Would you have done the same?

UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUMS THE UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUM (INTERACTIVE)
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from the TruckNet news room!

trucknetuk.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=6132

A lorry driver who caused a Wisbech motorcyclist’s death when he did a U-turn on a foggy road was yesterday warned he could face jail.

Roy Bond, 56, from Gedney, near Wisbech, died when his bike hit an articulated lorry at Long Sutton.

Yesterday, a jury at Lincoln Crown Court found the driver, David Hughes, of Richfield Road, Southampton, guilty of causing Mr Bond’s death by dangerous driving.

The jury had heard that Hughes, who was 35 yesterday, chose to carry out a U-turn after twice missing his turning on the A1101.

He was on his way to a factory when the crash happened in thick fog at 6.30am on September 5 last year.

Timothy Palmer, prosecuting, said Hughes could have driven eight miles to a roundabout but was near his limit for driving hours and was running late.

He began the U-turn after asking for directions at a local garage and pulling into a layby, leading to “tragic consequences”.

The U-turn meant him turning right across the foggy road and it was “inevitable” that he would be blocking both carriageways, it was claimed.

But Hughes, who was heading to Long Sutton to pick up a sea container, claimed that he could see for at least 100 metres.

Giving evidence, he told the jury: "Long Sutton was the only place where I encountered clean air after first encountering the fog.

“When I saw it was safe to go, I pulled out.”

After a four-day trial, the jury took four hours to find Hughes guilty.

Remanding him in custody to await sentencing next month, Judge Peter Clark told him: “You should expect to go to prison.”

Speaking after the verdict, Mr Bond’s partner, Jean Hedger, 52, said: "I would just like to thank all my family and friends and the police officer in the case, Nigel Gascoigne. Without them, I would not have got through this ordeal.

“Roy was a lovely English gentleman and had a lot to look forward to.”

And more to the point should this man be going to prison??
When we have people making all our lives a missery ganging up on street corners drinking and mugging old people, pinching young ones Bikes and mobile phones, they all get a slap on the wrist :open_mouth: here we have a guy who claim’s he could see 100 meters but a bike still managed to hit him :open_mouth:

OK someone is telling porkies, he may of made a professional mistake and error of judgment, should he be put into prison for this??

Not so sure myself! to me its another case of wrong priorities!

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agreed wrong prioritys ian… bit difficult with a guy having been killed… so hgv driver says he could see for a hundred metres, was there anyone to say the biker was or wasnt tearing along the road flat out… difficult one to call as i see it.i know the road in question aswell not the best of roads for u turning as they put it.
it would as i see it be easy to apportion blame against the heavy driver, but agian without all the facts it is hard… would like to know what speed the unfornunate chap on the bike was doing…
then again there will be those that will say it didnt matter what speed he was doing… but we know different…
sad all the same, that two sets of family,s life will be turned upside down for one wrong decision

thats my take on it tc

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I agree with you Terry!!!

they are only loosers in this case! I am sure both families have been badly affected by what happend, OK one much more than the other because a guy has died.
Do we really need to inflict a prison sentance on the other? specaily when we dont even put criminals in prison?

Here we have, A guy doing his job who may have made a huge mistake! its not quite like he pulled out a gun! is it?

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Without knowing more it’s difficult, but my instinctive view is that no matter what exactly happened it was an accident and the lorry driver shouldn’t be going to prison for it. It’s not going to bring the biker back.

Personally I’m always very wary of fog, just the other morning I was driving along the A47 between Yarmouth and Acle in my car, in heavy fog, at about 4am, on my way to start work. As a lot of you are probably aware, it’s a pretty much dead straight 9 mile single carriageway. I was doing about 40mph due to the conditions when I was overtaken by one of a certain Yarmouth Haulier’s artics driving pretty much on the limiter…visability was total rubbish and he scared the life outta me, as it was impossible to judge what might have been coming the other way, I guess he just knew the road well and ‘judged’ the risk.

Everyone should be so much more careful in fog, I guess the driver facing jail wasn’t as careful as he could have been, who knows? But jail is a bit strong either way.

