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Forensic collision investigation

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Itsallaguess
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Forensic collision investigation

#134453

Postby Itsallaguess » April 24th, 2018, 2:32 pm

Interesting article on the BBC website highlighting the difficult jobs that the forensic collision investigation teams sometime have to carry out when unexplained accidents happen on our roads -

Bob Witherall, a forensic collision investigator, was with his family finishing his turkey dinner at home when he heard the report go out over his police radio.

When he arrived at the scene the motorway was shut, a stream of backed up headlamps stretching further into the distance by the second, frustrated motorists sighed and drummed their fingers on steering wheels. They had places to be - the long-awaited sanctuary of home, family and friends to visit, Christmas dinners to be eaten.

He was told the motorcyclist had been located. He had been thrown some 100m and was lying close to a lamppost in the void between the concrete girders of the central reservation. He had hit the concrete pillar after being thrown from his bike. He was dead. He was one junction away from home.

"What I found was a vast scene of about 400-500m along the motorway with debris and marks all along the central reservation," Bob says. "A vast, complicated scene made even more poignant by the fact it was Christmas Day."

Every fatality on UK roads is treated as a suspicious death and Bob had "one shot" at a forensic examination before the road re-opened and crucial clues were lost forever. The investigators are under constant pressure to do their job efficiently and quickly; it is estimated to cost the economy £1m for every hour the motorway is closed.

Walking around the debris, making his initial assessment, the question looped over and over in his mind - why would a motorbike just collide with the central reservation for no apparent reason?


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-43716912

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

redsturgeon
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Re: Forensic collision investigation

#134455

Postby redsturgeon » April 24th, 2018, 2:36 pm

Just read it myself, fascinating and tragic.

John

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Re: Forensic collision investigation

#134536

Postby csearle » April 24th, 2018, 8:19 pm

Itsallaguess wrote:Interesting article...
Struth. Just goes to show how important it is to just take it easy and not get worked up out there. C.

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Re: Forensic collision investigation

#134545

Postby Ashfordian » April 24th, 2018, 9:07 pm

7 years for murder. Disgusting!

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Re: Forensic collision investigation

#134546

Postby vrdiver » April 24th, 2018, 9:07 pm

Sweeting, of Bettws, Newport, who had had 21 convictions across 35 offences dating back to 1979, was given seven years in prison for death by dangerous driving, 12 months for attempting to pervert the course of justice, and was disqualified for driving for six years.

Basically, caught almost annually and convicted on average every other year for the last 40 years. For the latest crime he gets seven years, eligible for parole after 3.5 years. Feels like a smack on the wrist considering: a) his optician advided him not to drive, b) he tried to hide the evidence and c) told a pack of lies to the police, d) oh, and killed someone

With his criminal history, will he really be "safe to be in society" any time soon? It's not like he's learned from his past errors of judgment.

Question is, is it his fault, or is he a damaged individual who needs help and has been let down by society and the state? Should the state have got him into therapy years ago?

VRD
(who's sympathy lie with the biker's family and would like for this scenario not to repeat itself...)

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Re: Forensic collision investigation

#134552

Postby midnightcatprowl » April 24th, 2018, 9:49 pm

What stuns me is less the short prison period of time in prison than the fact that he's only been disqualified from driving for six years. Surely every possible means should be taken to keep someone like this off the roads on a permanent basis.

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Re: Forensic collision investigation

#134591

Postby richlist » April 25th, 2018, 6:15 am

midnightcatprowl wrote:What stuns me is less the short prison period of time in prison than the fact that he's only been disqualified from driving for six years. Surely every possible means should be taken to keep someone like this off the roads on a permanent basis.


Yes I agree but if the law came down hard on poor drivers BMW might struggle to sell cars !

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Re: Forensic collision investigation

#134618

Postby bungeejumper » April 25th, 2018, 9:11 am

Ashfordian wrote:7 years for murder. Disgusting!

IANAL, which is probably a good thing on balance :) , but I should think the burden of proof for a murder rap would be too high a threshold. As long as he denies having deliberately rammed the bike at speed, all they've got is the 86 mph pursuit and the witness statements.

But yes, it's disgusting. I once knew somebody who got ten years for accidentally killing an old lady on a zebra crossing, and the remorse absolutely broke him. He had a completely clean record up till then, as well. It doesn't sound as though this fellow's seven years are going to have the same effect. I'd hope that the prosecution would appeal.

BJ

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Re: Forensic collision investigation

#135023

Postby Clitheroekid » April 27th, 2018, 1:29 am

bungeejumper wrote:I once knew somebody who got ten years for accidentally killing an old lady on a zebra crossing

I've dealt with cases where the driver killed someone in a genuine accident through a momentary lapse of concentration and none of then even went to prison, so there must have been a lot more to it than him `accidentally' killing her.

