Driver who killed trainee barrister walks from court.

[Johnnytheboy]

Just because some are more armoured than others doesn’t absolve us from our responsibility to ensure our own and others safety.

Soft squidgy people are responsible for their own safety, people travelling around in cars are responsible for the safety of others, this guy failed in that responsibility towards others in a big way.

Utterly missing the point. Everyone should be try and stop everyone getting hurt. Let's say a ped steps into the road in front of a car and the car has to either hit them or swerve in to someone else.

Presumably in weepej-world it's still not even partly the ped's fault if the other ped is hurt?

(I don't even know why I'm asking this)

[Zippo]

I haven't read this whole thread .. at work so should really be doing something else so please excuse me if somebody has already pointed this out ... it appears to be being suggeted that because the lady involved was using a mobile phone she did not observe before crossing and did not see the approaching vehicle ... or am I missing something?

[Big Tone]

I haven't read this whole thread .. at work so should really be doing something else so please excuse me if somebody has already pointed this out ... it appears to be being suggeted that because the lady involved was using a mobile phone she did not observe before crossing and did not see the approaching vehicle ... or am I missing something?

They mentioned a mobile phone but the way I see it, mobile phone or not she should still have looked. It's been mentioned a million times on this forum, half of that from me that pedestrians also need to take responsibility like I did at school and use the Green Cross Code.

By stark contrast to when I was a youngster, today's generation are literally wandering around deaf dumb and blind.

Motorcyclists should always be ready for this to happen, they know how invisible they are, I am very aware of this when I ride my pedal cycle, I don't see why motorcyclists can't be.

Can anyone else small the irony (within the context of this thread) within that post?

Substitute the word 'Motorcyclists' that he uses for 'pedestrians'?

Do I get a gold star please?

[weepej]

Substitute the word 'Motorcyclists' that he uses for 'pedestrians'?

If you think motorcyclists travelling at speed are the same as pedestrians then you need to go to spec savers!

[Big Tone]

Substitute the word 'Motorcyclists' that he uses for 'pedestrians'?

If you think motorcyclists travelling at speed are the same as pedestrians then you need to go to spec savers!

So if you, as a pedestrian, see something coming towards you, you would stand your ground and let it hit you?

Actually, it's worse than that! You would actively stand in the way and expect it to stop.

You must have got beaten up a lot at school. Is that why you can't understand our simple argument?

[RobinXe]

I'd certainly be slowing down and be prepared to stop.

This whole "be prepared to stop" is a bunch of bolleaux really, isn't it. Being mentally prepared to stop doesn't prevent a collision where a pedestrian steps from an obscured position into the road at the last moment, and making physical preparation for such an event effectively involves stopping at any crossing that has pedestrians anywhere near it, since the speed from which one can safely stop if a pedestrian steps out reduces along with the distance to travel to the crossing.

Claiming one is not biased against sensible motoring, and yet suggesting that millions of miles of road be reduced to a crawl in order to mitigate for the comparatively rare event of a pedestrian stepping out without looking does seem rather incongruous!

Going by the HC, if everyone behaved as they should, then a car approaching a crossing with nobody on it and a flashing amber light need not be prepared to stop, since pedestrians should not be starting to cross once the green man begins flashing. Of course the sensible motorist will proceed with caution, but likewise one would expect a pedestrian who is going against the guidance of the HC to take steps to ensure their own safety. Personally I have waited at the kerb of a light-controlled crossing with regularity, even though the traffic light is red, when I am uncertain if an approaching car will stop.

If someone on a mobile phone wanders blindly across a tennis court and gets hit in the head by a tennis ball, whose fault is it? How about if the same person fails to see warning signs and slips on a wet floor, or steps down an open manhole? What if they trip on uneven pavement? What if they step off the kerb accidentally and twist their ankle?

[Pete317]

Thanks, Robin, you put it very eloquently.

Pedestrians have the power to guarantee their own safety, regardless of what's coming down the road (for the sake of the pedantic - provided what's coming down the road stays on the road)
But, because of the immutable laws of physics, vehicle drivers do not have the power to guarantee the safety of pedestrians. They can (and should) take reasonable care to prevent collisions, but there will always be those which they are powerless to prevent.

The problem is, the more pedestrians take the attitude that someone else is responsible for their safety, the more of them are going to end up seriously injured, or worse.

They might get away with it 99.9999% of the time, but it only takes once.

[graball]

graball wrote:And by having a blanket urban 20MPH limit, you expect your average speed to stay the same, over, say a four mile urban journey? Dream on!



It may even go up, less bunching, less fender benders and proper crashes (a major cause of congestion), people able to make better decisions about their road positioning, cars able to pull out of sides roads easier.

Spoken like someone who has very little experience of urban life outside of big towns/cities or who believes the hype that road "planners" would love you to believe, that lowered speeds mean less congestion....where exactly?

[graball]

i can just imagine Weepej being one of those people who, in supermarket carparks, deliberately walks directly behind someone reversing and expects them to stop instead of waitng or walking a few feet away from them so that he would be easier to spot, then has a go at the driver for "not seeing him" or not stopping instantly, orwalks directly in front of a queue of waiting traffic instaed of doing the sensible thing and crossing a few cars back where the tailback would be slower to start moving.

[weepej]

i can just imagine Weepej being one of those people who, in supermarket carparks, deliberately walks directly behind someone reversing and expects them to stop instead of waitng or walking a few feet away from them so that he would be easier to spot, then has a go at the driver for "not seeing him" or not stopping instantly, orwalks directly in front of a queue of waiting traffic instaed of doing the sensible thing and crossing a few cars back where the tailback would be slower to start moving.

Is this really necessary?

[dcbwhaley]

i can just imagine Weepej being one of those people who, in supermarket carparks, deliberately walks directly behind someone reversing and expects them to stop instead of waitng or walking a few feet away from them so that he would be easier to spot, then has a go at the driver for "not seeing him" or not stopping instantly, orwalks directly in front of a queue of waiting traffic instaed of doing the sensible thing and crossing a few cars back where the tailback would be slower to start moving.

I can see no evidence in his posts for that opinion

[graball]

Maybe there is no evidence, in his posts, to form that opinion, in your mind but in my mind this is how I IMAGINE Weepej behaving, in a shared space, where no one has the right of way but common sense, should prevail over sheer bloody mindedness.

[dcbwhaley]

Maybe there is no evidence, in his posts, to form that opinion, in your mind but in my mind this is how I IMAGINE Weepej behaving, in a shared space, where no one has the right of way but common sense, should prevail over sheer bloody mindedness.

On these forums we are supposed to be intelligent, analytic people discussing FACTS not new age poets indulging in flight of IMAGINATIVE fantasy

[Big Tone]

Serious question to you weepej.

Does it not bother you in the slighest that when things like this come to light you don't feel even the smallest tiniest itsy witsy bit duped and lied to?

[graball]

y dcbwhaley on Sat Jul 31, 2010 12:22 pm

graball wrote:Maybe there is no evidence, in his posts, to form that opinion, in your mind but in my mind this is how I IMAGINE Weepej behaving, in a shared space, where no one has the right of way but common sense, should prevail over sheer bloody mindedness.


On these forums we are supposed to be intelligent, analytic people discussing FACTS not new age poets indulging in flight of IMAGINATIVE fantasy

Ah, yes, but what is the probability that I may be right? ...

indulging in flight of IMAGINATIVE fantasy

...maybe I should join BRAKE?....

[malcolmw]

Are you female?

[RobinXe]

...not new age poets indulging in flight of IMAGINATIVE fantasy

Ahem!

[PeterE]

On these forums we are supposed to be intelligent, analytic people discussing FACTS not new age poets indulging in flight of IMAGINATIVE fantasy

As opposed to surrealists like weepej?

[weepej]

don't feel even the smallest tiniest itsy witsy bit duped and lied to?

Big Tone.

As far as I can see speed limits are a good idea.

I have no issue at all with them being enforced whether it be via a police officer sitting in a car or a camera.

However, cameras do not require police officers to sit on a road when they could otherwise be occupied tracking down burglars, rapists etc... I'd happily see them hidden, I think it's silly to make them so obvious.

Now I'm not going to go as far as say fit a monitoring device to all cars and print out a ticket from the dashboard when one exceeds the limit, but that's leaning more toward my perspective than allowing people to make their own judgement on whether it's suitable to exceed the limit or not.

[Steve]

As far as I can see speed limits are a good idea.

So does the Safe Speed campaign

However, cameras do not require police officers to sit on a road when they could otherwise be occupied tracking down burglars, rapists etc... I'd happily see them hidden, I think it's silly to make them so obvious.

Now I'm not going to go as far as say fit a monitoring device to all cars and print out a ticket from the dashboard when one exceeds the limit, but that's leaning more toward my perspective than allowing people to make their own judgement on whether it's suitable to exceed the limit or not.

Why not have more police that can do both (can be called upon as necessary)? Don't forget, budgets aren't unlimited and cameras aren't cheap!