Excuses for running over a human - Part 1

[srw]

In this case there will be a whole lot more bodies littering the trunk road network! I don't know the road in this case but it does appear to be one of the main A roads for the area and is probably closer to being a motorway than a road.

It is. At that time on a Thursday evening it would have been rammed full of traffic doing 70mph. The prudent thing to do if you think you've hit something is to pull over as soon as it's safe to do so, and phone the police. The next layby is just south of the M25, about 3 or 4 miles further on. There is no hard shoulder to speak of.

 

[ComedyPilot]

In this case there will be a whole lot more bodies littering the trunk road network! I don't know the road in this case but it does appear to be one of the main A roads for the area and is probably closer to being a motorway than a road. Why do you think police stop to make sure vehicles and inhabitants are removed from the hard shoulder asap? How many breakdown and recovery drivers are killed while attending vehicles on motorways? You are advocating getting road users with no training to wonder around a high-speed road in the rain and dark to make sure they haven't run over a human body when in 99.999999999% of the cases they most certainly will not have done.

A driver stopping on the hard shoulder would have put their hazard warning lights on. Anyone driving along seeing such lights in the distance 'should' slow down and prepare to stop if necessary. The concerned motorist would then be walking back towards the object along the hard shoulder, facing oncoming traffic - the safest way to do it. I would not go into a live lane of any road, but would go past that point and try to warn oncoming traffic to slow down by waving arms etc?

Comon sense?

Or just drive by, because it's 'not my problem'?

 

[marinyork]

In this case there will be a whole lot more bodies littering the trunk road network! I don't know the road in this case but it does appear to be one of the main A roads for the area and is probably closer to being a motorway than a road. Why do you think police stop to make sure vehicles and inhabitants are removed from the hard shoulder asap? How many breakdown and recovery drivers are killed while attending vehicles on motorways? You are advocating getting road users with no training to wonder around a high-speed road in the rain and dark to make sure they haven't run over a human body when in 99.999999999% of the cases they most certainly will not have done.

You're being silly now. 5 sigma confidence is the standard used in particle physics and is equivalent to 99.99994%. So you are substantially more confident about debris than some of the toughest tests run in science. Or you're saying that around 1 in many billions and billions of collisions with some large road object would infact be a body? Seems implausible to me. I talk generally about stopping and checking. Seem unfair that I'm taking what you say literally? What about you taking my general point and applying it to particular special cases?

This sort of scenario happens too often. There are many, many roads where people hit something and it's perfectly realistic to go and check - people don't. Reporting is obviously an improvement on doing nothing.

I also don't like how you say that the majority of road users would report and to get a grip. Taking aside the issue of insurance + licence, it seems a completely open question to me with no clear answer. I'd like to think that people would, but I don't really know the answer.

I repeat, the words you use are used by many people that do actually hit pedestrians. Many of these are not necessarily on roads like the A3. I'm not a high mileage driver and I've seen pedestrians plenty of times on roads equivalent to the A3 (which I have been on). Pedestrians get killed on substantially less busy roads in the dark that they have every right to be on. I've heard many things said on here over the years that tend to sympathise more with the driver.

 

[Stig-OT-Dump]

Not the first time.
http://www.thecourier.co.uk/News/Pe...n-horrific-a9-accident-near-auchterarder.html

 

[ComedyPilot]

Not the first time.
http://www.thecourier.co.uk/News/Pe...n-horrific-a9-accident-near-auchterarder.html

Notice how the police state some drivers may have thought they hit an animal?

Also, nowhere do the police state it was an accident, but the media uses the word 'accident' with great abandon.

 

[gaz]

It is (funny) how drivers will calmly go around a car that is parked in the road making sure to avoid conflicts with on coming traffic but when asked to do the same thing for a real live person on a bike they get all worked up and mad at the cyclist. I believe there is a deeply rooted fear of the cyclist and the liability involved. After all the cyclist is a moving object and can change direction. The parked car is not going to jump in front

.

 

[ComedyPilot]

Quite Gaz. A parked and unattended car cannot be bullied influenced by blaring horns, flashing lights and revving engines.

A soft, squashy human being on the other hand.........

 

[Schneil]

http://www.metro.co.uk/news/143360-motorists-drive-around-dying-cyclist

and another one. Bit closer to home.

 

[ComedyPilot]

http://www.metro.co.uk/news/143360-motorists-drive-around-dying-cyclist

and another one. Bit closer to home.

Someone posted that it is unlikely for a motorist to deliberately drive over a baody and not stop. Now we have 3 identical accidents incidents with drivers looking after number one.

 

[CopperCyclist]

Someone posted that it is unlikely for a motorist to deliberately drive over a baody and not stop. Now we have 3 identical accidents incidents with drivers looking after number one.

Make that four. I remember another job where it was a police officer... one sec (leaves to google)...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/8558261.stm that one.

 

[ComedyPilot]

Make that four. I remember another job where it was a police officer... one sec (leaves to google)...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/8558261.stm that one.

What makes a driver's first thought one of, "Got to get the hell out of here"

The police inspector only made things worse. By the rest of the story it looked like the victim may have deliberately walked out - so not the officer's fault, but when he didn't stop...................

 

[manalog]

http://www.metro.co.uk/news/143360-motorists-drive-around-dying-cyclist

and another one. Bit closer to home.

Here is another, this one is very sad more than 20 people/drivers did not stop for this little girl. The first driver who had hit her stopped for a few seconds and decided to ran over her with the rear wheel!

 

[manalog]

Didn't want to put in the link as the video is very disturbing, happened several weeks ago in China. The video is on youtube and News Papers.

 

[ComedyPilot]

I remember the furore in the press about that, yet we do it here too with willful abandon, and don't raise an eybrow - and if the victim's a cyclist, then they sort of deserved it because they don't pay road tax/jump red lights/cycle on the pavement/don't use lights..............

We of course are only writing about 'normal' drivers' so far, the number of victims car thieves/joyriders have killed and failed to stop is a really sobering thought.

And our judiciary will let them go as long as they play out the mantra 'I didn't see them', after all other people have said that and 'got away with it'

It doesn't wash with me - if they can't stop from hitting something, they are driving too fast.

 

[BlackPanther]

Yes. My experience is a few years ago but LGV suspension was set pretty hard (as it needs to be for carrying 40+ tonnes across 6 axles) and you could feel bumps much more than in a car.

Agreed. My lorry has air suspension (and air seat) but when I ran over a pheasant last week (t'was dead, so I didn't take any avoiding action) I still felt a bump as it passed under the front and rear wheels. And that's with a full load on.