Motoring Discussion > Dangerous Driving - Speed Only?	Miscellaneous
Thread Author: Bromptonaut	Replies: 23

Wed 11 Mar 15 08:36   Dangerous Driving - Speed Only? - Bromptonaut

Driver charged with Dangerous Driving after being caught doing 120mph on A40 Gloucester bypass is attempting a defence that speed alone is not sufficient to prove charge: m.gloucestercitizen.co.uk/120mph-Golden-Valley-driver-wasn-t-dangerous/story-26124935-detail/story.html Personaly I think he's an idiot and hope book is thrown together with a punitive costs order against his lawyers. Views? Reply to this message | Report message

Wed 11 Mar 15 08:48   Dangerous Driving - Speed Only? - Westpig

I think his defence is correct. Speeding on its own cannot possibly be automatically dangerous, otherwise emergency service personnel wouldn't have an exemption and be able to do it. There will be a sliding scale of danger and it's up to the prosecution to show what danger was caused by the excessive speed at that time and at that place. The 80mph in the 40mph limit might concern me more than the 120mph on the dual carriageway, without knowing the roads concerned. Last edited by: Westpig on Wed 11 Mar 15 at 08:48 Reply to this message | Report message       1

Wed 11 Mar 15 08:48   Dangerous Driving - Speed Only? - Crankcase

The argument here is whether the law is actually written to say, or can be interpreted to say, that doing 120mph is of itself dangerous, so it will be interesting to see what the outcome is. I tried unsuccessfully to find the law as it is wrote. Can you point us at the relevant section Bromp? I can find the CPS take on it but not the actual wording. Last edited by: Crankcase on Wed 11 Mar 15 at 08:49 Reply to this message | Report message

Wed 11 Mar 15 08:53   Dangerous Driving - Speed Only? - Westpig

>> I tried unsuccessfully to find the law as it is wrote. tinyurl.com/ptkuxsz Reply to this message | Report message

Wed 11 Mar 15 09:09   Dangerous Driving - Speed Only? - NortonES2

. Last edited by: NortonES2 on Wed 11 Mar 15 at 09:10 Reply to this message | Report message

Wed 11 Mar 15 09:16   Dangerous Driving - Speed Only? - Cliff Pope

Wouldn't it depend on the reasons parliament considered for imposing the speed limit in the first place? If parliament thought 120 mph was dangerous, so imposed a 70 mph limit, then 120 mph is by definition dangerous because that was what parliament intended the law to mean. But if they imposed the limit for some other reason, other than with the intention of reducing danger, then speed itself would not necessarily be dangerous. What could that other reason have been? Reply to this message | Report message

Wed 11 Mar 15 09:20   Dangerous Driving - Speed Only? - Zero

>> Driver charged with Dangerous Driving after being caught doing 120mph on A40 Gloucester bypass is >> attempting a defence that speed alone is not sufficient to prove charge: I think the driver is right, speed alone is insufficient to prosecute someone on a dangerous driving charge. The circumstances of that speed in context need to be proven to be dangerous. Having said that however, it can't be beyond the wit of the old bill to provide the context and circumstances to prove it was dangerous. Unless of course they haven't bothered and just upgraded it to dangerous driving. In which case they could be scrabbling about a bit! Reply to this message | Report message

Wed 11 Mar 15 09:30   Dangerous Driving - Speed Only? - ToMoCo

It may well have been dangerous depending on conditions, traffic, and the road itself, but not necessarily so. Defence is correct, speed alone not enough to prove dangerous driving. Reply to this message | Report message

