Driving to Lakeside with the family today, in very slow moving traffic.. A 15 plate, Discovery goes into the back of a Yaris, and the Yarris in to the back of my 5 series.. The woman in the discovery apologised and was in shock, as was the woman in the Yarris. The ambulance is called as the child in the Yarris hurt his back. The police also turned up.. They were charging the lady In the discovery for wreckless driving - as she said she thinks she looked down at the radio for a split second and then looked up she hit the car in front. (She is still in shock) Would this not be the same as saying I looked at the speedo.. She must attended a police course costing £295! She made a mistake, and is fully insured..I think the charges are just pants and a money making scheme!
To play devils advocate the outcome could have been a whole lot worse if it had been a biker rather than the Yaris. I recently attended a ride course despite being slightly aggrieved as I felt I was the innocent party, I attended with an open mind (every days a school day and all that) and I found it a really enlightening course.The instructor was an ex biker/ traffic cop and ROSPA instructor, there were the odd couple of riders who thought they had the greater knowledge who embarassed themselves throughout the course, better to keep ones gob shut than remove all doubt. I always thought my awareness and general riding was spot on.......how wrong I was!!
Firstly, sorry to hear about your unfortunate incident. Sorry to be pedantic, but first of all, there is no longer an offence of reckless driving as you had to prove a state of mind. It was replaced by dangerous driving where you only have to prove that the standard fell seriously below the standard expected of a reasonably safe and competent driver. Secondly, was she arrested? You do not get charged unless you are arrested. She woud have been reported for summons, big difference. But the real point of my post is that in 99% of cases, drivers do not go out with the deliberate intention of having a crash (there are always the odd exception to the rule), and in this case the Police would have realised that this was probably a slight lapse in concentration and therefore a driver awareness or improvement course would be more beneficial as she will still get clobbered on her insurance premiums as she has to declare an at fault crash, and being strict liability, she will have two drivers claiming off her insurance. It also frees up court time for those idiot drivers who need to be penalised, not always for those who have suffered a momentary lapse in concentration which everyone is guilty of at sme time in theor driving or riding career.
The fact that you learned something from the course doesn't necessarily make them right. As you say every day's a school day. The original courses where proposed by ex-chief police officer Merdydd Hughes to acpo, and undertaken by a firm chaired by him, using ex or serving police officers to do the courses. To me it all stinks of the "old boys network". A network that makes millions of pounds a year yet appears to have little effect on speeding and/or accident statistics. And, as you ask, no I've never had to do one.
Sorry for the incident mate. Hope you guys are alright. Yes these courses are money laundering but someone has to do it. So many stupid people out there who dont know how to drive but hey ho...
I ran into the back of a car on my bike when I was 17. Was completely my fault - no question. The police showed up and pointed out that I had been riding too close and when the car braked hard I couldn't stop in time. Result was bent forks, sore nuts and minimal damage to the car. No police action was taken as there were no injuries apart from sore nuts. This was in the days before police were stopped from using common sense and judgement. I do agree that there is way too much emphasis these days on extorting money from road users - it seems to be all Police Scotland actually do! That said, there are so many distractions these days for road users and modern cars are so insulating that it's easy to see how people lose concentration. Having been up the road on my arse a few times on bikes and seeing how other road users can at times "fail to see bikes", I like many bikers would consider myself to be a better car driver for it. Some people seem painfully lacking in awareness of how dangerous cars can actually be and for some a course to address this might be a good thing?
It's hard to argue that anyone who goes into the back of someone else on the road wasn't at least careless... You're supposed to leave enough room to stop for a reason... Back home, I believe it's pretty much automatic. You go up someones rear... You get a ticket.
