[Closed] Every day they ask 'when will we start feeling our legs again?'

If you drive like a massive **** in a vehicle weighing about 2 tonnes then killing or seriously injuring someone is a reasonably foreseeable consequence. To turn round and then say "I didn't mean to paralyse anyone" is a phrase that should be treated with utter contempt

How he can live with himself I don't know.
Suicide would have been the right thing to do.
I don't know the full story but we've all had the red mist descend whilst in our cars.
Let's remember these 2 little girls next time and just let it go.

If he'd been responsible for paralysing 2 little girls in some other way, rather then in a car I'm sure he wouldn't have got off so lightly.

^this.
cars are far too easy to drive too fast too comfortably and isolated from your surroundings. he should [u]at least[/u] never be allowed to drive a car again.

Tragic. He'll be out in 2 years and those girls + family will live with the consequences for the rest of their lives.

I heard on the radio that the maximum tariff for this offence is 5 years. Which begs the question why not 5 then?

I have no qualms in wishing pain on this dickhead.

Wishing rape on anyone is not cool, but I'd be quite happy with him being battered and brutalised every day of the measly sentence.

D0NK - Member
this?

Junkyard - lazarus
or the first reply.

What a horrible thing to happen to those poor girls.

My initial thoughts mirrored those shared on here so far, but on further reflection, I wonder whether my thoughts about the severity of sentencing are tempered by the extremely unfortunate and unlikely consequence. To play devil's advocate, would the outcome have been different if the collision was with a single male rep in a 3-series? Perhaps a fraction later or a fraction earlier the outcome would have been different. The sentence should reflect the crime not the consequence.

Clearly this guy is a low life of the worst calibre. But there are a lot of those still on the roads, unfortunately. I agree that a longer driving ban would be entirely appropriate though.

Superficial - Member
The sentence should reflect the crime not the consequence.

I feel like I know him though, he's one of those "professional" drivers, arrogant, conceited, sure of his own abilities and the vehicle he commands. Probably held court in the local pub discussing the merits of one car over another, maybe he even does the same on social media. He's a petrolhead, obsessed by car culture.

The real problem not this individual, there are thousands like him and the only way to stop this type of thing happening is to regulate vehicles down to levels all people can be trusted with.

Revenge is a natural human emotion.... if he did that to any kids of mine, being raped in prison would be the least of his worries

The real problem not this individual, there are thousands like him and the only way to stop this type of thing happening is to regulate vehicles down to levels all people can be trusted with.

What utter crap. I've read some shite on here, but this takes the biscuit. It's his fault, no one else's.

cars are far too easy to drive too fast too comfortably and isolated from your surroundings. he should at least never be allowed to drive a car again.

He has proved himself to be wholly unsuited to driving. He should be banned for life

Aye, driving is a privilege, not a right.

Will his insurers use the criminal element of his behaviour to refuse the claim? If so, I hope that the family take every penny and possession he has to pay for their rehabilitation and care.

He wasemployed by land rover as a senior manager, and also a driving instructor of theor vehicles, along with driving a company vehicle.

Hopefully landrover will now look at the driving and employment records of all their staff who are given company vehicles, in their statement they just say he no longer works for them, bloody obvious hes in prison.

i wonder if without the video he would have been convicted at all and certainly not of these serious offenses ?

@project I know banks used to treat serious driving offenses like drink driving of anyone with a company car as automatic gross misconduct and dismissal

JY not trolling and I don't agree with what was posted here re skinheads and male rape but maybe it would be "as ok" if the driver had been a woman and she was going to a womans prison to have suggested something similar ?

He's a petrolhead, obsessed by car culture.

If he'd been responsible for paralysing 2 little girls in some other way, rather then in a car I'm sure he wouldn't have got off so lightly.

This.

The things you can get away with just because you do them in a car*.

* on other threads this might be a cue for jokes. Not here please.

What utter crap. I've read some shite on here, but this takes the biscuit. It's his fault, no one else's.

Yes, it's his fault and tomorrow it will be someone else's fault and so on and so on, you can either try to stop humanity producing ****s or produce cars that even ****s can drive safely.

Those poor girls. I read this earlier and I couldn't stop thinking about them. Heartbreaking.

He was prosecuted for his driving, not the actual effects of that driving

going back up the thread a bit, but this is a bit that annoys me. (not you, poster, but the principle)

This is where drivers get the best of both worlds. Sentencing is made up of culpability (how much of a dick were you), aggravation (how hard were you trying to be a dick) and mitigation (can you claim something made you a dick, or, did you do your best to be less of a dick after the incident?). And all within the context of sentencing guidelines.

