Safe Speed Forums

I spotted this item in a local rag.

Sunday World

TRUCKING DISGRACE

Drivers breathalysed after crooks crash into THEM!



Two lorry drivers were left trucking mad after a high-speed cops-and-robbers chase through the skinny, cobbled downtown streets of old Belfast.

For the armed robbers crashed into their trucks during the 50mph daylight drama. And still the police BREATHALYSED the completely innocent truck drivers!

"This is simply ridiculous", said one, who wished to remain anonymous as he may be required to give evidence if the culprits are ever caught and brought to court.

"I really can't believe this is happening", the other told the Sunday World as we witnessed both of them having to produce their driving licences and insurance policies also to armed police.

Both the lorries were damaged as the robbers-they twigged on that the cops were tailing them as they planned to rob a Brinks security van outside Belfast's brand-new five-star merchant Hotel in Waring Street-roared up nearby, narrow Hill Street in a maroon Peugeot saloon car.

Said the driver of one of the vehicles, an ice-cream lorry: "If I had been opening the doors at the back of the lorry, I'd have been killed. And still it's me and this other driver who are breathalysed. The law's gone mad."

Abandoned

And to add insult to injured feelings, the cops never got their men! The robbers drove their badly damaged car- a wing mirror was missing, ripped off in the collision with one of the trucks-into busy North Street.

They abandoned it in the middle of the road, and ran off, as stunned shoppers looked on. And they got away, sprinting through packed city streets.

But yesterday the PSNI confirmed that no arrests had been made reagrding the attempted Brinks van robbery despite media reports to the contrary.

A spokesman at police headquarters said the incident which the newspaper reported had nothing to do with the attempted robbery and subsequent dragnet operation.

Yesterday CID detectives were studying footage from CCTV cameras throughout the city centre to try to identify the fugitive pair from the Peugueot car.

Asked why the two lorry drivers were breathalysed when they were both innocent bystanders-and could have been killed or injured by the speeding robbers-the PSNI spokesman said it is now standard practice for anyone involved in a road traffic accident to be tested for drink-driving.

_________________
Anyone who tells you that nothing is impossible has never bathed in a saucer of water.

Looks like the road industry has "caught up" with other industries having breath testing as standard in an accident (air and rail for examples).