How long did it take them to investgigate the 'crime scene' and stop the rest of the population using the road from earning any money?
HJ
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I bet thats one video that won't feature on "Police, Camera, Action!"
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You haven't been watching Smokey and the Bandit, have you?
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I take exception to this post by HJ. As somebody who investigates serious and fatal accidents, I am sick of being abused by ignorant and selfish people, at the same time as a body is being removed from the car.
Of course, it's a conspiracy by the Police to annoy you, we really enjoy pulling mangled men, women and children from cars and then going to inform the families. If it was your family you would want answers, as they all do. How would you feel if we just swept up the glass and left. I suggest you have some patience and understanding, or just perhaps get a life!
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Completely agree with you Midlifecrisis, and have attempted to give a similar explaination on previous occasions. Unfortunately some people think their lives are more important than anyone elses, even those who have just lost a loved one.
I'm quite disturbed by the apparent amount of glee being shown on this thread as a whole. Police Officers are human you know, they have collisions too.
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Completely agree with you Midlifecrisis, and have attempted to give a similar explaination on previous occasions. Unfortunately some people think their lives are more important than anyone elses, even those who have just lost a loved one.
Get over it. You're born and at some point you die. It's a fact of life, or death.
Once you're dead you're dead. Life goes on for the rest of us. No amount of investigation is going to resurect you!
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Get over it. You're born and at some point you die. It's a fact of life, or death. Once you're dead you're dead. Life goes on for the rest of us. No amount of investigation is going to resurect you!
(Apologies if this is about to be a post that Mark needs to delete, but even after thinking about it for 24 hours I can't let it go...)
PDC..
If your wife/mother/father/son etc was attacked at random in the street and later died, would you just accept it and say "Get over it, you're born and at some point you die"? I doubt it. You'd want it investigated and the person at fault brought to justice. I can't see how this is any different to someone being killed on the road.
I had some small involvement (I didn't do it!) in the investigation into the death of a prominent restaurant owner earlier this year, and the scene was sealed off for weeks! At last the family could have some sort of closure over why on earth their relative had been killed, and relief that the person responsible had been caught. I didn't hear anyone complaining about the fact that they couldn't have a chinese meal on a friday night, or they couldn't walk and go about their business on that piece of street for a few weeks.
I can see that I just don't think the same as many people on this thread, so I'll leave it there.
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My word MLC - I would not like to meet you on a bad day non the beat - Calm down dear - its only an opinion!
I make no apology for agreeing wholeheartedly with HJ.
I accept that the scene has to be cleared and the matter investigated properly but the fact is that it seems to take far too long due to the 'regulations' being followed to the letter.
I have started a couple of threads in the past about this - one referred to the weeks closedown of Tower Bridge Road due to the Spider man protest and the other was a 12 hour plus closedown at the M11 / M25 junction. The cost in human misery and monetary terms was horrendous
Who makes these closedown decisions and is responsible for the endless delays , misery , congestion and cost that they cause.
And yes MLC - I have every sympathy with the families of those killed - it was the first thing I said in my thread.
IMO there needs to be a more balanced and reasonable approach by the police.
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I don't think anyone objects to closing the motorway while casualties are being tended to, it's the four hours later while plod is faffing about with coloured sticks and theodolytes that annoys everyone. People crash, it happens, nobody will learn from all these enquiries, so just get the traffic moving again asap. But then what's the point of power if you don't abuse it?
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I agree, its all the policeman's fault. We should revile them for it.
The police maliciously wrote endless regulations and then deliberately follow them to the letter. Its all a campaign by them to bring down the economy of the UK.
Its all their fault; its not like someone else inflicted all the red-tape on them and its not like they would be damned by the Sun and the rest of our "oh so intelligent" media and readers if they ever failed to follow something to the letter of the law and something went wrong.
Obviously the police have nothing better to do and prefer to hand around accident sites as long as possible laughing at the queues and bringing down the UK economy is just a bonus to them.
What complete and utter rubbish.
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I believe the point has been made in the past Mark that the Police are now forced by regulations to treat a crash as a potential 'crime scene' by recent EU? legislation.
You will note that I made no reference to 'blame or fault' on the police, it just seems to me and others , amongst them HJ that these new regulations are being observed to the n'th degree with no apparent thought of the consequences to literally thousands of trapped motorists.
If police take the decision not to re-open the road when it appears to be clear of casualties then we surely have the right to question those officers responsible.
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I believe the point has been made in the past Mark that the Police are now forced by regulations to treat a crash as a potential 'crime scene' by recent EU? legislation.
Are they not a potential crime scene then? Were the drivers involved in any given crash drunk, drugged, driving without insurance, licence, underage, in stolen cars, without due care, on bald tyres... I could go on--you don't know until you investigate, do you? If any of these things were questioned in court and the police had not investigated thoroughly there would (rightly) be uproar. If you're going to lock someone up for killing someone on the road, you'd better be sure you have evidence they were to blame.
