Four people dead in Bath after truck incident [Merged]

109lwb · 23 December 2016 10:14

My understanding is they went down freezinghill lane, although I’ve not seen this written anywhere. That road supposedly has a 7.5t limit, but there are no signs when entering or exiting it saying so, nor any signs anywhere on the road itself. just a sign like the above one before you turn into it. Potter accounted driving down another steep hill just before lansdown lane, and freezinghill lane is pretty steep and is just before lansdown lane. They would have gone past the racecourse and then turned right into landsdown lane to start the descent

snudger · 23 December 2016 19:08

Numbum:
This is the sign the lorries passed turning off the main road leading to the crash sight. Apart from the weight limit the only other road is the width limit which is six foot now I beleive. Does the not suitable for heavy vehicles sign indicate that you should not pass this sign at . You should not with a heavy as there is nowhere to go with a heavy. It is not very clear is it.

The specific blue signs here are for information, warning of a prohibition ahead and an additional advisory for HGVs. I would use this route, if it wasn’t for this prohibition, as it is otherwise OK, but never do. It is no offence to pass these and as the actual 3.5t weight limit signs are at the end of Lansdown ROAD, just before you drop into the built-up Northern bit of Bath, these guys didn’t go through that prohibition. I presume that was put there to prevent lorries using it after the cement mixer runaway fatality in the 60s. I was talking to someone last year who was on the scene of that one and he said the lorry, which had tipped over on to a car, was slowly crushing it but they managed to crawl in and get a baby out of the back seat; nothing could save the 2 adults up front. The truck driver also died.

As for driving any vehicle, we have to check what we can and trust the bits we can’t check are functional. I feel for the driver who probably couldn’t have done much more and seems to show genuine contrition, but someone had to be held responsible for this. The fact the owner apparently spent 11 hours that evening working on his other vehicles shows he knew what was coming and that he knew he was in the wrong to me.

own_account_driver · 23 December 2016 19:38

Snudger:

Numbum:
This is the sign the lorries passed turning off the main road leading to the crash sight. Apart from the weight limit the only other road is the width limit which is six foot now I beleive. Does the not suitable for heavy vehicles sign indicate that you should not pass this sign at . You should not with a heavy as there is nowhere to go with a heavy. It is not very clear is it.

The specific blue signs here are for information, warning of a prohibition ahead and an additional advisory for HGVs. I would use this route, if it wasn’t for this prohibition, as it is otherwise OK, but never do. It is no offence to pass these and as the actual 3.5t weight limit signs are at the end of Lansdown ROAD, just before you drop into the built-up Northern bit of Bath, these guys didn’t go through that prohibition. I presume that was put there to prevent lorries using it after the cement mixer runaway fatality in the 60s. I was talking to someone last year who was on the scene of that one and he said the lorry, which had tipped over on to a car, was slowly crushing it but they managed to crawl in and get a baby out of the back seat; nothing could save the 2 adults up front. The truck driver also died.

As for driving any vehicle, we have to check what we can and trust the bits we can’t check are functional. I feel for the driver who probably couldn’t have done much more and seems to show genuine contrition, but someone had to be held responsible for this. The fact the owner apparently spent 11 hours that evening working on his other vehicles shows he knew what was coming and that he knew he was in the wrong to me.

That is not a fact and a lot of things being portrayed as facts are being done so to support a pantomime villain baddie operator exploiting the innocent new young driver narrative as it seems to be what most folk are happiest believing but a lot of things, like this, being stated are simply not facts.

Because there was an invoice from the mechanic dated around the time of the accident, for eleven hours, the prosecution absurdly implied that it proved the other five lorries, that were examined, and found to be in pretty good nick by VOSA, the next morning must have been tarted up overnight.

That idea is preposterous. There was no mention or photographs from VOSA of there being suspiciously shiny parts on the trucks the next day. Where would they have got the parts. If those other five trucks were in bad condition you wouldn’t get them in shape overnight with tippers, if things were badly seized up you could easily ■■■■ away hours just on a brake job on one drive wheel.