Ten years is an exceptionally heavy sentence, and is only available for the two most serious driving offences - causing death by dangerous driving and causing death by careless driving when under the influence of drink or drugs.

The Sentencing Guidelines (https://www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/wp ... deline.pdf) set out three levels of seriousness, and the most serious is level 1, which covers:

"The most serious offences encompassing driving that involved a deliberate decision to ignore (or a flagrant disregard for) the rules of the road and an apparent disregard for the great danger being caused to others"

And even for a level 1 offence the suggested starting point is 8 years, so I'm afraid your friend must have been driving like a lunatic or been drunk / drugged up to have got 10 years.

the remorse absolutely broke him.

My sympathies are limited.

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Re: Forensic collision investigation

#135036

Postby bungeejumper » April 27th, 2018, 8:13 am

Clitheroekid wrote:"The most serious offences encompassing driving that involved a deliberate decision to ignore (or a flagrant disregard for) the rules of the road and an apparent disregard for the great danger being caused to others"

And even for a level 1 offence the suggested starting point is 8 years, so I'm afraid your friend must have been driving like a lunatic or been drunk / drugged up to have got 10 years.

the remorse absolutely broke him.

My sympathies are limited.

Wouldn't argue with any of that, CK, no sympathy from me either. He was a peculiar geezer, and not a friend BTW - just somebody I knew. And doing sixty up a 40 mph urban dual carriageway in the middle of the night. No defence, no excuses from me. ;) Could also have been on the weed, which would have been in character. It still broke him, though, which I suppose was one better than the guy in this story?

WRT the sentencing (thanks for the pointer there BTW), does it explain anything if I say that this was 40 years ago? A time, I think, when sentencing guidelines were less rigidly adhered to?

BJ

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Re: Forensic collision investigation

#135039

Postby redsturgeon » April 27th, 2018, 8:30 am

bungeejumper wrote:
Clitheroekid wrote:"The most serious offences encompassing driving that involved a deliberate decision to ignore (or a flagrant disregard for) the rules of the road and an apparent disregard for the great danger being caused to others"

And even for a level 1 offence the suggested starting point is 8 years, so I'm afraid your friend must have been driving like a lunatic or been drunk / drugged up to have got 10 years.

the remorse absolutely broke him.

My sympathies are limited.

Wouldn't argue with any of that, CK, no sympathy from me either. He was a peculiar geezer, and not a friend BTW - just somebody I knew. And doing sixty up a 40 mph urban dual carriageway in the middle of the night. No defence, no excuses from me. ;) Could also have been on the weed, which would have been in character. It still broke him, though, which I suppose was one better than the guy in this story?

WRT the sentencing (thanks for the pointer there BTW), does it explain anything if I say that this was 40 years ago? A time, I think, when sentencing guidelines were less rigidly adhered to?

BJ


I'm not sure that it being 40 years ago is significant, apart perhaps for the judge having more leeway back then. Unfortunately, I had two friends who managed to kill pedestrians back in the 1970s. One when an old lady stepped into the path of his speeding motorcycle, probably 50 mph in a 30 limit. The other whose car left the road on a bend a few hundred yards after leaving the Rugby club where he has consumed several pints and was well over the limit. He happened to hit a poor woman walking along the pavement, who later died in hospital.

Both avoided custodial sentences.

John

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Re: Forensic collision investigation

#135046

Postby bungeejumper » April 27th, 2018, 9:02 am

redsturgeon wrote:Unfortunately, I had two friends who managed to kill pedestrians back in the 1970s. One when an old lady stepped into the path of his speeding motorcycle, probably 50 mph in a 30 limit. The other whose car left the road on a bend a few hundred yards after leaving the Rugby club where he has consumed several pints and was well over the limit. He happened to hit a poor woman walking along the pavement, who later died in hospital.

Both avoided custodial sentences.

I'd say your two friends were lucky, especially the first one. :( But I'd guess that there are quite a number of us who once drove (very occasionally) over the drink limit during our youthful pasts, and who still cringe at the memory, and the terrible thought of what might have happened? I fell off a motorbike doing that. :shock: It was the sort of behaviour that young men were supposed to grow out of - the real danger, we thought, were the fifty-something guys who would sink six pints three times a week and then climb into their Granadas "because they were only going a couple of miles, officer".

None of us deserve any excuses, or sympathy. Let's get that straight. Your chances of killing somebody were aguably lower than they would be now because of lower traffic density, but the risk to yourself was significantly higher because cars weren't so stable and safe as today's models. Still, it's the innocent other parties who this thread is about....

Another friend (a proper one this time!) bent his car the other week after dozing at the wheel while he was driving back (at night) from a particularly awful funeral. I know he would have been stone cold sober, because he always abstains before driving, but it was his very good fortune that he hit a traffic island and not a bus stop. And as for me, I well remember the time when I drove five miles home from the hospital after my old dad died, with all the windows open to keep me awake after a terrible all-night vigil. I should have taken a taxi, of course, but I wasn't thinking straight, and I had to get back to my mum. Bad decisions all the way, but there but for fortune go many of us, I imagine?

