Barely legal drivers... BBC3

[grr666]

I think the girl had been made aware of what was going on though. To have had the evangelical moment half way through the week filming seems a little too convenient IMHO. All of a sudden being very aware of being on the phone, hmmmmmmm. Not so sure about the comments on her financial side either. She wasn't making short trips.

I thought this too... Seemed set up to me but I suppose

they had to give the car to somebody.I guess once matey boy had nearly

driven drunk unless she actually ran someone over she was going to 'win' it.

They must have told her the other bloke had gone too far and nearly committed

a very serious bannable crime.

The long trips were necessary as they both were under the impression that their

'glamorous' pseudo celebrity lifestyles were the topic of the documentary hence the

champagne night out with the boys (and camera crew) with him, and the day at the races,

rangerover dealer and fancy nightclub for her. Wannabees doing what they do best....

I wasn't impressed by the retired copper either. I wonder how many fatals she had attended

in her time with the Police?

I was expecting a much harder line from her, maybe showing the kids some photos of mutilated

bodies or what car that was doing 100mph looks like after it had crashed may have banged the

message home a bit better.

[JohnMcL7]

Does this hold true if the vehicle is on private land?

The Drunk and in charge of a vehicle is quite a vague offence in general, it is possible to be convicted of the offence if found on private land particularly if the public have access to it. The main factor in determining a conviction is how likely the person is to drive on the road, so someone found with the keys in a private pub car park with no apparent plans to stay the night anywhere would be more likely to get a conviction compared to someone sitting on their driveway who has no need to go anywhere. However if it turned out in the first case the person was staying the night at the pub and just retrieving a hold-all from the car may be able to defend the charge whereas if in the second case there was clear evidence the person intended to leave the house and drive somewhere they could be convicted despite the vehicle only being on their driveway.

I agree with the poster above though that if the police had caught the guy when the BBC team had stopped him, he could have been convicted of being drunk and in charge of a vehicle as he clearly did plan to drive home.

John

[JohnMcL7]

I wasn't impressed by the retired copper either. I wonder how many fatals she had attended

in her time with the Police?

I was expecting a much harder line from her, maybe showing the kids some photos of mutilated

bodies or what car that was doing 100mph looks like after it had crashed may have banged the

message home a bit better.

That's more what I expected from the police person, I'd have thought there's plenty of decent traffic cops out there who have seen all those driving errors and the unfortunate circumstances that could have taken one of the young drivers in the car with them for a day or similar. Or even just given them a good rollicking and showing as you say showing some of the horrific accidents that have occurred when people haven't been paying attention or doing daft things like being on their phone or lifting their hands off the wheel. Or even given the candidates didn't know it was a driving program it would have probably been effective to organise a cop car to pull them over on the motorway and give them a good telling off as I'm sure the experience of being pulled over by a police car would have probably given them a good fright. Better yet some points on their license to keep them one offence away from revokation would probably help their driving as well.

With regards to the driving test I don't think an extended test would help with either driver shown, clearly they knew how they were supposed to drive they just chose not to as I'm sure their instructors were just as horrified watching that program as everyone else.

John

[grr666]

Just found this blurb elsewhere on the net about the next episode.

"Bradley's fantasy life of going to casinos and lying to girls that he's a professional footballer

don't live up to the reality of an 18-year-old going to college. Kayla's role as a daddy's girl

means she can get away with murder. It's her skills behind the wheel that her driving instructor

dad really has issues with though."

So the next girls dad is actually a driving instructor, and Bradley is living a fantasy celeb life... Can't wait.

[ScoobyChris]

I was expecting a much harder line from her, maybe showing the kids some photos of mutilated

bodies or what car that was doing 100mph looks like after it had crashed may have banged the

message home a bit better.

I'm not a fan of this approach as it's not something he will be able to relate to and so it won't change his core belief that doing that speed in those conditions is unsafe. Imhe, people consciously and unconsciously break the prevailing speed limit. Where it's an unconscious decision, the driver needs to have it brought to their attention and given tools for making themselves more aware of the speed they're doing. Where it is conscious, it is their choice (and licence) and I would rather they were equipped with the tools to make an informed decision on whether it is safe rather than just being fed nanny-state lines about "speed killing" and ignoring it... After all, having a crash at 80mph (illegally), hurts just as much as a crash at 70mph (legally) ... apparently ...

Chris

Edited 5 April, 2013 by ScoobyChris

[stu_mcl]

Just found this blurb elsewhere on the net about the next episode.

"Bradley's fantasy life of going to casinos and lying to girls that he's a professional footballer

don't live up to the reality of an 18-year-old going to college. Kayla's role as a daddy's girl

means she can get away with murder. It's her skills behind the wheel that her driving instructor

dad really has issues with though."