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Yes I agree it is always a potential crime scene.
I believe it was DVD who raised the point of 'crime ' rather than accident scene and the response that the police have to make according to new regulations.I cannot find the relevant thread at the moment ( supposed to be working !)
Leaving aside this element of the argument I would just like to return to the fathers for justice 'Spiderman' tower crane protest where Tower Bridge Road was closed for a week causing appalling congestion in central London.
When questioned the police apparently said he was a potential suicide and they had to close the road despite the guy telling them he had no intention of topping himself.
This road closure decision must have cost many millions of pounds and endless delays and yet no one seems to be concerned as to who is answerable for what in IMO was an immense over reaction.
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Of course you're entitled to your opinion, but what if the guy had been lying? Intending suicides are not known for their honesty and protesters are liable to do something daft/dangerous without warning--the bloke was at the top of a crane after all. What would you have done instead? And to keep this on topic, what would you do about a serious accident on the M6, just sweep up the glass?
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I would do the same as on any other motorway. Casualties to hospital or morgue , wreckage to police pound for investigation. Make as many observations as to position of vehicles , skid marks as possible within a reasonable time and DD's 90 minutes maximum seems reasonable to me .
The point I am making is that all the investigations in the world, crime scene or not are going to make someone come back to life.
If there are casualties then yes we wait until the ambulance has gone but then open the road asap.
Is it worth a cost of millions of pounds to obtain a possible prosecution for causing death or injury by dangerous driving?
In the current scheme of things the sentence is likely to be minor.
You have to be sensible about these matters and I don't want to be seen as a 'police knocker ' but it seems to me that the reaction to the M25 /M11 closure was OTT as a result of a senior police officer being knocked off his motorbike.
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You only have to look at how many police cars turn up for a minor incident to realise they often don't have anything better to do.
Talking of abuse of power, I think it's an abuse of power to call my, and others, opinion complete and utter rubbish whilst using the identity of moderator.
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>>I think it's an abuse of power to call my, and others, opinion complete and utter rubbish whilst using the identity of moderator.
Don't be ridiculous. Would it be better if I pretended I wasn't ? How about if I was writing here under another name as well ? Would all your fears about bias go away ?
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Talking of abuse of power, I think it's an abuse of power to call my, and others, opinion complete and utter rubbish whilst using the identity of moderator.
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The moderators sign themselves as moderators when doing that task else they omit it.
The response was a personal comment.
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I've just finished investigating a fatal accident. On the face of it, it appeared to be the fault of the person who died. However that 'faffing' about with coloured sticks and theodolytes, along with skid tests, revealed that the other driver involved in the collision was travelling at 52mph (30mph limit.) They also revealed that if he had been travelling at 30, he would have stopped 9 meters before the point of impact.
Maybe if it had been your wife or mother, you would have a different outlook. We are not bound by regulations, we work to discover the cause and ensure the guilty are punished. There are also many areas where junctions etc. are adjusted because of our findings.
Nobody likes being stuck in traffic, but a little less ignorance would go a long way.
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Yes regulations how often at crash scenes do you actually see a policeman sweep the road or help to physically move the vehicles-you do not
Each accident scene needs first a risk assessment hence these days roads are closed for so long.
While driving through France recently there was a bad accident and you should have seen the speed and way the police handled this--the road was kept open and traffic moved-like it used to here before risk assessment etc.
Only my thoughts but here its the Health and Safety crazy syndrome.
And yes I have seen Police drive without resepct for other road users in the course of their normal driving-no indication,speeding etc etc.
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I'm sure some of our ex-pats could relate stories regarding overseas crashes where the police response consisted of no more than shunting the wreckage to the side. Very convenient for the other drivers but would you really consider that better than the treatment given by the British police?
The police do the job they have to with increasing levels of red tape and decreasing levels of public support.
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>>> I'm sure some of our ex-pats could relate stories regarding overseas crashes where the police response consisted of no more than shunting the wreckage to the side.
I could and so could Ian I have no doubt and some would curdle your blood. I don't want to spoli your elevenses but how about a bus driver knocking a pedestrian down then backing over him/her to make sure it's a corpse and not an injury. Bus company instructions to all drivers, paying funeral expenses than protracted hospital ones is cheaper for the bus company. True. Qiuck visit to the local Traffic Shop, brown envelope and tailored police report overlooks fact driver was on amphetamines to stay awake after driving 600km that day. Somebody would be posted behind the bus to wave a dirty rag at oncoming traffic to warn it out of the way. In a day or so a tow truck would be found to get rid of it.
If I was the driver, regardless of whose fault it was, I would be expected to rush the victim to hospital (ambulances are all private and generally used only by people wealthy enough to find one, and then the traffic wouldn't let one through anyway - oh it's probably just some fat pig of a congressman who just had a hear attack so let him die anyway, like you we really have great feelings of affection for our crooked politicians) and sign my life away that I would shoulder all expenses.
Then pay a large deposit. Victim won't get any treatment until money on the table, unless it's a charity hospital and believe me you wouldn't want to be confined in one of those. I would be cuffed and shuffled off in an orange suit to be paraded before the cameras on ABS-CBN primetime news, till my lazy lawyer finished her game of mah-jjong at the Polo Club and came to intercede. What she would basically do for her shilling would be to tell the police what to write in the report and
Without any court appearance, which might take weeks if she can't bail me out I would be introduced as a "homicidial foreign driver" or some such. Then it would be off to the jail where 60 men sleep standing up in a 30 m2 non a/c cell in 40 C heat and use one bucket in the corner. My relatives would have to being me food because there's none in the jail unless I bribe a guard and the jail captain would suggest sotto voce that for a million or so - call that 10,000 quid, the whole affair could be forgotten. I know several expats with real tales like this.
But at least the motorway wouldn't be closed for hours!!!!!----
so nobody else would have much to complain about like you lot, except the 30 relatives of the victim who would somehow all find a reason to demand financial support for the suffering and loss I had caused them.
My point is that I'm tempted to think I'd much rather consign my fate to the UK constabulary than the bunch of thugs and the system where I live, if a few people get held up a while, well, tough you know what. Get over it. Don't blame the cops. You know that old one about organisations being like monkeys in a tree. The monkeys at the top look down and see a lot of happy smiling faces, the ones lower down the tree look up and a lot of, well, you know what they see a lot of.
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>>> I'm sure some of our ex-pats could relate stories regarding overseas crashes where the police response consisted of no more than shunting the wreckage to the side. I could and so could Ian I have no doubt and some would curdle your blood.
True, G.
Our local yokels, back in the 'old days' used to have large Chevy's, with 'nudge bars' fitted, so in the vent of a smash, the offending vehicles and bits of car which were holding up the traffic flow were simply bulldozed to the side of the road.
These days we are far more civilised ... the chances of the traffic police (Our traffic boys are a seperate lot to the crime-busting types) turning up at an accident site before the towtrucks arrive is quite good!
The towtruckers are normally redneck types driving super-dooper pick-ups with a-frames in the back, capable of doing 200kmh plus.
They are vultures who feed on misfortune, and there are tales of blokes signing their vehicle over to these clowns, after a smash, only to be hit with a 'towing and storage' bill of close to a quarter ofd the value of the car. But I digress...
The Towboys KNOW that often the accident victims have just had a knock, and if their car isn't mobile, and they've both had a few toots (remakably common here) then plod will whisk them away (More on this later). So the trucker's remove the evidence, insurance pays out...
My point is that I'm tempted to think I'd much rather consign my fate to the UK constabulary than the bunch of thugs and the system where I live, if a few people get held up a while, well, tough you know what.
Aaah - so what happens IF you get caught for Drunk Driving, for example?
Depends where you are. If you are in a semi-decent neighbourhood, you'll get the police to give you bail, to appear in court the next working day... BUT if the cops are in a nasty mood, or you can't raise bail, or you can't get hold of your lawyer, the chance of being thrown into a cell overnight with a bunch of lowlife (oh, and some of our lowlife is very very low) is very high.
There are accounts of chaps being gang-raped by these types, which is a bit of a chiller when you consider that in some parts of the country AIDS is running at 25% of the population...
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"There are also many areas where junctions etc. are adjusted because of our findings."
Yup that used to be the case. Traffic engineers would be instructed, and safety improvements would take place.
Not now. A camera will go up. Money will be made. And the rozzers that used to patrol that length of road will end up stuck in the station filling out 18 sheets of paper to charge some person with nicking a bra from M&S.
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I have sympathy with both viewpoints having been stuck for hours myself but also having worked with the Police (as a civvy) at accident scenes for over 10 years . Isn't it time a system of managing the holdups was compulsorily forced onto someone like the relevant Local Authority ( not the Police)? Information given to those trapped "You will not be able to move for at least 2 hours" , some basic facilities rapidly provided -temporary toilets , water, basic food after a certain time etc. ,someone on hand to deal with any medical problems that always arise , basic crisis management . We are probably now stuck with the situation so lets learn to cope with it .
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Did they get out the cars and say ello, ello, ello, ello to each other?
If there was four of them, and each one exchanged greetings with all her colleagues, then there are 12 greetings to be made. That's twelve sets of "ello, ello, ello, ello", or 48 "ello"s.
Just thought you'd like to know that. Or maybe not ...
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I believe the most common expression used by that fraternity these days is 'I'm obliged'.
Possibly not used on this occasion though.
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You'd have to have a heart of stone not to laugh.
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Training? two pages of Roadcraft must have been glued together with something damp and sticky....
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anyone who does a job that I wouldn't like to do is a better man than me. i couldn't scrape brain off the road.
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