Recently we have had a lot of debate on here about speed limits and some of the members saying the routinely ignore the 40 mph restriction because they think it is safe to do so and drive on the limiter along roads with 40 mph limits for trucks etc. Is it really worth it just to get an extra couple of pallets delivered or to spend more time sitting waiting when you get top the delivery when you take account of the news report below?
A SPEEDING lorry driver who lost control of his truck and killed three people was banned from driving for just six months yesterday.
Steven Williams, 35, ploughed into a Toyota Starlet that had stopped to turn right before swerving across the road and hitting a Honda Accord.
Grain firm worker Ivan Jeffrey, 60, his wife Pamela, 65, and her mother 85-year-old Constance Rome died in the crash.
The family from Downham Market, Norfolk, had been on a day trip to the Suffolk coast in Mr Jeffrey’s Honda.
Williams, from Lowestoft, Suffolk, had been driving at 54mph on a country road which had a 40mph limit for lorries. He only suffered bruising to his leg.
Simon Wilson, the East Anglia regional controller of road safety charity Roadpeace, branded Williams’s sentence “ludicrous.”
He said: “This man has got a six-month driving ban - but the effects of his actions will be remembered by the friends and family of the victims for the rest of their lives.”
Ipswich crown court was told that just three months after the tragedy on July 10 last year, Williams was caught speeding again and given three penalty points for being clocked at 56mph in a 40mph zone.
At an earlier hearing, Williams admitted careless driving. A jury cleared him of causing death by dangerous driving.
The married dad of two told the court: “I remember holding the steering wheel, praying the lorry would stop but it didn’t.”
He claimed his view could have been affected by bright sunshine on the A144 at Ilketshall St Lawrence near Halesworth, Suffolk. Prosecutor Rupert Overbury said Williams would have been able to stop in time if he had been driving his articulated grain lorry within the 40mph limit.
Williams said he thought of the accident “every day and every night” and was taking sleeping tablets and anti-depressants.
Judge Peter Thompson told him: “The consequences of your driving were immensely serious. No penalty could satisfy the feelings of the family of the victims.”
But he said he could only sentence him on the lesser charge of careless driving, which carries the six-month ban. He was also fined £1,000 with £200 costs.
Source Daily Mirror
In my opinion the punishment for this event is a joke, especially given the fact that three months after the tragedy, and before the case had come to court, he was caught doing 56 mph in a 40 zone again. He claimed he thought of the accident “every day and every night” and was depressed. It didn’t effect him badly enough to slow him down though. This guy should never get his licence back.
According to the report if he had been doing 40 he would have been able to stop in time so those of you who ignore the 40 limit and drive at 50 or more can you really say something like this won’t happen to you and in the light of tragedies like this can you really justify exceeding the limit to that extent?
) on
) accordingly. Kind of like the 50mph Accident reduction zones (eg Stannington and that one on the A1 around Doncaster) but in reverse.
