More policing by social media

[[XAP]Bob]

Oxford Languages definitions, as supplied to Google:

• an unfortunate incident that happens unexpectedly and unintentionally, typically resulting in damage or injury.
• an event that happens by chance or that is without apparent or deliberate cause.

I am not suggesting that it was intentional, but it wasn't unexpected. And there is a clear cause.
I don't think it matches either definition of accident.

I do.
So there you go.You don't think it does,I think it does.Did the driver expect to run into the back of another HGV,no of course he didn't.Did it happen by chance,yes because the HGV in front had a blowout so sudden loss off speed.
Accident.
There's probably a good reason why most(all) posters on this Forum aren't traffic police
Stick to cycling.

Sudden loss of speed - the front lorry was reported to be "slowing", not performing an emergency stop.

Which definition do you think it matches?
Why do you think your opinion holds more weight than the Chief Constable of Essex referenced above?

Is it expected that people will crash into the back of a vehicle they are following too closely? Yes, it's inevitable

[[XAP]Bob]

When I was learning to drive one of the tenets of safety, possibly the most important, was always be able to stop safely if anything happens in front of you. Plainly there are exceptions that one can't always avoid: blind lunatics pulling out of side roads, overenthusiastic children and pets running across the road in blinkers, bit as general rule it does preserve life and bodywork.
The same applies to bicycles, aircraft, yachts, roller skaters, tuk-tuks and, though I have no personal experience, marathon runners.
Getting too close and bashing into another vehicle is always going to be the result of negligence and not accidental.

"Plainly there are exceptions that one can't always avoid"

Funny, I was always taught to be aware that kids might run out from behind parked vehicles, everyone will make mistakes, and that pedestrians might trip off pavements... and that as the operator of lethal machinery it was my job to mitigate those risks as much as possible.
It's not necessarily easy to mitigate the risks, but I an awful lot of the collisions I have seen are entirely due to people barreling into a situation with some misguided notion that priority was absolute, or simply not paying attention (as in this case).

[661-Pete]

So many rear-end-shunt sort of accidents happen, I don't think it would be possible to prosecute in every instance. The 'blame-game' is normally left to the insurers, isn't it? (Not that they always get it right, of course).

I recall a crash when I was a child, in my father's car. We were approaching a blind summit when we came face-to-face with an overtaking car. My father slammed on his brakes and narrowly avoided a head-on. The car behind us also stopped in time. The three or four cars behind that one, didn't. There was quite a lot of damage but no injuries, as I recollect. The offending overtaker tried to get away but was rounded up.

It went to court and the overtaker was duly convicted of careless driving. I don't know if she was also charged with 'failing to stop'. My father had to appear as a witness. Point is, should the drivers involved in the multiple shunt behind us, have also faced prosecution? As far as I recollect, they weren't.

[axel_knutt]

No - driving into the back of someone isn't an "accident" it's a failure to drive with sufficient care and attention. It is indicative of a habit which kills and maims thousands of people every year.
Having a tyre failure on a reasonably recently inspected tyre is an accident.

OK so the bloke deliberately drove into the back then?No it was an accident.
Maybe if the ridiculous 56mph limit was lifted there wouldn't be long lines of HGVs following each other like train carriages.

If you run into the back of the vehicle in front it's always your fault for driving too fast, too close, or without paying attention, (with the possible exception of something like brake failure). I've had a couple of cars stuffed up the back by people who couldn't stop when the rest of the traffic did.

[cycle tramp]

It was an accident.
No need to prosecute anyone.
The 'prosecute this and prosecute' that mentality of the UK,especially where motorists are concerned,is a joke

Whilst it wasn't intentional, it wasn't an accident either, as it could have been avoided had the following lorry, not attempted to slip stream the lorry in front. Equally it wasn't negilence as to drive that close to the following vehicle is a conscious decision.

The lorry behind should have left enough space so that if the lorry in front suddenly stopped (which should have been considered as an expected risk) the lorry behind could have safely stopped in the distance between them.

Had the lorry behind been following that close to a family car, the results would have been horrific and rightly the lorry driver would have faced prosecution.

However as the driver went into the back into the rear of another lorry, writing off his tractor unit, there will possibly be no legal action taking place on the basis that the lorry driver has probably learnt his lesson not to follow the vehicle in front so closely.

[cycle tramp]

It was an accident.
No need to prosecute anyone.
The 'prosecute this and prosecute' that mentality of the UK,especially where motorists are concerned,is a joke

Yeah, it's a joke - it's a joke because you can get into a motor vehicle and kill someone by nelegence and then claim its their (the victims) fault.
Personally I would like to see much more and heavier prosecution, and I think that goes for alot of people on this forum
You'll note that there's no cute emoji at the end of this message, cause it ain't a joke and it's not funny.

[cycle tramp]

Maybe if the ridiculous 56mph limit was lifted there wouldn't be long lines of HGVs following each other like train carriages.

Perhaps if we put more freight on trains we could cut down on the number of HGVs on the roads, and in turn would reduce the number of potholes forming and reduce our carbon footprint.

