Safe Speed Forums

Dear God, that is terrible! Very sorry to hear about your loss, and concerned that a judge in a court of law sees the fact the driver was not speeding as a mitigating factor. :/

_________________
-mike[F]
Caught in the rush of the crowd, lost in a wall of sound..

My condolences too !

---------------------------------------

Now, maybe if we try to get inside the head of the judge we will see...NOT "mitigation", but that if there HAD been speeding too the sentence would have been much more severe.

I don't think that the judge has taken anything away, he has maybe just not added anything on !

D'ye see what I am trying to get at ?

_________________
Regards

Papaumau

http://www.rip-off.co.uk/index1.htm
http://www.network54.com/hide/forum/100558

The example of the police exceeding the speed limit was given. If you ask me the police make up a huge part of the problem. In reality, they are driving around as the individual sees fit with little/no regard for the safety of others. I can only speak from my own experience.

Does anyone know how this case is progressing?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/3591677.stm

If speeding were inherently dangerous, why would the emergency services seek exemption?

It's a joke. You just need to look at the lack of response to the numerous letters Paul has challenged various people with to understand they are running scared!

The General

Yes... But I find it hard to believe that you can walk away without a prison sentence for killing someone whilst drunk. In effect, the judge was saying that it was more dangerous to exceed the speed limit than to drink-drive!

_________________
-mike[F]
Caught in the rush of the crowd, lost in a wall of sound..

Condolences! We know how you feel! (Own experiences with Cousin (owner and driver of defective truck which killed Ferdl got fine - again because he "was not speeding" ) and myself - but I survived OK (I am typing - but this is joint with Mad Moggie Cat)

This is similar to the C-J case - the one where the little boy was run over on New Year's day by the unqualified, uninsured asylum seeker - who received longer sentence for being here without passport etc, than he got for the motoring offences and killing the child. There was outcry when the sentence for the motoring offences were cut as well: because although he had killed the child who, according to witnesses and his own family in radio interview, he had not been speeding. His sentence was cut to maximum that court could give for the motoring offences. (Or so they said on the radio - R2's lunchtime prog covered this on day sentence was reduced!) In your tragic case - this would be same precedent that judge was following and he would be bound by precedent from higher or same level court.

Law is ass - and we do bend the ears of the lawyers in this family as well as the BiBs! But laws are based on precedent and case law (ratio decidendi from judge) in UK - not constitution here. As far as Act of parlaiment go - judges interpret and apply wording in particular Act to set of facts - and this decision forms the precedent. to be followed in similar cases and decisions are binding on lower courts.

Probably had the offence of speeding been proven - sentence would have reflected this - again on precedent. This is probaly what PapaUmau is getting at! (Are we right? You BIG MAN you!) And maybe amount of alcohol in bloodstream may have been just over prescribed limit - which could have been factor in overall decision. Though - in our opinion - should not have been any. Must have been something else here which prevented the jail sentence. Had he been in custody for long period before trial? Law is veritable ASS!

Under constitutional law - Swiss would have locked up. French, Germans - short sentence more than possible.

Mad Moggie AND WildCat! (who has permission to be in his den this time! )[/b]

My condolences Safety Engineer. I can't imagine how much pain that caused and how much worse it was made by an inadequate judge whose main concern seemed to be if the drunk was speeding. No prison sentence can bring someone back, but how can such leniency be justified when this individual caused two deaths? I can't see how the judge thought that mentioning speed was even relevant. The driver was drunk, and we must assume that he chose to drink and then chose to drive his lorry. Being within the speed limit could well have been as much luck as judgement on his part.

_________________
Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein

Condolences Safety Engineer

As Mad Cats have said - law is ass - too many precedents and wild interpretations of law, and we have too many daft judges, as- per Gatsobait, and Mags as well - which makes my professional life very difficult.


I have said previously - we bust a gut to arrest these people - only to find some soft sap of a Mag/judge lets them off!

Just to clarify a few points:

The driver was three times over the limit blood/alcohol,
He was on bail, not remand until case came to court,
And was free to continue driving until he was sentanced !!

Am very cynical of the idea that adherence to speed limits are the answer, have attended fatalities whilst in RAF and investigated fatalities on site as a safety engineer - often the most obvious cause is not always the main cause. Perhaps the fans of speedcameras should bear this in mind.

_________________
Gordon Brown saying I got the country into it's current economic mess so I'll get us out of it is the same as Bomber Harris nipping over to Dresden and offering to repair a few windows.

