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DRIVER TAILGATED AMBULANCE IN MERCY DASH AT 85MPH

KEN JONES

09:00 - 03 December 2005

An Ambulance crew was concerned for a mother-to-be as they rushed her to hospital at speeds of up to 85mph.

But they became equally anxious about a driver who tail-gated their vehicle for almost 22 miles, Fort William Sheriff Court heard yesterday.

Its driver had pulled over to allow the ambulance, which was flashing its blue light and signs, to overtake. But then David Greaves, 42, kept on its tail, even when other drivers pulled into lay-bys on the A82 Fort William-Inverness road to allow it to get past.

Yesterday, Greaves' driving was rapped by Sheriff Douglas Small, when he was fined £750, disqualified for a year and ordered to resit his test.

Sheriff Small told him: "You were tail-gating an ambulance taking someone to hospital in an emergency. The consequences, had there been an accident, do not bear thinking about."

Greaves, who runs a bed-and-breakfast business at Lorien House, in Station Road, Fort Augustus, admitted driving dangerously on the A82 between Spean Bridge and Fort Augustus on August 9.

It was alleged he had tail-gated and driven at speeds of up to 85mph following the ambulance.

On occasions he had also overtaken vehicles when he could not see whether it was safe to do so, causing concern and distress to the occupants of the ambulance.

The court was told the ambulance was taking a young pregnant mother from the Belford Hospital to Raigmore Hospital in Inverness for urgent treatment after complications had arisen with a birth.

Fiscal Alison Wyllie said the ambulance crew, including a nurse who was travelling in the back with the mother, became aware of Greaves' car after Spean Bridge.

"Other vehicles pulled over to let the ambulance overtake, but Greaves continued to follow, causing concern to the ambulance driver and paramedic.

"He was too close and, had the ambulance had to stop suddenly, the situation could have been extremely serious," she added.

Interviewed by police officers, Greaves denied tail-gating the ambulance, claiming that he had kept 100 yards behind.

Hamish Melrose, agent for Greaves, said his client had moved to the Highlands, after selling a business in Yorkshire. They had started a bed-and-breakfast business in Fort Augustus, but the loss of his licence could impact on the venture.
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err, WHY? Why would someone follow an ambulance for 22 miles? Just to benefit from the blue lights and get there a little quicker?

I feel for the ambulance driver trying to make maximum safe progress while also having to worry about an idiot behind. In case anyone reading this doesn't realise, the ambulance driver would really have preferred to direct the bulk of his attention ahead. Someone close behind would be likely to slow you down as you have to expend more of your attention budget behind.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

There are some people whose behaviour, to quote someone else (I forget who), I will never comprehend if I live to be 300 years old.

stooopid

i've seen the same kind of selfishness albeit at lower speed with an ambulance on a residential street, cars pulling into side turnings & drives to get out the way, its clear everyone is going to want to pull out again but one numpty floors it after the amublance just to get the jump on them and make a few places

This is what you get when you champion the individualistic society - people act as selfish individuals. No suprises there then.

Undeniably selfish, but I can think of selfish reasons for never driving like this prat did - don't want the fine, don't want the pointless risk of a crash, don't want the guilty conscience if my actions were to result in tragedy, etc. Looked at that way what's good for me turns out to be good for those round me and vice versa. Tailgating an emergency vehicle to try and follow it through the traffic it clears is selfishness with more than a touch of short-termism and a big dollop of idiocy.

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Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein

I believe I know what you mean. But it can't be as simple as that because individualist instincts don't lead me to follow ambulances. I also believe that 'individual responsibility' is a key road safety factor. We're responsible for the totality of our instantaneous relationship with other traffic.

And just to make it even more complicated, clearly this chap was to some degree at greater risk from his actions. Selfish behaviour here would surely have the opposite effect?

Perhaps you're suggesting that he must have been displaying a selfish 'me first' attitude, without adequate regard for his own safety? If so then that would represent a shortfall in his belief system.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

I think there are shortfalls in many of our belief and attitude systems these days, and yet there are odd paradoxes that defy the rules.
People will give millions to help complete strangers caught up in natural disasters, yet won't hold the door open for someone at Tesco
If I were an anthropolgist I could perhaps begin to understand what makes people tick, and perhaps convince myself that society isn't slowly unravelling into a messy morasse

I share your fears. One of the causes is that government attacks behaviours rather than causes of behaviours. Nowhere is this more obvious than with speed cameras.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

you hit the nail on the head with "short-termism" though. many people can't or won't look futher than the end of their nose in many different ways, and don't understand that the key to making society better for everyone is by looking out for each other.

Thatchers children they call us, and never a title more apt for a society with so many blinkered, self-serving leeches have I heard. taking advantage of peoples weakness is seen as an atribute and that goes right to the top of our rotten society with examples such as profit-driven parking scams. How can you expect people to behave like good citizens when they deal with this unfair greed on a daily basis from the very authorities that govern us?

Nice that the bloke got done though, I expect few that drive in london havn't experienced the fire engine/ambulance tailgaters as everone else pulls aside to make way for the emergency services.