BJ

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Re: Forensic collision investigation

#135062

Postby Meatyfool » April 27th, 2018, 10:05 am

In agreement about everything said before, but at least there is something around the corner (may be a long corner) that protects us from these people (and even from ourselves).

Automated cars.

Although from the bleating and hand-wringing and knee-jerking following the uber fatality, you'd imagine automated cars will never make it onto the roads.

A case such as this makes me want it to happen sooner rather than later.

Meatyfool..

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Re: Forensic collision investigation

#135088

Postby swill453 » April 27th, 2018, 11:35 am

Meatyfool wrote:A case such as this makes me want it to happen sooner rather than later.

I've got nothing against fully automated cars, I'm sure it will happen and be great. But I still think the technology is 10-20 years away.

Scott.

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Uber, Tesla and invisible objects

#135102

Postby bungeejumper » April 27th, 2018, 12:08 pm

swill453 wrote:I've got nothing against fully automated cars, I'm sure it will happen and be great. But I still think the technology is 10-20 years away.

Needs another thread, really. I agree with both of you. But did you see this one? https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-model-s ... h-details/

Tesla following pick-up truck in Culver City at 65 mph. Pick-up truck suddenly swerves to avoid a fire engine that's parked in the middle of the road (on a call).

"Hey, that's cheating," says the Tesla car as it ploughs straight into the back of the fire engine. "I was supposed to be following the pick-up truck, not looking out for stupid stationary trucks in my path."

"Gawsh," says Tesla head office. “But we did warn you." "Traffic-Aware Cruise Control cannot detect all objects and may not brake/decelerate for stationary vehicles, especially in situations when you are driving over 50 mph (80 km/h) and a vehicle you are following moves out of your driving path and a stationary vehicle or object is in front of you instead.”

I paraphrase slightly. And it's a little doubtful whether a human driver would have done much better. But maybe he'd have been paying more attention to the whole scenario, not just locking onto the pick-up's back bumper?

BJ

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Re: Forensic collision investigation

#135104

Postby swill453 » April 27th, 2018, 12:23 pm

That's the same Tesla who's owner said "Yes, excessive automation at Tesla was a mistake. To be precise, my mistake. Humans are underrated."

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/984 ... 84?lang=en

( :D Sorry, I know he was talking about factory automation)

Scott.

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Re: Forensic collision investigation

#135240

Postby kiloran » April 27th, 2018, 8:14 pm

And another sad hit-and-run case..... driver just out of prison, drugged up with cocaine, 30 previous convictions, never had a licence or insurance, doing 60 in a 30 zone and killed two young kids.

9 years in jail (which presumably means 4-5 in practice).

Just can't be right.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-co ... e-43926623

--kiloran

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Re: Forensic collision investigation

#135392

Postby Clitheroekid » April 28th, 2018, 9:38 pm

kiloran wrote:And another sad hit-and-run case..... driver just out of prison, drugged up with cocaine, 30 previous convictions, never had a licence or insurance, doing 60 in a 30 zone and killed two young kids.

People like this really don't deserve to live. If I were the judge trying this case, and it was my last case before retirement I think I'd bring in a black pair of gloves and a black cap, and when these two scumbags were told to stand up while sentence was passed I'd say:

"The sentence of this court is that you will be taken from here to the place from whence you came and there be kept in close confinement until Friday the 13th day of July in the year of Our Lord two thousand and eighteen, and upon that day that you be taken to the place of execution and there hanged by the neck until you are dead. And may God have mercy upon your soul."

I bet the report wouldn't then read "Robert Brown and Gwendoline Harrison showed no emotion as they were sentenced"! ;)

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Re: Forensic collision investigation

#135450

Postby vrdiver » April 29th, 2018, 9:22 am

Clitheroekid wrote:If I were the judge trying this case, and it was my last case before retirement I think I'd bring in a black pair of gloves and a black cap, and when these two scumbags were told to stand up while sentence was passed I'd say:

"The sentence of this court is that you will be taken from here to the place from whence you came and there be kept in close confinement until Friday the 13th day of July in the year of Our Lord two thousand and eighteen, and upon that day that you be taken to the place of execution and there hanged by the neck until you are dead. And may God have mercy upon your soul."

I bet the report wouldn't then read "Robert Brown and Gwendoline Harrison showed no emotion as they were sentenced"! ;)

I'd love to read the newspapers the day after!

Although I don't think there'd be any "if" about it being your last case before retirement ;)

VRD

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Re: Forensic collision investigation

#136855

Postby tsr2 » May 4th, 2018, 1:18 pm



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