Getting on my high horse for a moment

It's unlike me I know but listening to the radio on my way home tonight I was a bit annoyed with the comments from family members relating to the quad crash in upton a couple of years ago.

Several people have been jailed relating to dangerous driving and death by dangerous driving after 4 people died when their unlicensed quad bike was in an accident whilst racing and the families of those who died said things on the radio like 'its not long enough' 'it won't bring my angel back' etc. Well I'm sorry but your little darlings were the guilty parties.

Really pisses me off does that. They were racing at night on unlicensed quads. They weren't forced into it so they've got nobody else to blame but themselves. It's extremely sad that they died but in my opinion it is extremely hypocritical of families to act like their relations were sweet and innocent victims when they were guilty and it was pure luck (or lack of it) that they were dead and not in court on the same charge as the rest.

 

I heard that too. And thought the same.
they had been riding unlicensed quad bikes, so they have no one to blame, only their kids, Who could have easily killed someone's family themselves....

 

I live in Upton, in fact the road (Sprockhoevel lane) is yards from my house. I remember that night well. A year prior to that accident, a good friend of the 4 actually died in the village just outside the church, from yes you guessed it, a quad bike accident, in fact a year prior to that the same guy (Drae) come off his motorcycle and only just survived a head injury, 50 yards away from where he eventually perished. So you would have thought the 4 who died would have learnt a lesson. The quad bike was unlicensed, had no lights and it was the middle of the night, they were actually caught on CCTV that night in Tesco at hemsworth buying crates of booze. The crash was a nasty one, the reason why the road was shut off for at least 3 days was simply because they had to search for body parts. Absolutely reckless driving from the guys in the car, it's rife for it on that stretch of road, and the guys on the quad were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, but shouldn't have been there at all.

The quad wasn't racing with the car, the car didn't even know the quad was there, because like I say it was pitch black and the quad bike had no lights at all.


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I am not for a second suggesting that the kids on the quad bike were totally innocent kids as they shouldn't have been there, it should have had lights, and been licensed etc.

But the suggestion seems to be that they are the only guilt parties here. I am not sure that what they did merited them being wiped out the extent that it took 3 days to find enough of their body parts to warrant a funeral. I reckon if the car driver and others racing him were not using the Hemsworth By-Pass as a race track and doing 140mph, then the situation may not have resulted in 4 deaths. Its quite likely that there would have been an accident with any user of that road that night, such was the recklessness that these drivers showed to the fact that this was a public road. It just happened to be the case that they wiped out a bunch of kids on a quad bike they should not have been on, and not my mum tootling home from her dance.

 

I've read the car was doing 140mph on the road when it hit the quad. There is no excuse for traveling at that speed so they deserve to be in prison.

They may have been daft and irresponsible to be on the quad but their actions pale into insignificance when compared to the actions of a maniac driving at that speed.

 

How is it possible to know that

 

They analysed the data from the sat nav.

 

Bonkers.

 

Speed of impact with the quad was 140mph, but they recorded speeds of 144mph during that night. Kids may have been on an unlicensed quad bike, but they could easily have been a group of kids on push bikes or simply crossing the road. No one stood a chance against a car travelling at 144mph on a 60mph road.

Think about it 144mph. More than double the motorway speed limit and faster than a high speed train. Travelling on a stretch of public road, at night, with members of the public around.

Nine years isn't long enough. They'll be out if 5 and still be in their 20's.

 

Exactly. Of course the kids were being a bit dense riding a quad with no lights. But we have all surely done daft stuff as kids. To have it then suggested that their parents have no right to get upset about the sentence because their kids were the guilty party is just wrong.

I think there must be some confusion about the story with the suggestion that they were racing. How the hell do you race a 350Z on a quad bike anyway?. The fact is that they were just daft kids on a quad bike at night with no lights. The bloke who oblitereted them was part of a group of people using the Hemsworth bypass as if it were Brands Hatch. It was organised racing, there were people watching on the railway bridge. These kids got in the way but it could have been any innocent road user as no one stands a chance when you are smashed at 140mph. They deserved double what they got in my opinion. And the kids do not deserve to be treated as if they were equally guilty.

