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Ah, HJ. The hedonic calculus. I quite agree.
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Three of us wrote pretty much the same post at the same time. So we must be right.
HJ
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So will the relevant Chief Constable like to make a comment. Perhaps apologise to the thousands of innocents who had their travel plans disrupted. Having lost a relative as a result of a motor accident the need for a proper investigation is not disputed, but 7 hours of misery caused by this closure seems excessive.
Roll on the new motorway patrols and their aims of getting the traffic moving.
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Woa just a mo.
You, the public, have decreed as a result of complaints, that where Plod chases someone, blasts off a round and in the end a person is seriously injured or death occurs then Plod alone should not investigate such matters.
IPCA, an Independent Body (Independent Police Complaints Authority) have to be called in to supervise/investigate the incident. Result Plod cannot do a whitewash - as if.
Job cannot be bodged through fast in and out no longer so you have to put up with delays etc.
That's the way the world is working thse days.
dvd
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But we don't have to put up with ridiculous delays. We just have to SHOUT VERY LOUDLY INDEED that we do not wish to put up with them any longer. We have to get lousy law changed.
HJ
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Hmmm
Sorry, but I think I have to side with DVD here.
Whether or not 7 hours is a reasonable time to do a proper investigation I don't know, but we have to be careful not to jump to conclusions about the value in getting to the truth of what happened.
OK, so I wasn't on the road when it was closed but having faced unpredicted road closures in the past, like the one on the M3 when I was on my way to see an MP at the House of Commons a few years ago, there is usually a fallback solution available. In the case above we simply diverted to the nearest town, parked the car and took the train in.
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Oh come on. I must confess, I'm a little surprised at the responses here given the informed people who post.
Do you really think that the Police say "Right then lads - the accident's cleared up but lets drag things out to annoy all the motorists"
Of course not.
All the accident clear-ups I've seen, and been told about by the very cops who clear then up have been executed with speed in order to minimise the time the road's closed, whilst gathering the evidence needed.
I'd happily the road was closed as long as needs be if it meant all the evidence was gathered.
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Adam
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Well Adski and Hugo have just applied the sort of reasoning that will finish off this country. A couple of years later than mainstream EU, maybe, but just as dead. Could you imagine China closing the main route between Beijing and Shanghai for 7 hours because the police had an 'incident' with someone they were chasing?
HJ
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Well Adski and Hugo have just applied the sort of reasoning that will finish off this country.......
As I said above, I don't know whether 7 hours is a reasonable or excessive time to carry out such an investigation, this would surely depend on a number of factors ranging from the location of crime scene investigators to availability of vehicles to tow away any carniage that was created as a result. However when an incident has occurred the powers that be need to get to the bottom of it.
When the road was closed off I suspect that the need to confirm the cause of death etc was paramount on the minds of the police. I know if it was a relative or close friend of mine I would want questions answered, and this would have been in the minds of the people in charge. If they just cleared the scene without being able to do a proper investigation then this thread could be full of allegations of a whitewash.
In short, as DVD indicated, we can't have it both ways.
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>>Could you imagine China closing the main route between Beijing and Shanghai for 7 hours because the police had an 'incident' with someone they were chasing
Could you imagine anyone in China making an official complaint and trying to sue the police because someone they were chasing had shot themselves ? Well it would happen here.
And as for Adski and Hugo and their reasoning, at least that included trying to understand the problem.
And finishing off the country ? No, that will be done by people who demand things without understanding what they are screaming for. Like the people who screamed that everytime a policeman does his job there should be a full investigation.
A little less shouting, whining and demanding and a little more thinking is what is required.
Or do you truly believe that the police shut the road for a laugh ?
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Where I live in Chicago there are many, many level crossings, or grade crossings as they call them.
Despite bells, lights, signs and barriers, not to mention the howling noise of the 25 foot high diesel locos they use here, people are always getting hit by trains.
A couple of weeks ago a woman on a push-bike was instantly turned into guacamole by an oncoming express. We were only held up for about 30 minutes, because plenty of witnesses waiting at the station had seen her "Darwin moment". So as soon as what remained of her had been mopped up, everybody got back to normal.
Yesterday morning, however, a train hit somebody early in the morning and people were held up for 3 hours because there were no witnesses as to what had happened (except presumably the driver).
I think it comes down to backside-covering. The powers that be will want to make sure their conduct cannot be criticised down the line. Nobody will care if motorists/train passengers were delayed by a few hours, but if the incident commander did not allow sufficient time to collect some vital information before turning the scene back over, they will be in serious trouble.
So given the litigious nature of society today and the cautious nature of beaureaucracies, I wouldn't expect things to change any time soon, no matter how unbelievably frustrating these delays are to the travelling public.
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And what would you propose HJ in it's place?
Hypothetical situation,
A bloke's just shot someone, the police are giving chase when the baddie's car overturns and he dies.
You're the Police Incident Controller.
What do you do?
Another one - a truck mysteriously explodes killing 5 people.
You're the Police Incident Controller.
What do you do?
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Adam
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Going back to the original problem of the motorway being closed. I fully understand the frustration of being caught up in such delays. I also understand the "legal" process making it necessary.
But, what do we do when one carriageway is needing new tarmac - we set up a contraflow at a reasonable "break" in the crash barriers. Would it not be better that some sort of law was passed that a motorway cannot be closed for more than, say 2 hours, without a contraflow being put in place to alleviate traffic congestion?
One lorry to put up the lane closed signs, one to do the cones and another to remove the crash barrier.
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The motorway was closed in both directions in this case
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looks like the point of the original posting was why the 7 hour investigation on the motorway when the location had no bearing on the incident.
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"A bloke's just shot someone, the police are giving chase when the baddie's car overturns and he dies.
You're the Police Incident Controller."
Hmmm - Tough - No danger now so I decide to toddle off for my refs.
"Another one - a truck mysteriously explodes killing 5 people.
You're the Police Incident Controller."
Hmmm - Tough - The Fire Brigade commander is now the officer in charge as they are the senior service in incidents like that, so I toddle off for my refs.
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I started the post and the background to my question was how can it take 7 hours to investigate an incident where a chap has shot himself? Thye have preseumably got the murder weapon, there aren't any other suspects (SFAIK) the central barrier was not damaged. Why 7 hours and why both carriageways
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I noted that the motorway was reopened at 8:45. This would have given them couple of DAYLIGHT hours for crime scene investigation. No amount of arclights will do the job as well!
If they are still looking for the bullet or debris then that can be scattered across a wide area.
Both ways shut...to account for weebles with rubber necks...
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HJ and I are both fans of Asia and indeed I am planning to move there soon.
The point he is making, if I may be so bold, is that shutting the main north/south arterial route for 7 hours is excessive by around 6 hours. It caused huge disruption and that costs money.
Now we all know why it happened. Everyone involved wanted to cover their rear ends to the maximum and there were no doubt thousands of forms to fill in and boxes to tick and one unticked box would result in a massive law suit from a human rights lawyer possibly even Cherie Booth (Blair) herself.
.*********
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Last paragraph got cut for some reason. It just said and this is killing us competition wise with Asia and anywhere else half sensible.
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I have a lot of sympathy with the thrust of HJ's comments, but do we really want to hold up the Chinese government as an example of what we'd like to see?
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HJ and I are both fans of Asia and indeed I am planning to move there soon. The point he is making, if I may be so bold, is that shutting the main north/south arterial route for 7 hours is excessive by around 6 hours. It caused huge disruption and that costs money. Now we all know why it happened. Everyone involved wanted to cover their rear ends to the maximum and there were no doubt thousands of forms to fill in and boxes to tick and one unticked box would result in a massive law suit from a human rights lawyer possibly even Cherie Booth (Blair) herself.
I cannot think of any society on earth that rushes to litigation more readily than the USA.
However there a major accident/incident closes the road for a fraction of the time that we now consider to be absolutely essential in UK.
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>>I cannot think of any society on earth that rushes to litigation more readily than the USA.
True. But then the US does not protest at every dollar the police spend, they tend to believe that running law breakers should be run off the rod, and see nothing wrong with criminals being shot.
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