Wed 11 Mar 15 10:38   Dangerous Driving - Speed Only? - Fenlander

120mph is quite brisk however... Speed in itself when properly recorded is an absolute offence but dangerous driving... in general far from it. Had I been caught at 120mph on that section of A40 in the early hours of the morning with no traffic while on a journey I'd fight any dangerous driving element of a prosecution. The road is completely straight dual carriageway with no junctions or farm entrances etc other than a motorway standard slip on/off. From a personal perspective I'd be a very experienced driver with a totally clean record going back 30yrs plus and driving a well serviced/shod car that would be stable and controllable at such speeds. Additionally as I understand this case the charge of 120mph is an estimated speed where the police claim the speeder was "going away from them" when they were doing 110mph. From this you might assume this was not a traffic car with equipment to accurately record speed but perhaps a local patrol car which had been pushed to its maximum and couldn't keep up with the speeder. I'd also doubt if their 110mph recorded speed was on a calibrated speedo which would make the 120mph prosecution pure guesswork? So personally I'd expect to easily escape the dangerous driving element. However in this speeders case he's got a good few things going against him over and above the claimed 120mph.... He set out from Cheltenham along the A40 at speed and then at the Gloucester end went round the roundabout and came back along to Cheltenham at speed... seemingly the sole purpose of the journey was to speed and he may well have had passengers he was trying to impress which could indicate reckless intent. When he arrived back at Cheltenham he continued through the 40 limit near GCHQ at 80mph... a section of road that does have junctions, footpaths, bus stops and "clutter". This was probably the most "dangerous" element of his offence. Add to that he's only 24 so may still be regarded as inexperienced and if he was driving to the absolute limit of his car's speed it may also count against him. If I was defending him I'd be working hard on the unproven nature of the speed claimed to remove the dangerous driving element.. but the driver still sounds like an idiot. Last edited by: Fenlander on Wed 11 Mar 15 at 10:40 Reply to this message | Report message

Wed 11 Mar 15 11:09   Dangerous Driving - Speed Only? - NortonES2

If the dangerous driving charge is related to the extent of the single trip at high speeds in a number of settings, then an argument over 120 in a dual carriageway is only part of the story. Definition: A person is to be regarded as driving dangerously for the purposes of sections 1 and 2 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 if the way he/she drives falls far below what would be expected of a competent and careful driver, and it would be obvious to a competent and careful driver that driving in that way would be dangerous;[2 I think the infamous Sun headline is appropriate here. Reply to this message | Report message

Wed 11 Mar 15 12:22   Dangerous Driving - Speed Only? - Lygonos

Travelling the length of a football pitch every 2 seconds is likely to be dangerous on any road that has junctions entering it. On a big straight motorway/dual carriageway it's fairly un-dangerous. I'm pretty sure someone got off a dangerous driving charge 15 or 20 years ago doing 150mph because the road was open and 'he had a lot of trackday experience'. Edit: here's a different one to the case I was thinking about from the Mirror www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/not-dangerous-driving-21-year-old-doing-575809 Last edited by: Lygonos on Wed 11 Mar 15 at 12:23 Reply to this message | Report message

Wed 11 Mar 15 12:40   Dangerous Driving - Speed Only? - Fenlander

>>>www.car4play.com/redirect.php?http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/not-dangerous-driving-21-year-old-doing-575809 21yr old without insurance doing 150mph on a single carriageway A-road while overtaking another car... I can't believe they couldn't get dangerous driving to stick on that case! Reply to this message | Report message

Wed 11 Mar 15 18:12   Dangerous Driving - Speed Only? - Armel Coussine

I too see nothing wrong with speed per se. But very high speeds, over 100 these days I suppose, are never completely 'safe' because cars are harder to control and get out of shape more quickly at those speeds, independently of any handling vices they may have. Roads can have random hazards which may not even be visible to drivers. My much-loved Renault 18 once picked up a heavy steel bolt with its o/s front wheel and fired it through the centre of the tread of the o/s rear, when the car was travelling at considerable speed. Had it been traversing a l/h curve at the time the consequences of that instant deflation could have been worse than tricky, but it was running straight so just meant a new tyre (and a ghastly roadside wheel change). The bolt had penetrated all the steel belts whose wires were hanging out of the hole in a horrible way. Actually anything can get you any time, don't doubt it. Cultivate peripheral vision and eyes in the back of your head. Keep your eyes moving. And don't go fast. (Cough, choke). Reply to this message | Report message

Wed 11 Mar 15 22:32   Dangerous Driving - Speed Only? - Alastairw

If its the section of A40 I think it is it is almost motorway standard. No hard shoulder, but proper slip road junctions etc. Usually too busy to get to that kind of speed though. Reply to this message | Report message

Thu 12 Mar 15 08:03   Dangerous Driving - Speed Only? - IJWS14

Anyone who does this deserves a long ban. It is an A road so there can be pedestrians, cycles, stationary vehicles etc as well as animals. Before the advent of speed cameras I was travelling around 50k a year generally in hire cars, I did push the limits and it is only when you are doing 120 that you realise how much room you need, not to stop, but just to get down to reasonable speeds. From following Pepipoo over 100 in Scotland is frequently prosecuted as dangerous and they generally succeed. From your description this was. Reply to this message | Report message