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The driver going to jail is justice for the family of the victim in my opinion, if that was one of your family members wouldnt you like to see the person responsible be punished.

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Gurner:
The driver going to jail is justice for the family of the victim in my opinion, if that was one of your family members wouldnt you like to see the person responsible be punished.

Of course we all would, but being a victim you will always be blind of real justice!
Here we have a Guy working and doing his best, may be he did make a gigantic mess of things; he was lost and late and made a mistake!
Is real justice sending this man to prison, they for making his own wife and children having to pay the price for a mistake?

Or do accidents happen?

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Gurner:
The driver going to jail is justice for the family of the victim in my opinion, if that was one of your family members wouldnt you like to see the person responsible be punished.

take his licence from him :question: is that not punishment enough :question:

if it was one of my family i’d like to think that every avenue was looked into first b4 putting another family through hell.i would push everything to stop the driver from going to prison,i would want to talk to him/her to get their story of the accident. i think by killing someone would be punishment enough.don’t you :question:

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Gurner:
The driver going to jail is justice for the family of the victim in my opinion, if that was one of your family members wouldnt you like to see the person responsible be punished.

This post just about sums up the stupid victim mentality that we have in this country today. For every accident there must be someone to blame. What if the the driver were just crossing the road, or had broken down or had stopped at lights - when I was taught to drive I was told that I had always had to drive within my capabilities and should be able to stop in time to avoid an accident. The biker in this case obviously wasn’t driving at an appropriate speed in the conditions, otherwise he would have stopped and would be alive.

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Good shout Jim!

I am personaly sick af the blame culture we are living in! OK if someone has made a mistake because of greed then yes send then to hell!

But an honerst mistake! Whats the world comming to?

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Good shout dave!

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if in the same situation i think we all would have done the same thing.
its ok being holyer than thou after someone has made a mistake but havent we all done things in our years as HGV drivers that in retrospect we would have done different?

this is a sad tale but the driver didn`t intend to kill someone,i feel for both families but prison should be a NO NO…IMHO :frowning:

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When drunk drivers who have killed someone or those who kill when they are driving at excessive speeds don’t always get jailed, and they should in my opinion, sending this guy to jail is over the top. From the report he made a big, big mistake but jail is over the top.

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Nobody here knows the full facts and we may never do, But we can all speculate

If you are doing a U-turn then you will only be covering both carriageways for about the same amount of time as you would if you were turning right out of a side turning.
Suggesting motorcyclist was riding too fast for the conditions.

or

Maybe truck driver never had any lights on

or
The truck driver never knew about the roundabout 8 miles away because he wasn’t a local. And even if he did how many of us would have done a 16 mile round trip just to turn around

The only things we know for sure is that he had already performed this manouver (?) once successfully (maybe giving him a false sense of security)
and it must have been a very complicated case as it took the jury 4 hours to come to a decision.

IMHO I think he should not go to prison for a mistake but if it was somthing idiotic then he should.

ie

If the truck driver overtaking Andyroo had a head on collision and wiped out a family then he deserves to go to jail as what he did was idiotic

but

If you kill sombody because they have jumped off a loading bay whilst (to break a seal maybe) you are reversing then that is a mistake and you should not go to jail for it

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None of know the real facts, however we do know this.

TC:
Yesterday, a jury at Lincoln Crown Court found the driver, David Hughes, of Richfield Road, Southampton, guilty of causing Mr Bond’s death by dangerous driving.

If the motorcyclists speed etc were a factor, dont you think the defense would have used this.

We also know that

TC:
Timothy Palmer, prosecuting, said Hughes could have driven eight miles to a roundabout but was near his limit for driving hours and was running late.

Assuming this guy was under pressure as his hours were running out, so if his hours were not running out, he would have travelled to the roundabout, if the U turn he made was in a safe place, would there have been a real need to travel to the roundabout??

If this was caused by the truck driver being a complete ■■■■■■■, then yes he deserves to go to prison.
If however it was an honest mistake, then no i dont think he deserves prison, as none of know the real facts its a difficult call.
However, had it been a caravaner turning round or a white man van, then the responses would have probably been different.