So the next girls dad is actually a driving instructor, and Bradley is living a fantasy celeb life... Can't wait.

Prepare for another dodgy hair cut and more stuck-upism

[grr666]

Wise words Chris, I agree with you, a serious collision at 60 70 80 90 or 100mph and you're going to hospital to

have something fixed or worse. But you have to admit, 100mph in rain like that was asking for it

a bit in a fully laden Focus. He knew full well he was doing wrong and allowed himself to be goaded.

Let's not forget he'd already written one car off whilst out with his mates. It would seem

that time, that he got away with it, adding to his (all too evident) sense of invincibility.

Genuine question,

How would you have dissuaded him from his actions in that particular incident?

Prepare for another dodgy hair cut and more stuck-upism

[RainbowFire]

Genuine question,

How would you have dissuaded him from his actions in that particular incident?

Fifth Gear crashed (co-incidentally) a Focus:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dI5ewOmHPQ

I agree with the poster above though that if the police had caught the guy when the BBC team had stopped him, he could have been convicted of being drunk and in charge of a vehicle as he clearly did plan to drive home.

If the camera crew hadn't have stopped him, and there had been an incident, would they have been an accessory due their in-action?

[JohnMcL7]

I think it depends how the crashes are presented, there's plenty of them available from video footage and I'd think if they showed examples where say a young lady had crashed because she hadn't been paying attention properly would perhaps hammer the point home as it would be something the girl could have related to (I'm not saying only young ladies crash, just that it is something more comparable). It doesn't need nasty shock stuff either, there's a clip I remember of someone driving a Ka on the motorway in the outside lane and their attention had drifted a bit and the car went a bit wide causing the front wheel to drop off the side and it just kicks the car round whacking it into the barrier and spinning it out onto the motorway. Thankfully the young driver was ok in this case but she was obviously pretty shocked and upset afterwards, it was a good example of why you need to pay attention.

Similarly for the guy I don't think it was just his speed that was the issue but more that he was doing it at night and in wet conditions, I'm sure there's plenty of examples where accidents they could show that have happened because drivers are going too quick for the conditions and simply been unable to react in time when they come across an incident on the road causing a pile up.

Either way giving the girl a car is about the last thing they should have been doing after seeing her driving...

John

Edited 5 April, 2013 by JohnMcL7

[JohnMcL7]

If the camera crew hadn't have stopped him, and there had been an incident, would they have been an accessory due their in-action?

I'm not sure with something like that but I would doubt it as that charge could also be levelled against anyone who has been in the car with a drunk driver. I would have thought in practice it's more a moral issue rather than a legal one in this case. I think the format of the show should have been one recorded drive on public roads which demonstrated how bad the drivers were and then get them off the road for some additional training, I think it was poor to let the drivers keep on going when they knew just how badly they were driving.

It would be interesting to hear a response from the police about the antics in the program, some of the offences would be a non-starter for conviction as they require a NIP served within 14 days but there's still offences the drivers could be charged with that don't require a NIP and has happened with some of the prominent Youtube videos where people have uploaded videos of ridiculous driving. I suspect nothing will happen in this case although I'm sure there must be those in the police force who aren't impressed either at the program.

John

Edited 5 April, 2013 by JohnMcL7

[grr666]

Fifth Gear crashed (co-incidentally) a Focus:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dI5ewOmHPQ

Bloody hell!

[RainbowFire]

Bloody hell!

And that was in the dry, albeit at 120mph, but I doubt that -20mph would have made a massive difference.

I liked the comment "Ford.rar"

Rear wheels were still good though.

[RainbowFire]

So, to answer the question:

Genuine question,

How would you have dissuaded him from his actions in that particular incident?

.....before you are issued with your license, attend one of those demonstrations, and maybe others on drink-driving.

Either way giving the girl a car is about the last thing they should have been doing after seeing her driving...

Leaves you wondering if they *will* give out a car each week, to the lesser of two evils idiots, or if we'll see any "no cars awarded" programs.

[ScoobyChris]

Genuine question,

How would you have dissuaded him from his actions in that particular incident?

I think there are two parts to the incident 1) speed (both too slow and too fast) and 2) caving into peer pressure. I think the second is solved with confidence and he showed that he was fairly resiliant in that so hopefully addressing the first will help him with that. For the first, the problem seemed to stem originally from him going slower than other traffic on the motorway despite the conditions being reasonable. My main focus would be on helping him understand how to decide on an appropriate safe speed for the conditions (based on being able to stop in the distance he can see to be clear) and then working to identify hazards which may affect this such as visibility, other traffic patterns, standing water in the road, etc. One technique if I was concerned about the choice of speed, would be to get him to run through the above and give a bare-bones commentary, a side effect of which is that you adjust your speed accordingly.

