...photographs, letters, football shirts, beer cans and even a Pot Noodle were left by the side of the A4 in Derry Hill near Calne, Wiltshire, following the tragic collision yesterday morning.
Lovely! A chavshrine indistinguishable from someone's flytip. What a memorial...
Retired builder Peter Connolly said 'I'd just nodded off when there was a sound like a bomb going off. It made the whole house rattle and shake. I was sleeping just 4ft from where the car struck the house.'
He said the collision into his property blew out the windows in his home and caused his wristwatch to stop working at the moment of the crash.
That's one hell of an impact. He's lucky that it's only the four idiots dead and not him or his wife, or any other innocent road users.
Parish council vice-chairman Jim Cook said the speed limits were 'really not conducive to safe driving' because they suddenly went from 60mph to 40mph as motorists entered the village.
At the crash site, Mr Cook said it was a 'terrible tragedy' but that 'speed is such a factor of our lives these days'.
It's not a factor of mine. That's why I'm here typing this. And not in the mortuary.
Don't their names tell you a lot about them?
ReplyDeleteDo you find it just as easy to pop your humanity into a Faraday cage along with your car keys, JuliaM?
ReplyDeleteIt will forever haunt those who wanted to assist after hearing the horror screams of the four young teens, pleading for their lives and dying in the flames. Yet nothing could be done for them; such was the intensity of the heat.
What a pity a video with soundtrack cannot be made available for the ghouls. But hearten...LongRider has yet to deal with this...maybe it was a terrorist attack? What Do Ya Think, doc?
Nothing to see here, just another ecomentalist hearse chaser trying to convince us it's Gaia's punishment for users of the wheel. You'd get as much sense talking to a Christian fundamentalists bout gays and HIV.
ReplyDeleteWe live in a world where rules only apply to others and people do what they like safe in the knowledge everything is somebody else's problem.
ReplyDeleteFrom 60 to 40. Wow. I mean how the hell is any road still approved for 60. I'm sure they will be on to that like flies on politicians.
ReplyDeleteAn impact like that doesn't sound like 60 to me.
Perhaps one of the factors involved is the advance notification of a reduction in the speed limit. If there is no advance notice, like on the A3 entering Guildford from the M25 where you go round a bend and there is a sign stating the speed limit is now 50mph from 70mph, then that could be taken into consideration (Surrey County Council, are you reading this?).
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, on the A331 in Hampshire, there is a notice of a reduction in the speed limit 100 yards before you reach it.
Nevertheless, any comptent driver realises that the speed limit is the fastest you are allowed to go and is not a notification that you have to drive at that speed. Driving according to the conditions of the road is paramount, so they say, in which case, perhaps this incident occurred due to lack of experience of the driver or the driver was showing off, as young, newly qualified drivers often do.
In any case, the sad loss of young lives.
Perhaps if the beer cans and the pot noodle container were all empty, that really would be a chav tribute.
Penseivat
Looks like it was a fairly expensive car, very young men to own that! So, Im familiar with that bit of road, slight bend and tanking along(100 plus looking at where they ended up) at 3 am on an unlit road with a driver who was barely qualified to LOOK at the thing equals four crispy critters! Pardon my lack of sympathy Melv, but they could have easily killed an innocent person, sometimes karma jumps on you with big boots!
ReplyDeleteThe brakes must have failed. No skid marks.
ReplyDeleteAlso another reason to drive a diesel car.
@MTG1,
ReplyDeleteIf they were 'young teens' they shouldn't have been out in the car, but having said that particular bit of pedantry, the loss of life is saddening and ghastly for all concerned.
@Lord T,
60 is bloody fast - if they hit at 60. Often, plod quotes the speed at which the brakes were applied, and I doubt that either these lads were going as slow as 60 when they entered the village. Slowing from a genuine 60 to a genuine 40 is an easy driving action under normal conditions, as it only needs foot off the accelerator and light braking. 70 to 40 on a motorway with an HGV behind you is a rather more dangerous manoeuvre in my view.
The problem was that the car was stationary at the time, but the house was coming towards them too fast!
ReplyDeleteIs it relevant that the speed limit "suddenly" went from 60 (national speed limit for a single carriageway, even a narrow country lane) to 40? NO!
ReplyDeleteMaybe if strangers were belting along at higher speed, but whoever was driving on this occasion was local and had probably cycled that stretch of road many times before starting to drive.
The change in speed limit, with or without advance warning is definitely not relevant.
Blood alcohol levels would be revealing (a bit like the BA cabin crew accident at New Year) especially since they "....loved a drink...."
"Don't their names tell you a lot about them?"
ReplyDeleteSadly, they aren't unusual.
"Do you find it just as easy to pop your humanity into a Faraday cage along with your car keys, JuliaM?"
My humanity says 'Those who live by the sword...' and 'thank goodness I can't hear the screams of innocent people burning to death in their house'...
"...just another ecomentalist hearse chaser trying to convince us it's Gaia's punishment for users of the wheel."
Well, he does have a point. Even when squished under the wheels of a left-turning skip lorry, bicycles rarely burst into flames... ;)
"An impact like that doesn't sound like 60 to me."
Me neither.
"Nevertheless, any comptent driver realises that the speed limit is the fastest you are allowed to go and is not a notification that you have to drive at that speed."
I think we can conclude this driver didn't fit into that category...
"...sometimes karma jumps on you with big boots!"
ReplyDeleteAnd your passengers for good measure!
"The brakes must have failed. No skid marks."
Or were never applied...
"The problem was that the car was stationary at the time, but the house was coming towards them too fast!"
LOL!
"Blood alcohol levels would be revealing..."
I can't wait for the inquest...