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Awavey wrote:

Threads ?...everyone from GenX going  https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2019/jan/08/how-we-made-threads

Yep - very much my reaction.

Threads ... one of the best films to come out of 1984.
Scared the crap out of many.

Thinking about this.

This was a civil case for damages. I suspect that given the defence postion was that they were blameless, they received no punishment for their driving from the police.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-66120180

Another fucking wankpanzer.
2.5 T of metal that poses a great deal of risk to any vulnerable user

I was luck to be only clipped by a wing mirror of one of those in a narrow lane when on a walk.

If you look at the streetview and the angle of the car, there are barriers metal barriers outside the gates, metal gates and new fences. It piled through those like they were not there looking at the force of the impact on the building itself. 

It could have missed the metal barriers if the vehicle came out of the Golf Centre opposite the school but then that raised questions on how fast it could accelerate to make the damage. 

I'm sure Kim Briggs will be behind a campaign to remove such completely unnecessary vehicles from the roads regardless of the cause of the incident.

IanMSpencer wrote:

Shocking addition for the car crashes into building forum thread from Wimbledon where inevitably eventually there would be an incident where a driver managed to seriously injure 8 adults and children while hitting a school, that admittedly wasn't bedecked in hi-viz. Perhaps the major news outlets should be apprised of the forum thread here. No arrests yet. Presumably these things just happen.

The driver, a woman in her 40s, arrested for causing death by dangerous driving after a pupil has now died.  Just horrific. I can't imagine what scene must have greeted the emergency services 

It seems to me that the only likely scenario is an accelerator instead of a brake mix up, given that it is apparently a narrow road with parked cars, but we will have to see.

Three factors will have excacerbated the incident:

1. A heavy off road vehicle being used in an urban environment.

2. A very powerful engine, providing acceleration and speed way beyond the needs of a vehicle in the UK.

3. In the event of an uncontrolled acceleration, with all the safety gear now available, a top of the line, all gizmos car has no detection system to stop uncontrolled acceleration through multiple objects. I thought a modern car would have collision avoidance as standard (Perhaps overridden by kickdown acceleration?).

At Longbridge island on the M40 yesterday I watched another Defender "nip up" the Warwick exit, cross solid hatched area to undertake the lorry setting off from the traffic lights to head down the M40, cross the M40 exit, swtich lanes to the A429, switch to lane 4 for the next traffic lights then swing across all 4 lanes to exit on the A429. The driver was treating what is basically a light goods vehicle like a BMW M3. An anecdote to show that drivers of these extremely heavy vehicles have no perception of the risks they impose on other drivers, regardless of the dangerous driving.

It is time to have a serious conversation about type approval for use on UK roads.

IanMSpencer wrote:

It seems to me that the only likely scenario is an accelerator instead of a brake mix up, given that it is apparently a narrow road with parked cars, but we will have to see.

There are lots of possible scenarios, I don't consider confusing the pedals to be any more likely than intentionally using her vehicle as a weapon.

It could be lots of scenarios. I strongly suspect that even the police don't know what happened, so any speculation on this website is, at best, pointless, and at worst, distasteful.

Condolences to the family of the poor 8 year old who was tragically killed here.

the little onion wrote:

It could be lots of scenarios. I strongly suspect that even the police don't know what happened, so any speculation on this website is, at best, pointless, and at worst, distasteful.

Condolences to the family of the poor 8 year old who was tragically killed here.

The Sun had an article about it this morning which includes the following

The Sun wrote:

An unnamed dad slammed the 20mph road by the school as an "accident waiting to happen".

He said it was "too busy" and that "nobody knows" who has the right of way as the road tightens into a bottleneck.

So apparently the road layout is so confusing that no blame can be assigned to all those drivers in their three tonne wankpanzers... 

I can't help feeling this advert, the use of the Defender as the courtesy car at Wimbledon and the accident will have serious reputational repercussions.

I could be wrong but almost a century after this propaganda campaign shifting the blame to the victims (end of article) was wildly successful I think people are completely habituated to this.  Same opinion as RoadPeace really - it's dreadful for relatives but we've made driving "safe" so the proportion of those close to tragedy is very small.

People will shake their heads on hearing the news but that will last 5 minutes tops and will change nothing.  Following social practices the legal system will be looking to class this as one of "terrorist" / "wrong'un", careless (not very culpable at all) and then we're down to "medical" and "tragic accident".  Won't you think of how it's affected the poor driver?

Humans times vehicles is a problem even with roller skates and cycles; much more so when those vehicles are well over 10 times their weight and rapidly get up to 30mph on their way much faster.  Without a completely different approach - one involving different civil engineering and a fair bit of a culture change - this is inevitable.  But allowing the market to put even bigger and less safe vehicles (even for the operators) into public spaces is just the result of corruption stupid.

IanMSpencer wrote:

I can't help feeling this advert, the use of the Defender as the courtesy car at Wimbledon and the accident will have serious reputational repercussions.

In this post-truth, post-shame world?
Not so sure.

Do they not know or do they not care? Our justice system kind of suggests they shouldn't really care. Hit and kill a cyclist because you don't have a licence and were doing 58 in a 40, 7 months in jail. 

Theres a reason people don't give a shit about driving safely and its largely due to a complete lack of consequences when you actually hurt someone. 

1 person dead === 7 months in prison. Let that sink in. A life for 7 months. 

A Landrover *does* have such an emergency stop system, but it can be overridden.

If it is anything like my 2018 Skoda Superb, it should also have a logging function to let the police find out what was happening with the vehicle.

PRSboy wrote:

IanMSpencer wrote:

Shocking addition for the car crashes into building forum thread from Wimbledon where inevitably eventually there would be an incident where a driver managed to seriously injure 8 adults and children while hitting a school, that admittedly wasn't bedecked in hi-viz. Perhaps the major news outlets should be apprised of the forum thread here. No arrests yet. Presumably these things just happen.

The driver, a woman in her 40s, arrested for causing death by dangerous driving after a pupil has now died.  Just horrific. I can't imagine what scene must have greeted the emergency services 

The cynic in me wonders whose child goes to that school, that the police have dived in with 'death by dangerous driving' rather than the more common 'careless' or 'NFA - honest mistake, could happen to anyone'... 

brooksby wrote:

The cynic in me wonders whose child goes to that school...

People who pay £16695 a year.

Over the limit or failed drug test would do it.

The driver who slowly drove into the gates at Downing Street whilst appearing to slow to avoid pedestrians was charged with Dangerous Driving. I was happy as it seemed to set a standard on what is dangerous and what is careless so was looking forward to seeing lots more of the latter charges. 

PRSboy wrote:

The driver, a woman in her 40s, arrested for causing death by dangerous driving after a pupil has now died.  Just horrific. I can't imagine what scene must have greeted the emergency services 

The BBC article says:

"Sixteen people were treated at the scene and 10 were taken to hospital

There is no news yet on the extent of their injuries, but local MP Stephen Hammond has told the BBC he understands some are in a critical condition"

My sympathies are with the family of the 8 year old child who was killed and those injured in this incident.

Stop de kindermoord.

Perhaps one day the tide will turn...