 

Agreed. The courts and judges are massively too lenient with regard to sentencing for motoring offences. Over 1700 people were killed on our roads in 2015 and that was a good year. Speeding is a significant factor in many of those deaths. Almost 200,000 killed or injured.

This girl only got 3 years for using her car as a weapon. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/201...nd-run-driver-ploughed-cyclist-road-rage-row/

 

Is this not just a matter of degrees of stupidity?

If you hit or your loved ones were obliterated after hitting an unlit quad bike coming towards you on a public road, then where would your affections lie? Would they be "daft kids" then?

I suspect not.

Racing on a public road is asking for trouble. Organising it is demanding trouble.

But we all exceed the speed limit.

So it's degrees of stupidity.

(where's my avatar gone?)

 

I don't know many kids who have got absolutely shitfaced and raced around main roads in the middle of the nights without a driving licence.

Personally I'm just glad that it's them who got wiped out and that THEY didn't kill somebody else

 

What are the stats for speeding causing deaths?

 

I find it incredible that you seem to be absolving the driver of the car doing 140mph on a public road of all blame. If you think the driver is the innocent party in this then there is something wrong with you.

They were stupid and irresponsible but what you seem to be ignoring is that they were killed by somebody doing something significantly more dangerous and irresponsible than what they were doing. They were daft but they did not deserve to be hit by a maniac driving at 140mph.

 

When did I do that? They were ALL absolute idiots. Those on the quad bike were knowingly risking their lives and innocent people's. Those in the car were just as stupid and just as selfish and risked everyone's lives. It is in my opinion karma that one group of selfish life risking idiots hit another bunch of selfish life risking idiots and no innocent people were involved.

They deserve the prism sentence they got as does everyone involved. My only point was that the families acting like the dead people were innocent victims was hypocrisy as they were just as guilty

 

Here: Well I'm sorry but your little darlings were the guilty parties.
Here: They weren't forced into it so they've got nobody else to blame but themselves.
Here: they were guilty

There is no condemnation of the actions of the driver. You appear to be focused solely on the actions of the kids on the quad and implying that they got what they deserved. They weren't racing, they were caught up in a race.

I simply don't agree. They were reckless and stupid but what they did was nowhere near as dangerous or reckless as what the driver did - the driver who will be out of prison in a few years, free to get on with his life and put his recklessness, that killed four people, behind him.

 

To be fair, I think ST didn't really comment on the driver because his post was purely about the parents of the kids being hypocritical, not about the length of the sentence or anything like that.

The question to ask yourself is: would those same parents be on the radio asking for thier kids' sentences to be higher if their child has been one of the ones to survive but contributed to the killing of their best mate instead? Would they be saying 'I think my son/daughter should go to prison for longer, it's not long enough and won't bring his/her best mate back?'. I don't think that they would somehow. (Incidentally, how long does one have to go to prison for before their child is brought back?)

 

Nothing will bring them back, what happened was tragic but there was a particularly nasty tone to ST's post that implies they got what they deserved. Your point is entirely hypothetical, their kids were the ones killed and they were killed because somebody decided to get his thrills by driving at 140mph on a public road. There is no question that the kids on the quad were stupid, nobody was denying that, but had the driver not been racing at 140mph then the outcome may not have been so tragic.

Of course the parents are going to be so angry, wouldn't you? I know I would if it was my kids that were killed. The key factor in their deaths was the speed of the impact, nothing is going to survive an impact at 140mph. They deserved to be pulled over by the police, they deserved to have their quad taken off them, perhaps even to spend the night in the cells and be charged but they didn't deserved to be disintegrated by a racing driver.

 

I think that goes without saying.