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Bottom line, if your going to fast to stop safely if something is blocking the road then it’s your fault, what if a child had run out in front of said motorcyclist or a vehicle was broken down blocking the road. Ok so it prolly wasn’t the best place to do a u-turn (we have all done it) but anything else could have pulled out late and impeded the motorcyclist. As he was 56 I doubt he was tonking it (sense comes with age for most people) but how many times do you see motorcycle drivers at way over the speed limit treating the roads as a race track and expecting you to get out of their way?

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So what id the lorry was going on a right turn & not a u turn would he still be at fault?

Reminds me of the advert on the telly - the now you see him now you dont one. Basically you see the bike in your mirrors moving round then you cant see him you then turn right & he runs into you. Of course its your fault you should have known he was there BUT why was he overtaking in town & why wasnt he also watching you & your indicators & brake lights.

It must have been a wide road to do a U turn in it though & why was he nearly out of hours, was he going to sleep on the docks? what did he do when he first missed the turning? Didnt he have a map showing the roundabout & why did he have time to stop for directions yet not to drive to the roundabout. I know if I have to stop for directions I always ask if there is somewhere to turn round if I have to go back.

Unless he has been very negligent I dont see why he needs to go to jail, just take his licence of him after all he can never do it again without a licence

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The motorcyclist wasn’t able to “stop inside the distance he could see to be clear”,who’s at fault there then?Seems a strange verdict,never the less a sad day for all concerned.

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Unless there was a sign indicating no U turns, how was the truck driver negligent?

Because he attempted the turn in fog?

A lorry driver ploughed into standing traffic in heavy fog, causing the death of two people. He was sentenced to two years, rightly so in my opinion. (That’s the responsibilty of the job! = more pay, but that’s another argument).

In fog you should travel at a speed thats allows you stop within the distance of visibility you’ve got. That brings us back to the old ‘two second rule.’

You pick out an object you can see clearly (no, not anything lit) a speed or direction sign, if you can count two seconds before you reach it then your speed is about right. :slight_smile:

The poor soul on the bike must have been going to fast, obvious really.

A 50/50 in my opinion. Daft manoeuvre by the truck driver considering that it was foggy and the biker going too fast. A tragic accident. That’s all it was.

The truck driver does not deserve to go jail or loose his licence as the biker contributed to his own death. :frowning:

I bet there wasn’t a truck driver on the jury. :unamused:

And the judge, a fossilized old richard cranium?

Regarding honest mistake. If you cause someone to die because of an ‘oversight’ or ‘mistake’ it is still your fault that they have lost their life! So, you have to PAY! The unfortunate dead dude paid with their life!
So you have to pay with yours, in jail, if that is the case.

You are responsible! You have to answer for your action or inaction.

Negligence in law = what a reasonable person would or would not have done.

A good driver would not have attemted such a manoeuvre in fog etc.

It’s then for the jury to decide. Harsh? Of course it was, but that’s the nature of the job always on the ‘smelly’ end of the stick :exclamation: :frowning: :angry:

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A lorry driver who caused a motorcylist’s death when he did a U-turn on a foggy road has been jailed for 21 months.

Hughes was also banned from driving for three years.

http://new.edp24.co.uk/content/news/story.aspx?brand=EDPOnline&category=News&tBrand=edponline&tCategory=news&itemid=NOED08%20Oct%202004%2019%3A18%3A54%3A443

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quote from the above story

The deceased had the misfortune to be travelling at, I am satisfied, a reasonable speed and he came across your vehicle when he had no opportunity to avoid a collision."

That to me leaves a lot of questions unanswered

Surely the police would have carried out a forensic examination of the scene to establish the speed at which the biker was travelling.
It seems to me strange they didn’t say what speed it was or that it was even legal?

quote from the above news story

“Finding yourself lost, you chose to pull out of a layby and do a U turn blocking the entire road."

does that mean we are no longer allowed to turn right from a junction in the fog as everybody who performed this manouver (turning right) would block the entire road?