In the news lately , I have noticed in accidents involving lorries and cars , the lorry driver is always arrested and charged.
What if it was the car driver that caused the crash ?
Without witnessing the incident , how do the Police make that assumption,its the lorry driver’s fault ?
The witnesses that saw it happen would not be credible, as facts get turned around with confusion.
How become you are charged shortly after and not until the case has gone to court, with all the evidence gathered, it seems fairer.
It says the lorry driver was arrested, doesn’t mean he was charged. If you are arrested the questioning is then a matter of record and can be as much for the drivers protection as anything else. If I was involved in something serious like this I wouldn’t answer questions until I had been arrested, less chance of things bring twisted later. There have been two occasions where I was involved in things, not motoring related, when I wouldn’t answer questions until I had been arrested and taken to the station, on neither occasion did the arrests result in me bring charged.
Answering question from the police while not under caution can often lead to you digging yourself into a big old home and making things easy for them.
Coffeeholic:
It says the lorry driver was arrested, doesn’t mean he was charged. If you are arrested the questioning is then a matter of record and can be as much for the drivers protection as anything else. If I was involved in something serious like this I wouldn’t answer questions until I had been arrested, less chance of things bring twisted later. There have been two occasions where I was involved in things, not motoring related, when I wouldn’t answer questions until I had been arrested and taken to the station, on neither occasion did the arrests result in me bring charged.Answering question from the police while not under caution can often lead to you digging yourself into a big old home and making things easy for them.
I remember reading about a women who had been taken to court for drink driving, but the case though clear cut had been thrown out, because she had admitted drink driving prior to being cautioned.
The basics were, she had witnessed an armed robbery in a local store/post office, during questioning as a witness she mentioned driving to the store, at which point the Plod asked her to repeat it, but without either cautioning her, or advising her that she was incriminating herself. This slip in correct and fair procedure led to the case being thrown out.
Be careful what is said while sat in the back of the Police car, you may think it is a friendly chat,you say things, that are regretted later, they have a way to make you free flow with the conversation.
When an incident occurs between a professional and non-professional driver the professional is often arrested as it is usually deemed that they could have prevented the incident
In almost all cases the professional is de-arrested within a very short time once the police have got a statement either verbally or written
This is just one of the extra responsibilities and possibly pitfalls the professional driver has - bit like the DVSA assuming something is wrong at a roadside stop until they find nothing - it may not be what is considered ‘right’ but a professional should be able to cope with it
The other side is that the cops will often ask the professional for help in an incident
I think the rights of plod to collect evidence is increased by being arrested …
Most drivers have diary’s that they write their shift times and appointments in along with other stuff the same with mobile phones ( remember that app you use on your phone that says what you did when 
)
then there’s the paper work you have with you some saying when you got to A ,B ,C to deliver X, Y, Z all this and your tacho allows evidence to charge you if they find something not quite right
I’m just saying that this is just a thought though
I was driving on the forest road between Irun and Bordeaux, it was raining and creating bad visibility.
At the the time I was the only truck on the road, in my side mirror, I saw this red sports car coming up behind me at high speed.
The car overtakes me, then loses control and flips over on it’s roof.
I stopped and it was a young couple, bizarrely when the car overturned it flew out
All her underwear, maybe it was a honeymoon.
The Gendarmarie asked for my statement and asked if the car was speeding, I said driving normally but knew it was high speed,iI felt sorry for them, he had learnt a lesson, the Gendarme was very pleasant.
It’s simply not the case that the lorry driver is always arrested/charged after a fatal.
It could simply be that in a fatal accident involving a lorry and a car it would be more often that the car driver is the fatality and so wouldn’t be arrested.
It’s not always going to be that either driver is the fatality but statistically this, along with severity of injuries would account for more lorry driver arrests at the scene of fatal accidents which involve a lorry.
It’s a ploy to increase their DNA database.
bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-31192637
As I said, it’s just not the case. Each incident is looked at in detail before any charges brought.
It’s normal for both drivers in an RTC to be breathalyzed - but arrested?
I often wondered why it was, as above posters have said - “The truck driver was arrested at the scene”, rather than “everyone” or “the car driver only”…
Winseer:
It’s normal for both drivers in an RTC to be breathalyzed - but arrested?
The power to require a breath test applies to all drivers of mechanically propelled vehicles involved in the collision. Suspicion of drink/driving doesn’t enter into it, nor does the standard of driving or the size/type of vehicle.
I often wondered why it was, as above posters have said - “The truck driver was arrested at the scene”, rather than “everyone” or “the car driver only”…
First off, it’s certainly not the case that the truck driver is always arrested - just yesterday another cyclist was killed in Central London but the driver of the truck involved was not arrested, for example.
Secondly, the power of arrest only applies if that person is suspected of having committed an offence - so only those drivers who are reasonably suspected of having committed offences can be arrested. Additionally, the arrest must be necessary for certain specified reasons, including ensuring that the suspect doesn’t vanish. The power to arrest is normally only used in the most serious of cases (i.e. where someone has died). For this reason it is rare for a cyclist or motorcyclist to be arrested at the scene…
The main reason an involved truck driver is more often arrested is mostly down to probability - a significant proportion of HGVs on UK roads are driven by foreign nationals. Someone with no permanent UK address is arguably much more likely to do a runner, so the power to arrest is more likely to be applied. Of all those involved, the truck driver is also the most likely to be uninjured (or at least, only slightly injured), which again makes him more likely to be arrested at the scene. You’d have to be a callous B…d to go slapping the cuffs on as the suspect was receiving CPR in the back of an ambulance…
Years ago as a bus driver I was involved in a fatal accident with a pedestrian, I was breathalysed as standard procedure but I was not arrested, I have to say the police where very good and helpful in my case.
The scene is automatically treated as a crime scene.
Drift:
Years ago as a bus driver I was involved in a fatal accident with a pedestrian, I was breathalysed as standard procedure but I was not arrested, I have to say the police where very good and helpful in my case.
The scene is automatically treated as a crime scene.
If it was before 2006, in most cases there would have been no power to arrest unless you had no verifiable UK address.
If it was before 1984, there would have been no power to arrest full stop.
Unless it was a deliberate act, using the bus as a weapon of course, or the driving was clearly reckless.
Even today, if there are no grounds to suspect that an offence has been committed (and that the driver is guilty of same) then there is no power to arrest.
Roymondo:
Drift:
Years ago as a bus driver I was involved in a fatal accident with a pedestrian, I was breathalysed as standard procedure but I was not arrested, I have to say the police where very good and helpful in my case.
The scene is automatically treated as a crime scene.If it was before 2006, in most cases there would have been no power to arrest unless you had no verifiable UK address.
If it was before 1984, there would have been no power to arrest full stop.
Unless it was a deliberate act, using the bus as a weapon of course, or the driving was clearly reckless.
Even today, if there are no grounds to suspect that an offence has been committed (and that the driver is guilty of same) then there is no power to arrest.
It was early 2003