[cycle tramp]

I do.
So there you go.You don't think it does,I think it does.Did the driver expect to run into the back of another HGV,no of course he didn't.Did it happen by chance,yes because the HGV in front had a blowout so sudden loss off speed.
Accident.
There's probably a good reason why most(all) posters on this Forum aren't traffic police
Stick to cycling.

As the driver of the lorry behind was a professional driver I sincerely suspect that as part of their training they were informed and told to consider potential risks when driving. Of these risks is the chance that the vehicle in front could stop at any time, for several difficult reasons. As the driver appears to have ignored or forgotten this, then a prosecution may be considered.
Am I traffic police? No. Have I worked in a professional role where public risks and safety is considered? Yes, I damned well have and I was, if I say so myself, damned good at it.

[cycle tramp]

Stick to cycling.

I would, unless you're driving your van, in which case I might do some gardening or something - because if you can't understand risk, or that something may happen to affect another road user causing them to react in a way you may not expect, then I really don't want to be sharing road space with you.

[thirdcrank]

I've remembered a relevant thread about the thematic inspection of traffic policing

viewtopic.php?p=1508569#p1508569
Buried in that thread there's this from me:-

There's comment about the disproportionately high representation of HGVs in the casualty stats and the assumption that this is caused by a lack of experience among police. Well I never. Somewhere in my back catalogue of reminiscences, there's a comment about a superintendent in road traffic keeping his HGV driver's licence up-to-date. Now they don't have superintendents, with or without HGV qualifications. See also my exchanges with hexhome on the topic.

[richardfm]

No - driving into the back of someone isn't an "accident" it's a failure to drive with sufficient care and attention. It is indicative of a habit which kills and maims thousands of people every year.
Having a tyre failure on a reasonably recently inspected tyre is an accident.

OK so the bloke deliberately drove into the back then?No it was an accident.
Maybe if the ridiculous 56mph limit was lifted there wouldn't be long lines of HGVs following each other like train carriages.

The speed limit in England and Wales, for lorries, on motorways is 60mph https://www.gov.uk/speed-limits It doesn't stop them driving in convoys, too close to each other.

[DaveReading]

It was an accident.
No need to prosecute anyone.
The 'prosecute this and prosecute' that mentality of the UK, especially where motorists are concerned, is a joke

There are few activities more pointless than arguing about definitions.

In the aviation industry, for example, an "Accident" has a very specific definition, expressed in terms of the consequences of an occurrence (death, serious injury, significant structural damage, etc), and the usage is not dependent on blame, responsibility or other causal considerations.

I have no idea whether the road transport industry has anything comparable - probably not, in view of the many arguments about what is, or isn't, an accident.

[mattheus]

It was an accident.
No need to prosecute anyone.
The 'prosecute this and prosecute' that mentality of the UK, especially where motorists are concerned, is a joke

There are few activities more pointless than arguing about definitions.

In the aviation industry, for example, an "Accident" has a very specific definition, expressed in terms of the consequences of an occurrence (death, serious injury, significant structural damage, etc), and the usage is not dependent on blame, responsibility or other causal considerations.

I have no idea whether the road transport industry has anything comparable - probably not, in view of the many arguments about what is, or isn't, an accident.

Everyone knows what an accident is (assuming they are experienced english speakers).

For some reason posters here - and other self-appointed internet road-safety experts - are trying to twist the definition to mean something different; I presume to support their admirable campaign to make drivers more responsible for deaths/injuries.

But it's still boll0x. Use words in the same way 99.999% of english speakers use them (and have for centuries) and you are more likely to be understood.

Why not just say "Driver X caused this accident by his reckless driving". Or similar. Everyone will understand that! No garbled English required, win-win.

[[XAP]Bob]

No - driving into the back of someone isn't an "accident" it's a failure to drive with sufficient care and attention. It is indicative of a habit which kills and maims thousands of people every year.
Having a tyre failure on a reasonably recently inspected tyre is an accident.

OK so the bloke deliberately drove into the back then?No it was an accident.
Maybe if the ridiculous 56mph limit was lifted there wouldn't be long lines of HGVs following each other like train carriages.

The speed limit in England and Wales, for lorries, on motorways is 60mph https://www.gov.uk/speed-limits It doesn't stop them driving in convoys, too close to each other.

No speed limit would do that though.

[[XAP]Bob]

Everyone knows what an accident is (assuming they are experienced english speakers).

For some reason posters here - and other self-appointed internet road-safety experts - are trying to twist the definition to mean something different; I presume to support their admirable campaign to make drivers more responsible for deaths/injuries.

But it's still boll0x. Use words in the same way 99.999% of english speakers use them (and have for centuries) and you are more likely to be understood.

Why not just say "Driver X caused this accident by his reckless driving". Or similar. Everyone will understand that! No garbled English required, win-win.

I wouldn't object to that sentence nearly as much, but the use of the word accident is frequently used to minimise the responsibility anyone takes for their part in the incident.

This wasn't an accident. Crashing wasn't a deliberate act, but driving too fast and too close to the vehicle in front was a deliberate choice, and this was an inevitable consequence of that choice - the time over which that choice is made may vary, but inevitably it results in a rear end collision.