Chaos, panic and disorder - my work here is done.

http://www.wildcrafts.co.uk

Absolutely appalling - mate!

Judge was real ass in your case!

Can I widen this a bit please ?

Let's look at judges for a minute shall we:

It has been reported in the media for some time now that the law and the justiciary only sit there and Solomon-like make sentence interpretations that in the main seem to be less than able to fit the crime.

From the victims point of view this is almost always the case as they often will never see the punishment as hard enough for the interpretation of the justice that is in THEIR minds.

I will agree that often it seems that the old codgers that are justices are unable to fit the sentence to the crime and I am sure that in many cases this IS the case. Having said this we must remember that all judges in Britain are forced to keep their disposals to within the parameters of a set tariff of sentences that are laid down for each specific offence and each specific set of conditions. There are times when these judges are just not allowed to make the sentence as severe as the victims or the victims families might like.

You must realise that by highlighting this fact I am not condoning this way of doing as being correct or as being not able to be corrected or changed.

I in fact have a particular liking for the American way of sentencing in some cases, where the sentence is NOT decided upon by a single judge but it is decided upon by a JURY.

This move could take some of the decisions out of the hands of judges who maybe should have retired twenty years earlier.

Just a thought !

_________________
Regards

Papaumau

http://www.rip-off.co.uk/index1.htm
http://www.network54.com/hide/forum/100558

Papaumau, speaking to the CPS the sentence recieved was considerably lower than the one that could have handed down from the idiot in the wig. But let's face it in this country the so called 'experts' (DfT, Highways Agency and the partnerships) are all screaming 'speed kills' so we have almost a form of indoctrination toward this thinking.

In hindsight I'm not surprised at the leniancy of the sentance.

Perhaps if we went back to tried, tested and PROVEN approaches to road safety our accident rate will start to follow the trend it did before cameras became prolific.

If you want another example of this blinkered attitude, I give you Essex camera partnership - I came across a mobile camera site that did not meet any of the accepted good practice or safety standards applicable, I have been in contact with them trying to find out what (if any) safety standards they adhere to when siteing mobile camera vehicles. I am at present compiling a letter and docs for the the local paper as perhaps they will get a straight and honest answer, if not then we can at least show Essex camera partnership for what it is !!

As a safety engineer I have never been taught or seen any guidance or legislation that states the way to control a hazard is by creating another. Yet I have seen several camera sites that do exactly that. The arrogance of the partnerships involved is IMO, no different from the judge I've mentioned.

This may surprise you, but I actually think that in certain places cameras can be a safety benefit BUT we should be looking at improving drivers 'safety culture/awarnesss', better traffic engineering (it can be done but it costs, rather than makes money), and more traffic police (those officers could deal with a damm sight more than just speeding).

I'm biased but a charge of vehiclular manslaughter (like in the US) would be IMO a good idea. If you get in a car and drive, you are, in effect in charge of a deadly weapon. More people are killed each day on our roads than in firearm related crime, yet it is by and large accepted.

_________________
Gordon Brown saying I got the country into it's current economic mess so I'll get us out of it is the same as Bomber Harris nipping over to Dresden and offering to repair a few windows.

Chaos, panic and disorder - my work here is done.

http://www.wildcrafts.co.uk

I think I'm right in saying that Paul said something similar to this (sorry if you didn't!), but then added that the public have now lost trust in speed cameras to such an extent that they really did all need to go. I think I'm of a similar frame of mind - any possible benefit they may once have had has been completely obliterated by excessive over-reliance on speed cameras, and indeed excessive focusing on numerical speed.

Actually, no, I'm against them in principle. A machine does not have the necessary judgement to take my driving licence from me. I only have to get pinged twice in two years to lose my licence, so naturally I'm going to take the threat of cameras extremely seriously - definitely resulting in a lack of concentration!

Sure I'm getting off topic here, so I'll stop now!

_________________
-mike[F]
Caught in the rush of the crowd, lost in a wall of sound..

I have said that - yes. Confidence is gone and the cameras must go too.

See: http://www.safespeed.org.uk/cameras.html



Imagine how different it would be if cameras had been installed - even covertly - set only to catch genuinely dangerous speeds - like over 50mph in a (typical?) village high street during daylight hours.

There are places and thresholds where you can say: "Yes, anything over so many mph is dangerous". Yet we don't have cameras in such locations. We have cameras where they catch large numbers at safe and appropriate speeds. No wonder confidence has gone. It's now far too late to restore confidence.

_________________
Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety