Safe Speed Forums

http://www.safespeed.org.uk/forum/viewt ... highlight=

Fatal crash on a SPECS-enforced section of the A77, cop driving the unmarked car dies.

The council's solution?

drop the speed limit to 50!

discuss, I'm too angry to so it without swearing and making threats....

I gather the officer was responding to a separate incident. Some key questions are:

- Was he exceeding the speed limit?
- Did he have his sirens/strobes activated?

yes and yes.

So the lower speed limit wouldn't have made ANY difference.

and they didn't suggest this several years ago when an identical accident at the previous junction to this one cost 3 people their lives.

I think that the councils that do this sort of thing must only employ people with GCSE's in 'total stupidity', and then send them on regular courses to be brainwashed into this communist governments way of thinking.

I will agree with the latter if you can source reasonable proof of the former.

See my post in the original thread. The Shogun (approx 2.2 tonnes) was tipped onto its side and pushed 75 yards or more up the road. Also, if you look at the photograph, you'll see that the nearside chassis rail and step have been massively distorted. The chassis can take all 2.2 tonnes at a point (e.g. cross-axled on a rock) without distortion - so the force must have been massive, which means that the Mercedes must have been travelling massively over the limit.

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Will

I don't think you can get a meaningful estimate of impact speeds by that sort of logic.

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Peter Humphries (and a green V8S)

I beg to differ. If you look at an arial view (local.live.com), and compare that with the photo, you can see that the photo was taken at the beginning of the filter lane and at an angle of about roughly 45 degrees to the carriageway. Project that to the verge of the opposite carriageway and you can see that the fire engine is in the driveway of the building over 50 yards from the junction and the Shogun has fetched up 75 yards or more from the junction. So, there must have been enough energy left after mangling the chassis, step, and side of the Shogun to move it bodily over 75 yards in the direction of the carriageway. I don't know the coefficient of friction between mangled Shogun and grass, but I suspect you wouldn't get that damage with that displacement - even if the unmarked car was a two-tonne S-class - from an impact at 70 mph.

Anyone on here with the experience to actually go through the calcs?

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Will

My point is that you do have to go through the calcs. It is not possible just to say the impact force exceeded two and a half tonnes therefore the car must be been massively in excess of the speed limit. I suspect it was, but it can't be proved by that sort of logic.

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Peter Humphries (and a green V8S)

2.2 tonnes in a heavy car might be as little as 2G.

My sympathies to the family of the policeman who died in this tragic accident and to the injured victims but would a 50 mph limit have prevented this crash?

It might have prevented the earlier accident (mentioned by an earlier poster) where neither vehicle involved was an emergency service vehicle.

If the unmarked car was responding to an incident (from what I heard it was a report of a female lying in the middle of a nearby road after a suspected hit and run) with the siren and lights on then it would have been going faster than the speed limit (be it 50 or 70), Would it have been going any less fast if the limit was 50 as the road itself has not changed and the driver presumably knew the road? Doubt it.

I know the area and there are several things the council could do that might (could?) have prevented this accident (better lighting at the junction, signage on the A77 warning that a vehicle is waiting to cross, close the barrier and make drivers go ~ 1 mile further on to a roundabout (at Dutchhouse southbound or Bellfield northbound) and then back up the other side of the dual carriageway (which is what I do if I am ever going to Symington)) but they all cost money and require common sense.

the police car would have been going exactly the same speed and direction. the only difference would be that the woman driving the other vehicle would assume that no vehicles would be travelling at faster than 50 which would lead her to believe that she had even more time to cross. in other words, a lower speed limit would have increased the risks in this particular situation

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Richie

SSAFA supporter
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=126025031585

Reminds me of an incident on the B1278 between Sedgefield and Trimdon. The limit used to be NSL (60) but after an off-duty policeman left the road (no other vehicle involved) at an estimated 90 mph and died as a result the limit was reduced to 40 mph. IMO too low for this section of road.

Was this not the incident whereby the Officer was actually testing the scam device?