and the abundance of suger in diets will cause for more
“Today, two children woke up
“Today, two children woke up without a father because some prick thought that the A13 was a suitable place to drive like he was playing Grand Theft Auto.”
No, GIZMO, he was allowed to drive like a prick, like thousands more. It is not an “accident”. This society is simply not taking steps to prevent those things. One out of two driver is allowed to use a smartphone while driving for obvious reasons. First they use a car, Second they use a smartphone. It’s a big business.
so whats the answer?
so whats the answer?
CheapMonk wrote:”Today, two
Well, CHEAPMONK, I choose to hold the person in the driver’s seat responsible for what the car was doing. He CHOSE to drive like a prick. I drive many thousands of miles every year and I don’t require a policeman on every corner to stop me driving on the wrong side of the road, at 100mph past schools, or anything else that I’m not ‘allowed’ to do.
Id voluntarily fit a black
Id voluntarily fit a black box gps speed limiter if such thing existed, was affordable and gave me the possible advantage of an insurance discount..
Seems a sensible move for me for anyone concerned about road safety
scrapper wrote:Id voluntarily
Speed limits are not the answer. They reinforce the idea that if you’re complying, you’re safe. They’re the reason why whenever it’s foggy there’s a pile-up on the motorway somewhere – they were doing 70, that’s a safe speed, right?
The solution is better new driver training, periodic retesting, and draconian penalties for dangerous drivers. Cultural change can be achieved – everyone wears a seatbelt now, very few people (comparatively) drink-drive – but it takes time (decades!) and consistent reinforcement.