Intersting crash case involving a Police vehicle

[T.C.]

This case was heard just a few days. A Police vehicle was in collision with a private vehicle on a roundabout. Both parties sustained quite severe injuries although the civilian had the more severe.

At the initial trial, it liability was split 55/45 in favour of the Police driver.

However, on appeal it was overturned and the Police driver was held 65% liable, quite a difference from the original judgement. Oh, and it does not appear that the Police driver was on an emergency call.

Bit of a read, but if you are interested, the transcript of the judgement is here

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2013/782.html

[GregD-UK]

Hi all,

It amazes me that, this PC could not recollect any details of the accident Obviously she (the PC) was hoping that saying nothing would not incriminate herself. Police are trained to be observant more than the average driver. Her lack of "anticipation" would be a case for blame on her part somewhat. I hear of more cases involving police where they seem to be not too blame, unless, there is an appeal! Then, the details are looked at more closely.

The PC, didn't slow down to take the roundabout correctly at a reasonable speed. I bet, she saw the appealant coming and decided to ram him to teach him a lesson

Glad the case was adjusted in the appealant's favour, although, both were at fault in my eyes......

[T.C.]

Hi all,

It amazes me that, this PC could not recollect any details of the accident Obviously she (the PC) was hoping that saying nothing would not incriminate herself. Police are trained to be observant more than the average driver. Her lack of "anticipation" would be a case for blame on her part somewhat. I hear of more cases involving police where they seem to be not too blame, unless, there is an appeal! Then, the details are looked at more closely.

The PC, didn't slow down to take the roundabout correctly at a reasonable speed. I bet, she saw the appealant coming and decided to ram him to teach him a lesson

Glad the case was adjusted in the appealant's favour, although, both were at fault in my eyes......

2 points. In the case of serious injury (and in this case it appears that both sustained serious injury) it is not uncommon for injured parties to suffer a lapse of memory. Been there and suffered myself, and I see cases of this on a daily basis with my job, so whilst it is easy to make the allegation, it is often true as it is the brains way of protecting itself.

Secondly the term trained should be used in inverted commas so "Trained" as there is a significant difference between how they are trained now and how everyone used to be trained even to drive a lower power vehicle. In many forces they get no more than a quick 30 minute assessment around the block before being allowed to drive a marked vehicle, and even traffic crews do not get the in depth training that used to be a pre-requisite.

Given that both parties had memory loss, the PC could have used that to her advantage, so in my opinion, she has been honest in that respect.

[Falcopops]

Seems like the appeal case was much more considered and on the face of it I'd agree with the findings.

I'd suggest that the appellant should have potentially held back if the police car was so close to entering the junction (potentially knowing that traffic didn't slow or deviate if they used that junction regularly, which wasn't mentioned), expecting a vehicle to slow down and do the right thing is a bit of a leap of faith (as a motorcyclist you are much more aware of this).

The statements suggest that the appellants car was at 45 degrees to the PC's car 1 second after entering the junction. I find that hard to believe that the PC didn't take avoiding action.

The vehicles were reportedly travelling at 7m/s and 13m/s and a second apart from entering the junction, so the PC's car is still 13m from the roundabout when the appellant enters it. I'd expect the PC to brake hard and try to swerve round the back of the other car. By all accounts she went straight on, that would suggest she locked the wheels and skidded into the junction in a straight line, this would suggest she was travelling faster than the 30mph on the approach. This doesn't seem to be considered.

Even if the PC was moving faster than 30, and the posted limit is 40, the appellant should have taken this into account too.

I'd still agree that the appeal seems fair, but would like to know the approach speed of the PC as that might change my view, if she was exceeding the speed limit.

[fatboy]

Clearly the appellant had ' the right of way'. It has been determined that both drivers would have had sight of each other for around 5 seconds before enterirg the roundabout.
Is 5 seconds long enough for the appellant to have made the considered descision that the car approaching was being driven by an asshole, therefore take evasive action ? In the dark ?

[Gio]

We have something similar in Chertsey, a roundabout that is constantly misused, it lies at the junction of Heriot Road (north/south) London Street (east) and Windsor Street (west).
The London St entrance to the roundabout is blind to traffic from Heriot Rd until about 1 second before they enter the roundabout (30mph) so many people from that never even slow down and run the wrong side of the roundabout.

As for the results of your mentioned accident, I feel they are both equally to fault, neither is using the roundabout as intended. Sadly the quality of drivers using british roads is declining quite rapidly, mostly I feel with the numbers of foreign drivers, who not only can't read english, ignore road signs with impunity.