Safe Speed Forums

A grandmother has been jailed for killing a police sergeant.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... crash.html

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Anyone who tells you that nothing is impossible has never bathed in a saucer of water.

How fast was he travelling down the outside of a queue of stationary traffic (albeit in L3)?

Not very defensive riding by the sound of it.

She turned across his path.
Poor observation, poor driving

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The world runs on oil, period. No other substance can compete when it comes to energy density, flexibility, ease of handling, ease of transportation. If oil didn’t exist we would have to invent it.”

56 years after it was decided it was needed, the Bedford Bypass is nearing completion. The last single carriageway length of it.We have the most photogenic mayor though, always being photographed doing nothing

I'm not sure what I think about this.

Yes, she was an idiot useless driver but this seems to amount to "careless" rather than "dangerous" as there does not seem to be, for example, the deliberate action of looking, seeing the bike coming and then pulling out. Was her negligence reckless?

Causing death by careless driving? Jailing a 71 year old to protect the public? Not sure.

Would this incident have followed the same path if the biker had not been a policeman?

A big fine and a lifetime ban would probably have been enough.

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Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

I'm afraid that I am of the mind that this is a completely pointless custodial sentence. Whilst it is tragic that her carelessness caused the death of the officer, it was not a deliberate act, and the sentence amounts to little more than revenge.

I noticed this in the comments:



Does anyone know if this is a real statistic, or whether it has been made up by the poster?

I'm not sure we should punish stupidity. Would fear of jail make her realise what lane she was in?

Perhaps retaking her test would be more appropriate.

There was a copper on 5live a couple of weeks ago saying he had been to motorcycle fataities where one bike was doing 18 mph and another where the bike was doing 12 mph. We don't know which bit of the car he hit, my guess is some parts of the car are less forgiving than others. The style of bike he was on would have a bearing on the out come of a crash because a bike traily has the rider in a different position than a sports bike. As for defensive riding, I for one don't ride a bike to sit in queues, you do your best to watch the vehicles that you are passing, but if some one doesn't even give a subtle warning they are making an odd manuover (sp?) you are in trouble.

The punishment sound harsh to me, I'd be supprised if it doesn't kill her as well. Better to educate people and stop it happening in the first place don't you think?

The definition of careless driving is "driving which falls below the standard expected of a careful and competent driver". The definition of dangerous driving is "driving which falls far below the standard expected of a careful and competent driver AND it would be obvious to a careful and competent driver that driving in that way would be dangerous". No mention of reckless or of a need to have seen the motorcycle and then ignored it.
If the report is accurate then she was stationary and, without a signal, turned sharp right across lane 2 on her side of the road, through a gap in the central reservation directly into the path of an oncoming vehicle. Her lawyer obviously though that was dangerous and so did the judge, both of whom had access to all the evidence and not just the bits that were reported.

At what age would you suggest somebody should be able to drive dangerously, kill another human being and not go to jail?

Without doubt.

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I am not a lawyer and can't give legal advice. I do have experience of the day to day working of courts and use that knowledge to help where possible. I do not represent any official body and post as an individual.

The sentence is in line with the guidelines for such offending, if anything ( as far as I can tell not having been trained on sentencing this level of offending ) its a little on the low side. Custodial sentences all carry an element of retribution, that part of the point.

If this had been a deliberate act the charge would have been one of murder.

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I am not a lawyer and can't give legal advice. I do have experience of the day to day working of courts and use that knowledge to help where possible. I do not represent any official body and post as an individual.

Which would result in no more punishment for those stupid enough to drink and drive.


Very few, if any, of the people who end up in court had any fear of jail when they committed their offence because they didn't expect to be caught.


An extended test will be required before she gets her licence back.

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I am not a lawyer and can't give legal advice. I do have experience of the day to day working of courts and use that knowledge to help where possible. I do not represent any official body and post as an individual.

The article states a driver passed her and had to swerve, he saw the lorry behind him swerve in his mirrors, and the guy on the bike was behind that.

Yeah, nice one. You could substitute "drink and drive" for any deliberate crime if you like and that riposte would be equally facile.

The analogy would only hold true if, through stupidity, someone inadvertently drank and drove.

She did not set out to have an accident. Someone who drinks and drives sets out to do so, and in my book crosses a threshold by intentionally committing a crime.



So are you saying she crashed into the motorcyclist because she though she could get away with it? Do you think anyone's observational skills are informed by fear of jail, and not self-preservation?

from the witness statements given in the report the order of traffic in L2 seems to have been car-truck-bike-car.

i can envisage a situation where from the bike's pov the offending car was obscured by the truck, and possible vice versa.

although the quote that really scares me is:



so a basic manouvre and noise was too much ?
perhaps rather than continue, putting the handbrake on, the hazards on and closing her eyes would have been a better option.

No you couldn't. Lots of crimes carry no risk of injury to the defendant and no chance at all of going to jail - dropping litter for example. When someone drives to the pub and gets drunk in the full knowledge that they are going to drive home they risk injury and jail. Deliberate drink driving of that nature requires stupidity, dropping litter is just antisocial.


A huge percentage of drink drivers do something very close. They don't inadvertently drink alcohol, but they do assume that because they have never seen a police car on their journey home from the pub that there will never be one. Add in the belief that many drink drivers have that they won't be stopped because they are not impaired by 6 pints and you have something which many people consider to be stupid behaviour.

No one ever does. People die just the same. When you next see someone doing a blind overtake round a bend or at the top of a hill, you can be sure they are convinced that they will not have an accident.

Of course they don't think that it would be a good idea to drive in order to have an accident. They don't think at all - other than along the lines I have already mentioned.

No, although if she had known the drive home would end in jail, she would have stayed where she was. Her problem was the same as that of many drivers. An over estimation of her own skills as a driver.

It would seem to me that neither of those figured in her thinking at the time. If she was thinking at all.

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I am not a lawyer and can't give legal advice. I do have experience of the day to day working of courts and use that knowledge to help where possible. I do not represent any official body and post as an individual.

Not much thinking at all.
If you look at the road junction you will note that there is a slip road to the central reservation cross-over (B1068/A12 East Bergholt)

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The world runs on oil, period. No other substance can compete when it comes to energy density, flexibility, ease of handling, ease of transportation. If oil didn’t exist we would have to invent it.”

56 years after it was decided it was needed, the Bedford Bypass is nearing completion. The last single carriageway length of it.We have the most photogenic mayor though, always being photographed doing nothing

It sounds like she was just a very un-confident driver, not quite sure what to do with a right-turn across a dual carriageway.

This is yet another reason why at-grade right turn junctions on D2's should be banned outright.

He was behind a truck, so worst case he's doing 56mph

So broadly:

1. People who set out to not commit a crime deserve jail.

2. People crash into other motorists not by accident, but deliberately because they make a calculation that they won't get punished.

Down the side of a queue of stationary traffic near a junction?

Nutter.

[b]worst case 56mph[b] The lorry wasn't filtering was he?

I'd be suprised if the 2 cars in front of the lorry, the lorry, the off duty copper on a bike and the car following him where all driving like "nutters", it seems the courts agree too.