Dangerous driving and excess speed

matttye

patman99 wrote: »

Even rapid response paramedics have limits they cannot go above.
For instance, 100 mph on a dual carriage way with a 70 mph limit and on all other roads they can only top the speed limit by 20 mph.

Hope you get a cell with a nice view of the exercise yard.

Paramedics have professional training in how to deal with high stress situations. Average joe doesn't have such training and cannot be judged to the same standard.

I have doubts any court will imprison someone who drove too fast because a passenger had a life threatening medical condition, even if it is obscenely fast.

---lee---

Only footballers are allowed to travel at those speeds, even the police would get slapped wrists.

HamiltonPOLE

105MPH in a 30.

You've even shocked me, a 20 year old lad who drives like he is reliving need for speed underground 2. God dam, prepare your backside the courts are going in dry.

JP08

My first thought to this was "complete wind-up".

Then a little memory from the dim and distant past waved its head. My parents very nearly lost my little sister when she was a few days old and stopped breathing. My dad managed to get four miles through two twisty Norfolk villages in something sub 5 minutes in a Fiat 127 (this was the early '80s) to meet the ambulance coming out of King's Lynn ...

Keep_pedalling

Although emergency services are allowed to exceed speed limits, all these drivers are trained for this and even they can be prosecuted for exceeding the speed limits by excessive amounts. I believe the guidelines are something like 105 pm motorways and limit + 20 elsewhere.

Ambulances drivers also do not have the distraction of someone fitting in the next seat.

Mitigation might get the sentence reduced, but that is going to cost for legal representation, and the driver is going to have to provide some evidence that the emergancy actually happened such as evidence from his GP from a consultation immediately following the incident, because if this actually happened that's the first thing you would do as soon as the surgery opened.

The court may take some convincing because 2am is the sort of time people go out and thrash cars, but an unlikely time to find someone with a serious medical condition out without critical medication.

Strider590

This won't end well, forget all the excuses and opinions and previous conviction and court cases.

What OP describes, goes against the regime doctrine of "speed kills", in fact it's actually trying to say "speed saves lives", there is no way they're going to let the media run that as a news headline, they'll do whatever it takes to make sure that doesn't happen.

bod1467

Are you saying that the Police and Prosecution services are politically-motivated? Surely not .........

avantra

maninthestreet

I hope whoever was the driver has got deep pockets to pay the barrister they will need to defend them in court.

Happychappy

Darth_Vader wrote: »

The exemption to exceed the limit is part of the road traffic act. Does it mention speed cappings? There more likely to be policy, if you have an exemption to speed you cannot be prosecuted for exceeding the limit by an excessive amount. There was one case of PC Milton when they tried with a dangerous driving for his speed but it was never a charge of exceeding the speed limit.

You are correct, there are different force policies which cap non-advanced trained drivers, in other words police drivers who have successfully completed the national three week standard response course.

Some forces have also introduced these caps of +20mph for standard response, other forces haven't, also some forces have capped Police advanced drivers with various speeds, but very few have, but any decision to cap a speed is up to these are individual force policy decisions and are not legally enforceable in a court of law for speed offences, purely with internal PSD investigations.