Neither the impact nor the [i]potential[/i] of the offence is explicitly taken into account in the sanction.

BUT we see criminally bad driving EVERYDAY, yet even if there is a prosecution, if no one is maimed or killed the sanction is at the lower end regardless of whether you could have easily killed someone.

So if you drive like a dick and dont kill anyone, you get done for driving like a dick. If you drive like a dick and then kill someone, you still just get done for driving like a dick rather than having the gearbox of a transit van shoved up your arse.

The sentence should reflect the crime not the consequence

[quote=wilburt ]

Yes, it's his fault and tomorrow it will be someone else's fault and so on and so on, you can either try to stop humanity producing ****s or produce cars that even ****s can drive safely.

That is a very good point IMO.

Do we really need motors with massive horsepower, 160+ mph top sped yadda yadda on roads which are already very congested and struggling to cope with the demands of all road users.

as a small state kind of person, I wouldnt necessarily want anything over 30bhp banned, but instead, how about adding car power to aggravating factors in sentencing? If you choose to drive a powerful car and get it wrong, you pony up to a much more hefty sanction.

allthepies - Member

Do we really need motors with massive horsepower, 160+ mph top sped yadda yadda on roads which are already very congested and struggling to cope with the demands of all road users.

It made no difference whatsoever here. Fairly little dangerous driving is dependent on powerful cars. Maybe there's an argument for it but it's not this argument.

it should reflect both

Try this: Imagine If the man in question had performed the same manoeuvre (chasing someone, then aggressive undertaking, followed by turning across traffic without looking) but in an alternate reality no one was hurt but it was still caught on dashcam. The potential for harm (at the point in time he made the decision) was the same or actually higher (what if a third girl was in the car in my hypothetical situation?). Should he be jailed for 4 years? Even without hurting anyone? You may argue yes - in which case: has this ever happened?

My nephew drove and crashed a car in which his passenger was killed.
In sentencing the judge took into account the fact that he had a job,a steady girlfriend and had a good reference from his girlfriend's mum who was a senior police officer.
He escaped a custodial sentence. Even though we were relieved that he didn't go to prison I failed to see why an unemployed ,single person should have been treated differently.

The context of my point was a wider one (than this specific incident), in response/agreement to wilburt's post.

If you like, when I go to work on Monday I'll check on NOMIS & let you all know which prison he's in, even which cell on which wing, so you can all write to him. I'll even have his prison number.

Actually I may check if I remember but I won't post it anywhere.

I'll know something you lot won't. 😉

If you choose to drive a powerful car and get it wrong, you pony up to a much more hefty sanction.

Pony - Mustang - Coincidence?

You could also get adverts saying "Kill someone in this Fiat Panda- the internet thinks that isn't such a big crime".

So I really don't see that working.

Thats a disgracefully lenient sentence...like a few others, I live only a few miles from that junction and see that type of stuff regularly.
He needs to have his licence revoked indefinitely.
I just hope the victims are compensated as best as they can be.
****er! 😡

It is about time we started banning people from driving for life. If you cannot be trusted behind the wheel of a very lethal object then you should not be driving.

The sentences for this kind of thing also need to be greatly increased IMO. 10 years per girl would still be far to little in my eyes.

This is ****ing ridiculous, that could have been done in a 1.0L micra. Would it have made it any better? NO!
Wilburts post was bollocks!
Some of the very worst/most dangerous driving I see is by over aged people in small engined cars.
Stupid beyond words.

BUT we see criminally bad driving EVERYDAY,

Not often I agree with Wrecker but yeah. Totally that.

Regulating safety into cars doesnt just mean limiting power(although that would probably be part of it) it probably means a range of restrictions like speed controls or weight limits and whatever else great brains can come up with that collectively reduce both the likelyhood and consequences of an accident.

The only real obstacle to this is the sales model of manufacturers that positions a transport device as a sports and status product and causes people to idolise them.

I know cars are fun but are they really worth this?

Looking at the vid:

The impact was directly on the outside, turn-weighted, font/side corner of the LR; directly over the structurally-reinforced members necessary for holding the wheel of a 4x4 on to the bodywork and the front drivegear. It would then preceded to load the reinforced beams around the engine, and finally the oncoming car would have encountered the engine itself, which is very very heavy in a 4x4 like that.

There isn't much more of a high energy crash possible.

Considering the type of crash caused, the vehicle in question, the drivers occupation/"vocation", the road-rage element and the harm caused, I think the driver should be put away for a long long time, and I also find the sentence far too lenient. Yuk.

