[BBC News] Man, 20, dies in road collision

[Frances]

without getting into the current case I doubt that such a scheme is at all practical - can you reliably tell the age of a driver whilst a car is moving?, at night ? As to R plates I've seen many travelling at well over 50mph - charitably one must assume it is also the parental car.

[Gladys]

I understand what you are saying, Frances, but we have to live with what we have.

 

I have no experience of the road surface modulation you refer to, it may work, but may (ignoring the TT) become a bigger bone of contention, if implemented, than roundabouts!

 

Would it be too callous to say that those measures would not have prevented this current accident? Should those measures be implemented on all roads? Does every fatal accident on our roads immediately reflect back on the TT?

 

I would, of course, welcome a year, six months, whatever, without any fatalities, but I truly do not believe that tinkering with this or adjusting that, is really going to have any impact until there is a culture of understanding and respecting the rules of the road. This will only happen when traffic measures are put in place that are understandable and useable by all, and their correct usage is enforced. That, to me, is key. You know, speeding and you are done; parking on double yellows, and you are done; parking on zig zags, and you are done; blocking a roundabout, and you are done. That will engender a more responsible attitude towards driving that, hopefully, would carry through to drivers becoming aware of their actions and improve the general standard.

 

You drive in England, Frances, and you know damn well what you can or cannot do, and that awareness carries over to all of your driving.

[Frances]

I know nothing of the current accident and only knew it was a joyride (horrible euphemism) from the poster this evening - I cannot see how anything can stop this other than education.

No not every accident reflects back on the TT but when one road stretch seems to account for a significant majory of crashes then maybe something is amiss.

Recently I've done a lot of driving in France - many long straight and very tempting speedy roadsusually restricted to 90kmph but recall the French police have the power to stop you for speeding and confiscate the car (police-radar detectors are illegal in France and though the static radar checks are well signed and ping on TomTom, the French Police make good use of mobile detectors) - walking back to the tunnel does not appeal to me. Speed limits in any built up area are usually lower than in the UK and road humps are often used as well as timed lights. In the UK wider roads than the Mountain road are often limited to 40mph (one because of too many motorcycle accidents) - certainly the local speed traps in Surrey are actively policed by mobile patrols .

[ans]

As to R plates I've seen many travelling at well over 50mph - charitably one must assume it is also the parental car.

 

Fun fact: If the car is displaying R plates, it doesn't matter who is driving it, the limit is 50mph.

[Inspector Derek Flint]

Hi

 

interesting posts.

 

I regualtly post on xlr8.co.im, as that tends to be the main IOM motoring portal.

 

rest assured that:

 

I am trying my best to investigate this young man's death

 

I am trying my best to prevent other tragedies.

 

Last year ( my first as head of Roads Policing), we reduced collisions by 9.6% and road deaths by 25%. we have had a blip with a huge TT, but figures for MGP are suggesting a 40% reduction in collisions for the period.

 

this is no ego trip. If I have to visit one less mother, to talk about her son's death, then it is a result.

 

my office phone is 631370. If anyone ever wants to add their two pennoth, then give me a call. If I am not there, then leave a voicemail. suggestions, disagreements, whatever - all welcome.

 

regards

 

Derek Flint

Inspector

Roads Policing Unit

Isle of Man Constabulary

[local skeet]

Hi

 

interesting posts.

 

I regualtly post on xlr8.co.im, as that tends to be the main IOM motoring portal.

 

rest assured that:

 

I am trying my best to investigate this young man's death

 

I am trying my best to prevent other tragedies.

 

Last year ( my first as head of Roads Policing), we reduced collisions by 9.6% and road deaths by 25%. we have had a blip with a huge TT, but figures for MGP are suggesting a 40% reduction in collisions for the period.

 

this is no ego trip. If I have to visit one less mother, to talk about her son's death, then it is a result.

 

my office phone is 631370. If anyone ever wants to add their two pennoth, then give me a call. If I am not there, then leave a voicemail. suggestions, disagreements, whatever - all welcome.

 

regards

 

Derek Flint

Inspector

Roads Policing Unit

Isle of Man Constabulary

Thanks for your two pennoth worth, it is much appreciated to know that you are doing your best to drive down this type of far to common incident.

 

Errm I take it you will not be able to post on Manxforums from work as the Government have blocked access to this site!!

 

local skeet

[Silentbob]

With all due respect Mr Flint, the Police's lack of pro-active meaures against the scourge of young drivers who race through our country lanes at night is disturbing. Merely take a drive along the Old Castletown Road/Marine Drive, and count the number of handbrake turn marks/General skids.

 

Your guys need to be out every weekend, watching and recording. You need to give the public more support for being vigilant against Anti Social Driving in and out of town, you need to better educate young drivers of the risk of overloading/modifying their vehicles, and show them real life accident footage to drive home the consequences of their actions.

 

I know all this might sound very hard line, but I firmly believe that no amout of speed limits, warning signs and hot hatch unmarked cars will lessen the number of tragic accidents on our roads, only education, legwork, and stiffer penalties for those flouting the laws already in place will solve the issue.

 

I will hold my hands up and say, yes I was blasting round country lanes in my Mini when I was 17. Driving was and still is so very important and enjoyable to me, but now I shudder when I drive up a stretch of road at 40 mph, and remember doing over 100 when I was a lad thinking I was invincble, and the best driver in the world. I was not, but I am not that old not to remember exactly what my mindset was as a new driver.

 

As I said, I do have respect for your feelings on the matter of road safety, and I have some ideas that I think are worth soem serious consideration by the Government in general, I might well give you a shout about them.

[thesultanofsheight]

I must say that you do have a big "R" plate problem that you should look to address. Most people could probably tell you from memory the usual suspects that you see out there thrashing past you on bends and generally driving like total arses most of the time.