One of the biggest hurdles to this is that most people don't know how long it takes their car to stop in a variety of conditions and something I try to do is help people calibrate this to to get them to perform stops from higher speeds on a quiet road. Most people will overestimate the distance required.

In terms of the video of hitting an immovable object at 120mph, below is a link to hitting an immovable object of half that speed:

http://www.dcsafetycameras.org/education/carDrivers/hittingTree.aspx

Perhaps the key point to take away from these crashes, is that the better option is not to hit immovable objects, rather than trying to identify a speed whereby doing so doesn't result in death...

Chris

[RainbowFire]

I think there are two parts to the incident 1) speed (both too slow and too fast)

.....

For the first, the problem seemed to stem originally from him going slower than other traffic on the motorway despite the conditions being reasonable.

It's a limit, not a target. You don't *have* to travel at 70mph just because you can. At long as you are not causing a danger to other traffic, there no reason that you can't do 50 on a motorway.

If he hit a ton, how did the camera crew catch up?

[mdon]

I've just watched it on BBC iplayer, I don't think I'll be watching anymore, the lad was a mammys boy who's parents need to get a grip and that horrible trollop needs her mouth washed out. I would like to see both of them loose their licences and I don't understand why the relevant police forces aren't pursuing a prosecution against them both as the evidence is there and tbh it's just promoting bad driving as it has shown them both getting away with it.

[cheezemonkhai]

So if I reported a crime of driving while on a mobile phone and driving without due care and attention and dropped a copy of the TV show off to a London police station and copied said letter to somebody high up in the police or home office.....

Would anything actually happen?

[mdon]

Not now it wouldn't as you need to be reported within 14 days of the offence and I'm willing to bet that it is more than 14 days since those offences took place. I would have liked to have seen the bbc be responsible and the drivers be prosecuted by handing the film over to the police straight away. Both of them drove in a dangerous manor imo and the bbc has basically televised it saying here look at this, isn't this entertaining and fun!

All just my opinion of course.

[RainbowFire]

That's a fairly short (and stupid) statute of limitation. :(

Elsewhere on here someone mentioned a "six month" thing about receiving a speeding ticket. So it can be reported within 2 weeks, but no action taken for 26 weeks? Does the "report withing 14 days" only relate to vehicle related incidents?

This one originally started as "just a knock" and dealt with at the roadside and then ended in court when footage appeared on YouTube two months later: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_yorkshire/8579523.stm

If the BBC have footage of an unreported offense, would this not be perverting the course of justice? speaking of which........Did Chris Huhne still get points in the end?

[grr666]

I'm willing to bet that it is more than 14 days since those offences took place.

I think they were filmed last October.

[JohnMcL7]

Not now it wouldn't as you need to be reported within 14 days of the offence and I'm willing to bet that it is more than 14 days since those offences took place. I would have liked to have seen the bbc be responsible and the drivers be prosecuted by handing the film over to the police straight away. Both of them drove in a dangerous manor imo and the bbc has basically televised it saying here look at this, isn't this entertaining and fun!

All just my opinion of course.

Not all offences need a NIP so it doesn't need to be within 14 days, driving with a mobile phone for example if I recall correctly is one of those that doesn't require a NIP. The six month rule is a tighter one as they are required to have laid the information with the courts within six months of the offence but I'm wondering if there's ways around that as there's been a few people prosecuted from their Youtube videos but I don't think they were done within six months of the offence, in those cases I'm not even sure if they could prove the original offence date.

I'm partially curious to see how bad the drivers in the next episode are but will probably avoid it, the last program was just annoying and I feel that by watching it I'm partially supporting the program sort of like the Streisand effect.

John

[Mr Ree]

Horrible to watch.

Absolute disgrace the pair of them, and both should have been banned, not bloody cuddled.

Dread meeting them on the roads.

Absolutely horrified that that girl was actually rewarded, and don't get me going about the lads parents either, as they were just as bad with their flippant attitude.

Are we really sharing the same planet as these *******?

[stu_mcl]

Bored as feck watching this weeks....off to play the xbox instead

[grr666]

Ooh! Forgot about this.

I'll get the digi box on. It can't wind me up more than this programme on

'16 kids and counting'...

[chicken_eyebrow]

Once again the BBC crew managed to go through two red lights following the lads car. Granted the lad had gone through only just after they went red but the film crew car went through a few car lengths later so could quite easily have hit a crossing pedestrian or had someone smash into the side of them. The third red light luckily they were way behind his car and had the sense not to follow it. BBC should be ashamed of themselves.