Thu 12 Mar 15 12:16   Dangerous Driving - Speed Only? - Old Navy

I agree about the A road speed being dangerous, near here a motorway becomes a dual carriageway with only motorway style junctions but has laybys. The problem on this road is speed differential. There have been several deaths caused by drivers seeing slow moving tractors, JCBs, lorries, etc. late and having nowhere to go but an impact with the slow moving vehicle, traffic in the adjacent lane, or the scenery. Reply to this message | Report message

Thu 12 Mar 15 13:54   Dangerous Driving - Speed Only? - Cliff Pope

Suppose you are doing 120 mph in the outer lane of an A-road, and there is a tractor ahead lumbering along in the fast lane intending to turn right into the central island waiting area. How far away do you have to sum up that situation, and prepare to slow to 10 mph? Do you assume that by the time you are half way there the tractor will have moved out of the lane, or do you need to slow anyway in case it doesn't? Supposing you cannot see far enough ahead to be certain that there isn't a tractor in your lane, do you carry on anyway at 120 mph, or slow just in case? Isn't it the case that the single factor making all these situations tricky and potentially dangerous is your speed? Reply to this message | Report message

Thu 12 Mar 15 15:33   Dangerous Driving - Speed Only? - Old Navy

One of the deaths I was referring to was a lorry driver who saw a tractor too late. There was fast moving traffic in lane two. The lorry driver went left through a barrier, what he did not know, and can't be seen from the road is at that point he was on a short bridge over a 100ish feet deep heavily wooded ravine. Reply to this message | Report message

Thu 12 Mar 15 15:36   Dangerous Driving - Speed Only? - Zero

>> Supposing you cannot see far enough ahead to be certain that there isn't a tractor >> in your lane, do you carry on anyway at 120 mph, or slow just in >> case? >> Isn't it the case that the single factor making all these situations tricky and potentially >> dangerous is your speed? No its the fact that you are doing 120 mph where you can't see 120mph's worth ahead. If you can see 120mph ahead its not dangerous in itself. Last edited by: Zero on Thu 12 Mar 15 at 15:37 Reply to this message | Report message       1

Thu 12 Mar 15 15:46   Dangerous Driving - Speed Only? - Duncan

>> No its the fact that you are doing 120 mph where you can't see 120mph's >> worth ahead. If you can see 120mph ahead its not dangerous in itself. Wot e said. Highway Code, section 126 - Control of vehicle. "Stopping Distances. Drive at a speed that will allow you to stop well within the distance you can see to be clear. You should leave enough space between you and the vehicle in front so that you can pull up safely if it suddenly slows down or stops. The safe rule is never to get closer than the overall stopping distance". Reply to this message | Report message       1

Thu 12 Mar 15 22:11   Dangerous Driving - Speed Only? - WillDeBeest

...stop well within the distance you can see to be clear. That phrase needs to continue '...and certain to remain clear for the time it would take you to stop.' 500m of clear road dead ahead is no good to you if a tractor might waddle out from behind a tree into your path. Someone here - I remember who but I won't name him - wrote indignantly about a driver who pulled into his path from a stationary queue he was passing at 50mph; driving fast into any situation where you don't know exactly how you would stop safely if you had to is dangerous. Reply to this message | Report message

Thu 12 Mar 15 22:18   Dangerous Driving - Speed Only? - Zero

>> if a tractor might waddle out from behind a tree into your path. On the other hand you cant approach every blind bend, or obscured side road at 20mph. I bet no-one here, on a dark motorway drives within view of their dipped headlights*. Like me, everyone drives on what the cats eyes indicate - Thats not visibility, merely directional guidance. *If we did, night speeds on unlit motorways would drop to 40mph max. Reply to this message | Report message       1

Fri 13 Mar 15 08:54   Dangerous Driving - Speed Only? - Old Navy

>> *If we did, night speeds on unlit motorways would drop to 40mph max. >> I use the rear lights of the car ahead in my lane as an indication that the lane is clear, a long as it is not one of our bike riders who is likely to drop a bike off their car it tends to work. A sudden unexpected lane change or brake lights would indicate a problem. Last edited by: Old Navy on Fri 13 Mar 15 at 08:54 Reply to this message | Report message

Fri 13 Mar 15 21:22   Dangerous Driving - Speed Only? - Dutchie

Driven at 120mph returning from Manchester on the M62.Nighttime clear road and a Comfy Mercedes on a oil test drive.About 15 years ago.I was speeding yes dangerous why? Reply to this message | Report message       1