What is classed as careless driving when travelling at 104mph on a B road?

Just wondering what a professional Rally Driver would be convicted of under similar circumstances.

BTW, when and where did this happen? Just found out today that a guy that works for our Bristol office was killed in a traffic accident the other day. Don't know the specifics.

 

The plot thickens. So the other driver was at fault, but the police officer was driving carelessly, hence the charge? I think the specifics of the accident are quite relevant in this case.

 

Never mind that last bit. Just searched for his Facebook, and it looks like he was a biker. Poor bloke though.

 

Happened in Lancashire last year.

Trial ended today.

 

No, the other driver was not at fault.

That was just a reply to the cones issue.

 

Ah, ok.

But that still begs a few questions. I'm not trying to pick fault with police training, but just trying to clarify a few things.

Cones will not move, or do stupid things when they see a police car, but another driver might, which puts that driver and his passenger(s) at risk (not to mention the coppers). That may be the other driver's fault officially, but you don't really know what the reflex action of each driver will be when met with a police car travelling in the opposite direction at that speed.

Maybe you could just put it down to bad luck.

I don't know anything about the training course, so help me out. Once the driver has passed the course, is there something that they'll be policing specifically? Presumably they will be doing more that your common or garden trafpol officer, otherwise it seems to defeat the object of the course!

 

All levels of police driver training necessitate the need and requirement to drive in excess of the speed limit.

The speed achieved will largely depend on the car and level of the course.

The principles are the same.

But the question is should this be allowed on public roads.

The VASCAR course in this instance is a high speed course, but not that different from other driving courses.

 

Understood, and I think that most of us would be lying if we claimed to have not exceeded the speed limit on a B road.

I suffered some bad luck a few weeks ago. I don't think I exceeded the speed limit, but couldn't honestly say. There were no warnings of a junction, as there was no junction. I just rounded a bend, and there was some farm traffic waiting to turn into a field. Was completely unlucky, and I think any car that rounded that corner would have suffered a similar accident. Had someone rounded the bend at 104mph, which would have been easily achieved, then they would have been chatting to the driver from the passenger footwell of his Land Rover, as their head burst though his passenger seat.

Should it be allowed on public roads? As Gaspode mentioned earlier, it depends on risk, and probably a few other things. How much has been spent on training the driver? How much has been spent on the driver's conviction? How much revenue are these drivers likely to create from successful convictions (had they not ballsed up the training)? Lots of factors.

I suspect the convictions for

 

No. As with the guy caught doing 150 odd on the M54, there are pleanty of places where the police can learn high speed driving safely. And if it needs a realistic road with realistic traffic, well then build them one and hire lots of stunt drivers.

This is as much about credibility as safety. They can't lecture us on how 61 mph is reckless if they're driving around at 100mph with no good reason. It just adds to the public mistrust of the police.

 

Err no .... not 'widely regarded as the fastest of police driver training courses'.

For one it is not a driver training course - the driver drives whilst the pupil learns how to use the timing equipment. If they were doing it any other way then that is not normal practice and IMO plain stupid.

To drive on the course you should already be Police 'Advanced' as yes, you do need to drive at speed - but I would hardly say the driving element is stressful .... unless you do go too quickly and make a mistake where someone dies.

Have you done it ? The reason I ask is that I found it a pretty relaxing week from a driving point of view ! The Vascar element is actually simple but takes quite a time to get spot on ... thus the course is normally a week long.

A sad incident though this one and no winners at all .... certainly not the family of the deceased or the officers involved.