A question keeps going round in my head about the nature of the injuries of the victims. There were 2 adults and 2 children in the car hit, all 4 suffered injuries. The driver wasn't crippled and it seems that the front seat passenger wasn't either, so how could the 2 ( presumably ) back seat passengers have suffered such serious harm ? I know little of the nature of physics in a car crash, but would have thought that those in the front of the vehicle would have suffered the most harm.

He certainly is a nutcase. Chasing a lady in people carrier in a road rage incident and causing a huge destructive crash is horrifying. I hit a lady in a crash with similar angle and alot lower speeds and the impact was pretty hefty, and that was in a car that weighed half of what a LR would weigh.
I do wonder what he would have done if he not crashed and caught the lady in the mpv? punched her to the ground ? Rammed her off the road as well?

So he caused a crash by driving like a complete idiot, which has lead to life changing injuries to at these 2 girls. What do we think should be the sentance handed out by the judge?

10 year driving ban
8 years custodial sentance
Fine of £10,000

Or more, maybe ? He does have to live with the guilt of what he has done for the rest of his life. It was an accident , he didnt leave the house with the intention of smashing headlong into an oncoming car. 2 seconds earlier and he would have missed them, 2 seconds later and they would be past the point of impact.
Yes he was chasing someone in a rage filled fury , I dont know what the other car did to warrant this, probably pulled out from a petrol station in front of him or something else insignificant. He then got all stabby and chased them. It must happen everyday. Its happened to me many years ago. But no one got hurt that time.

@cranbery - I'd guess it was todo with the description I provided above, plus the rotational element of the impact. Based on the centre of gravity of the Vauxhall [near the front] and the direction of the oncoming LR, the rear of the Vauxhall would have spun around relative to the front, and this could result in higher rotational forces further away from the CoG, and therefore more acceleration/g's in those locations.

So he caused a crash by driving like a complete idiot, which has lead to life changing injuries to at these 2 girls. What do we think should be the sentance handed out by the judge?
[b]
[i]10 year driving ban[/i][/b]
8 years custodial sentance
Fine of £10,000

Given the number of a taxi company and told that he is never, ever, allowed to drive a vehicle of any description again.

Or more, maybe ? He does have to live with the guilt of what he has done for the rest of his life. It was an accident , he didn't leave the house with the intention of smashing headlong into an oncoming car. 2 seconds earlier and he would have missed them, 2 seconds later and they would be past the point of impact.

As I read it he pleaded not guilty, so I think he will be more sorry for Himself than the two children.
Secondly it was not an accident. Accidents are unavoidable. He could have avoided the collision by driving within the rules of the road.
I would vote yes for leathal injection as a punishment.

 

Regarding the crash:

Hitting the chassis leg side on like that should be a bit better than hitting straight on as straight on the design case is to resist the full energy of an offset head on crash so a car rated for 3500kg is bloody strong. More side on like that means you are hitting a square crash structure on it's corner so it should fold in a bit more and is allowed to do so as the impact case is not so severe for the car occupants as the load direction is not inline with the occupants so the front can effectively be ripped off sideways with less risk to occupants. Same way you can lose control of a Ferrari at over 100mph and crash sideways into a telegraph pole and have the whole back end rip off but walk away. It has to be a hollow box due to the engine but yes eventually inside that hollow box is an engine which is not going to deform. It will break free from it's mounts though. Hitting a wheel itself can be very bad as it is built very strong but if you look on the daily mail stills then the camera does capture the split second after impact where you can see both cars bodywork deforming and absorbing the crash. Hitting wheels is especially bad for motorbikes, at least a door skin has some give before the side impact bar.

I think the deformation of both cars crash structures saved the lives of the driver and possibly his wife. They were fully grown adults so much stronger bodies and most likely better restrained due to their size and airbags and I have absolutely no doubt in cars from 10-15 years ago they would be in a much worse state.

The kids however, the are paralysed from the waist down which suggests the lap belt forces were just to strong. Sadly you have practical limitations to safety equipment and people dont want the hassle of racing harnesses in an everyday car. Despite all the crumple zones slowing down the deceleration they were still hitting a Discovery that weights about 2500-2700kg so about 1000kg more than their Signum and it was not a slow impact. Maybe the kids were not optimally seated either (booster seats etc) but I can't comment on that. They are little girls and their bodies just are not up to those kinds of loads without serious injury. There could have also been luggage in the back which hit their seats and again you can only design for so much within practical reason.