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Fear is a weapon of mass distraction

I agree, but the problem with attacking the causes of behaviours is that they are often multiplexed and the result is censorship.
I pin a lot of the appaling attitudes demonstrated by contemporary society on what is commonly called 'popular culture', yet this is a multi-faceted phenomenon. Film, TV, the music industry, the video games industry etc etc will all try to claim that one film, or one game or one whatever doesn't make someone, for example, go out and attack a complete stranger. But mix the whole lot together and you get an appaling commentry on modern life with gullible and suggestable people being taken in.
Ironically, the victims of this culture are often those who base their whole existence upon it Look at Ch4's Space cadets, a bunch of individuals with little or no worldly knowledge or experience outside of anything that doesn't involve Eastenders (I'm being kind there) being taken for complete mugs in the name of entertainment. Ch4 seem to think its OK because, apparently, their mates have given the it OK, I mean WTF? Its ethically unsound by my standards, but wholly acceptable by todays distorted codes of conduct. And of course next time someone will have to outdo Space Cadets if they are to give the bottom-feeders that lap up this drivel something new to salivate over next time.
The more I live here, the more I feel like a stranger

Thats one for the I think

I got stuck behind a fire engine once on an otherwise deserted A road about a year ago.

It had all its lights on, and was going flat out....at about 50 mph.

This raised an interesting dilemma: could I in all good conscience overtake an emergency vehicle? Of course not, but I had previously been doing about 70.

I elected to follow at a discreet distance til the next town, where he continued to do 50 mph where I couldn't.

you're putting the cart before the horse there IMO, art imitates life; it's a product of the artists feelings of what they see and feel. people who do choose to "be taken in" are indeed suggestable and would probably be a threat regardless.

I like various alternative music genres and I'm sick of hearing about how some band influenced some nutcase to do something bad. nutcases exist; they will be drawn to extreme music/scenes both for their own reasons and the tolerance within such scenes as they're probably already shunned by mass society. doesn't make them a typical fan, they just don't get the underlying joke. But that doesn't stop the newspapers having a field day and wanting to blame someone.

But TV/celebrity worship does seem to be the new religion for a lot of people. and by religion I mean what they look to for guidance, example and fulfillment. but then, just as most people don't understand extreme music maybe I'm in no position to understand pap-for-the-masses culture.

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Fear is a weapon of mass distraction

I don't believe this is so at all. Modern pop culture is a part of life to the extent that many people have difficulty in distilling fact from fanatasy and live their lives through what they are told is the vogue thing to do. Take away the conduit and one breaks the cycle.

Know ing the road - the charges and the sentance are too light.
The Ambulance driver would have known every curve/bump and bend in the 66 miles of road from Fort William to the Raigmore.
Would this pillock?
A stray sheep - a common occurance in the Highlands - and what??
From my knowledge of the area the mercy dash has been a long ongoing thing.I'm surprised to hear that the woman had given birth at the Belford as in the past the NHS had no doctors who would take the risk of things going wrong.Years ago, women had to be transported from Fort William to Inverness in various stages of labour.

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

I must say I have have thought occasionally (although it is not something I would remotely consider doing) that if you followed a fire engine or ambulance through the traffic, you couldn't half make some progress in the rush hour

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

Sorry - gents - took me back many years to a situation i managed to avoid - when my youngest was due i lived in Fort William, mothers to be were taken in various stages of labour to Inverness - 66 miles .There is a campaign to restrict the closures at the Belford, which would possibly mean a return to the old days of mothers to be either being "good girls " and being taken to Inverness and Hubby having to make trips there before and after the birth or being taken in labour and hubby going up there daily.( Nice thought , woman in labour in the 2000s being transported 66 miles, makes the trip to the General look appealing)
All this in 2005. Thought it had stopped in the 1970s and the highlands had become a modern place.Thing on about the mothers to be in more remote places.

Me - i took the cowards way out - my in laws lived in Cleveland -10 mins from a hospital .I took her there days before and took holidays .

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

With red lights and traffic islands in such circumstances you would soon be committing offences at one hell of a rate.

FWIW - I'm just trying to say that it'd be deeply impractical (as well as obnoxious).

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

[quote="SafeSpeed"][
With red lights and traffic islands in such circumstances you would soon be committing offences at one hell of a rate.

quote]

PeterE country --perhaps.
Please gents , this is Inverness shire were talking about - red light cams - do they even know what they are ?? : islands - plenty of them in the open water at inverness, but on the roads --i don't think so.

Traffic cops - in parts consist of local SGT giving directions with foot ( pointing in direction of road ( he got promoted on his ability to direct traffic without taking hands out of pocket - local legend, retired as CI)

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

This behaviour ranks alongside that of the nurse who deliberately made children ill, so she could be seen to be a hero and save them. Similarly a fireman who set fires which he could rush to put out. It's not un-common as these things go.

It would seem that this individual sought some sort kudos from being seen as part of the event? I can think of no "logical" explanation, other than his just being stark raving bonkers.

I understand that there are people who take the trouble to make their vehicles look like emergency service vehicles, and even turn up at accidents and pretend to be paramedics!

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Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

I wish that anyone who says people are not influenced by what they see on TV, could have seen my son after he watched an episode of the "Power Rangers", and started ficking out kung-foo style at all and sundry! He had NO concept of the result of being kicked in this fashion!!
And it's NOT only children who are affected in this manner!

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Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!