 

Someone earlier on these boards lamented friends being killed and injured and they are right, but its usually the same blinged up crappy VTR's and Corsas that you see tearing about and it seems to be a fairly close knit community that you could easily stop and caution every once in a while.

[Sidney]

I was discussing this thread with a passenger in my taxi earlier on (After being overtaken on the prom by some R plate halfwit in a Clio doing at least 50mph) and he told me that nobody on the Isle of Man has ever been prosecuted for driving over 50mph whilst displaying R plates.

Is this true? Because if it is, then the whole R plate system is an utter joke.

Anybody have any statistics on this point?

[Chopsticks]

I was discussing this thread with a passenger in my taxi earlier on (After being overtaken on the prom by some R plate halfwit in a Clio doing at least 50mph) and he told me that nobody on the Isle of Man has ever been prosecuted for driving over 50mph whilst displaying R plates.

Is this true? Because if it is, then the whole R plate system is an utter joke.

Anybody have any statistics on this point?

 

I suspect the problem is that unless you've actually got a speed camera recording someone's velocity, there's no proof of what speed they were driving at.

 

Imagine getting stopped in a 30 zone and a police officer telling you, "Yeah it looked to me like you were doing 35, here's a fixed penalty ticket and three points on your licence."

 

50 is a strange sort of speed in that you'll already be speeding in a 30 or 40 zone (which is where the police tend to monitor) hence the R plate becomes immaterial because anyone going that fast is breaking the law, you'll be totally legal in 50 zones, and you'll only be speeding if you get done in a 60 zone or an unrestricted area, which tend not to attract much in the way of police attention.

 

I did actually get chased by a police car when I was on R plates, overtaking a line of traffic up from the Bungalow heading towards Douglas (the car in front was doing 30 miles per hour and no bastard would overtake, the police car had been stationary at the Bungalow), I was in a MarkII Golf GTi so it was pretty damned quick, albeit ruinously expensive to insure. I noticed his lights in my rear view mirror on the drop from the Creg to Brandish, whereby I was given a pretty severe bollocking, but was allowed to go on my way once he'd finished telling me off.

 

He did have a point I suppose (although that is a good overtaking point because you can see the road way ahead), but I certainly shouldn't have been driving like that on R plates. At the end of the day though, he had no evidence whatsoever that I'd been speeding, no speed cameras or anything like that, and when he asked me how fast I thought I was going, I just said, "Ummmm, about 50?"

 

As such, I suspect it's very difficult to nobble R platers for doing over 50, because there are simply no detection mechanisms in place that would generally capture such a situation.

 

(Incidentally, I don't drive like so much of a twat these days, all just part of growing up I suppose.)

[Nitro]

As such, I suspect it's very difficult to nobble R platers for doing over 50, because there are simply no detection mechanisms in place that would generally capture such a situation.

 

What about the onboard video recorders that are in the unmarked police cars?

 

Those are whats hopefully going to catch some of the idiots........

[Celt]

All this crap about speed and youngsters is total bollox imo.

 

It's not new at all. When i was that age, the same was done. Rightly or Wrongly, it happened.

 

1 poster put up that he'd buried over 6 of his mates. So fucking what, so have i pal and more.

 

In my day not many people had a car to let their kids loose in. Now they do. And powerful cars at that.

 

These parents let their kids out in their car or bloody well buy them one and when it goes tits up, blame the Police, the roads,

tyres, the boogie, but not the sunshine. No-one exept themselves.

 

These people who let " Little Jonny " or " Sweetness ", drive of in their car and don't even give a thought to as what they might do with it. That's right is it ?

 

When the apple of their eye then becomes a bonnet fixture, they then look to someone to blame. Look closer to home in future as you, the parent, let them drive off in your pride and joy.

 

Yes, the Police fuck up as they don'y clamp dowm on R plates, but if mummy and daddy didn't let them drive the damm things in the first place or at least didn't allow them access to a car just to take their mates on jollies, it would get better.

 

However, you cannot cover everything as some people take a car wheter it's theirs or not.

 

Accidents happens, that's life. But most off these are some young fuck-wit, showiing off in a car which they can't handle.

 

I'm not saying Mr Oates falls in to this at all, but there have been to many deaths similar to this lately and it needs to stop.

 

(Waiting to be Flamed )

[%age]

I can't flame that. There are some interesting points there.

 

(I like the bit about the boogie and the sunshine).

 

Right, so rather than raise the driving age, how about making all under 21s be allowed only to drive a Smart Car or similar. Now that may sound a bit daft at first, but it is worth thinking about . . . . . .

[Sidney]

Right, so rather than raise the driving age, how about making all under 21s be allowed only to drive a Smart Car or similar. Now that may sound a bit daft at first, but it is worth thinking about . . . . . .

A good point which has been made many times on the various and numerous threads we have seen on this subject (Not having a dig there!).

Limiting drivers to e.g. no more than 80 horsepower vehicles for the first two years would, in my opinion give them a chance to learn to drive and understand the roads better before letting them loose with something more powerful, and hopefully the exuberance and "I am immortal" mentality would have worn off a bit by then.

And like Chopsticks, I was once a young driver hurtling round like a complete twat with no idea of the limitations of my car, the roads or my own driving ability. Fortunately for me, I managed to pass that phase without incident or injury (Except when I came off my motorbike near Andover when I was 18 and after about 6 pints).

I drive for a living on the roads of Douglas and it makes me cringe every time some idiot overtakes me with music pumping out of the stereo, 4 mates crammed in and R plates on show. I always think to myself "I hope I won't be hearing about them on the news in the morning".

[bluemonday]

Celt, IMO. Good post, good points.