1 19 year old and a Freelander bite the dust...

A long standing colleague of mine was driving home in is Freelander 1 the other evening, when suddenly he's in hospital, having CAT and MRI scans and recovering from what was a deadly RTA, On initial investigations it seems a 19yr old in a Fiesta either overshot the side junction or pulled out in front of him and tragically met his demise, you have to feel for the kids family. Hopefully my colleague will make a full physical recovery, but I worry about how it will affect him, the police took 1 and 1/2 hours to cut him from the Freelander and the road was closed for 8 hours.

The police have apparently been excellent and very supportive, and even helped get my colleagues family to the hospital.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-glo...e-20217704

Next time you think about driving fast in dark, wet, cold conditions... consider where it could lead... It'll never happen to me is just not true.

(07-11-2012 08:08pm)PhilSkill Wrote:  A long standing colleague of mine was driving home in is Freelander 1 the other evening, when suddenly he's in hospital, having CAT and MRI scans and recovering from what was a deadly RTA, On initial investigations it seems a 19yr old in a Fiesta either overshot the side junction or pulled out in front of him and tragically met his demise, you have to feel for the kids family. Hopefully my colleague will make a full physical recovery, but I worry about how it will affect him, the police took 1 and 1/2 hours to cut him from the Freelander and the road was closed for 8 hours.

The police have apparently been excellent and very supportive, and even helped get my colleagues family to the hospital.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-glo...e-20217704

Next time you think about driving fast in dark, wet, cold conditions... consider where it could lead... It'll never happen to me is just not true.

+1

Sad. 19 is no age

Phil, I agree with your sentiments "It'll never happen to me". Because it CAN.

There are a lot of drivers out there with this attitude, and generally, they don't have an accident because other drivers avoid them.

Also, there seems to be a growing trend where vehicles come out of a side road onto a main road without checking what is coming from their right.

Shocking news for the 19 yr olds family, no one may never know what really happened here.

I live close to where the accident happened, a difficult road. What tends to happen is that someone turns left out of a side road looking only to their right and into the path of a car overtaking from their left.

Interesting programme on BBC last night about dangerous drivers etc. Well worth watching on catch-up TV just to see the unmarked Police HGV's in use in parts of Yorkshire!

Not only that, but the things they have to pull drivers for: One Hungarian HGV driver was filmed wacthing You Tube on his laptop whilst thundering down the motorway with a fully laden HGV!!! His excuse was it just got boring on long journeys!

I'll tell you, I'm keeping well away from foreign HGV's from this day forward!

Sad thing is though, was the attitude of 19-24 year old males (in particular) that they were great drivers and it would simply not happen to them, it would always be someone else's fault. Very sad, but mostly a very true attitude.

Yes I saw it "How Safe are Britains roads?" its a 3 part series, and is quite interesting... makes you not want to drive though!

How dangerous are those HGV's if they fall asleep and plough into stationery traffic! The Unmarked Police HGV... If that doesn't stop you using your phone while driving, watch the accident of the guy that was using his phone with one of those those in-car monitoring devices. And they could only show accidents where no-one was injured.

Dont think I agree with Platooning... leaving your driving to a computer using Wifi technology to the car infront... Yikes, lets all crash together. Or lose the wifi signal...

Very thought provoking programs, I've just watched them on BBC iPlayer.
One concern I have is how close, even on A roads, people follow. Yesterday I had a group of lads in their lowered, sports exhausted baby vauxhall, all show no go (and possibly no ABS) follow me so close on the motorway that I couldn't see the bonnet of their car................ I was doing 70 on cruise control as soon as I touched the brake they eased back but only enough that I could see the bonnet of their car not their number plate! Why? They could have pulled out and overtaken if they had wanted, it was an almost empty section of motorway.

(08-11-2012 02:08pm)XFullFatTim Wrote:  Yesterday I had a group of lads in their lowered, sports exhausted baby vauxhall, all show no go (and possibly no ABS) follow me so close on the motorway that I couldn't see the bonnet of their car................

Short of it being "safe" to out run them and they'd probably catch you up anyway when you slowed back down, I would just keep drifting slower and slower until they got bored and passed or moved back and at least then the impact effects are reduced should you suddenly need to stop, you don't want to be part of their impending nightmare...

Most kids have 0 experience of whats about to run out, pull out, blow out or stop suddenly, but they think they are gods gift to driving perfection and can handle anything... (we were that age once!) and they've probably learnt their road craft skills from Need for Speed and Burnout Paradise!!!

I must admit, I do the same when I'm on cruise and someone is up my chuff (as it were). I just keep dropping 1 mph every minute or so till they get bored and overtake. Works everytime.

One of the "interesting insights" from the minds of some of the younger generation in that programme, was on the subject of reducing their insurance costs by fitting the "spy in the cab" devices. At least three of the lads said they were dead against it as "they did not want their insurer to see what speeds they got up to when they were driving".

Sort of speaks for itself really.