This salutary video has emerged of a fatal crash near where we live on 6th July. Only one car was involved.
I realise there is an element of judgemental voyeurism in posting this. It must have been devastating for the driver's family and those who knew him. However, the video has been re-posted many times on various platforms, and watched with appalled horror by many who live here or know this junction.
It is the most dangerous junction I know: a staggered crossroads across a major road with a petrol station on one corner and a pub opposite. The major road is a steep hill. The junction is complicated by vehicles entering and leaving the petrol station which has entrances on two corners. There is a high volume of traffic in all directions. The major road has a 30 m.p.h. speed limit which vehicles often disregard, especially descending the steep hill. Many local drivers make a long detour to avoid having to make a right turn here.
A 20-year-old lad in a black BMW with heavily tinted windows, may have tried to cross the staggered crossroads at high speed. Either that or he did not notice the junction. He failed to make it, hit the pub wall opposite, and flipped his car over. Cars in the pub car park were also damaged. Fortunately, no one but the driver was injured.
In the security camera video, the car shoots out from the side road on the right beside the petrol station. The accident is then seen from a second angle. Arguably, all new young drivers should be made to watch it.
The driver died in hospital. A day or two later, residents of the nearby area, including children who had to go to school the next day, were woken by loud, prolonged, late-night fireworks organised by the driver's family and friends. The owners of a local field in which animals are kept said they had had to clear up rubbish left behind. Complaints about noise by parents on the local Facebook group were met with comments such as "at least you can still hug your child".
What about the 6 who died near you? I thought you were writing about them at first. Terrible weekend in Yorkshire.
ReplyDeleteThat is awful too, but we don't know the cause or full details of that yet. How do you tell an 11-year-old girl that her parents and two sisters have died? All these situations affect the emergency services that have to deal with them as well as those who knew the victims - many many people. I don't think that is emphasised enough.
DeleteAnd the family the 11 year old spent the day with who heard the news coming in. They sound like good people.
DeleteAwful.
ReplyDeleteAnd needless.
DeleteA young man died here some time ago with ties to our family. At the funeral, I spoke with his mother. She smiled bravely and said, "He always lived how he wanted. He died how he wanted too."
ReplyDeleteThat no one had stressed to him the importance of not drinking and driving seemed like an awful waste to me. His mother was a bartender. Surely she had seen what drink can do.
It also left me with a question: Do you honestly believe that had he a choice in the matter, he would have chosen that way to depart? Just into his 20s, so much life ahead of him...
And yet they celebrated his short life at his mother's bar.
Feelings are understandably very strong, and possibly people modify them to cope, but that is a question you could only think and not ask.
DeleteAnd of course I did not.
DeleteAt that age I imagine they feel invincible.
ReplyDeleteI think that's often right, but my point above about the effects on large numbers of others should be hammered home more.
DeleteWe have some treacherous angled intersections where new drivers literally can't tell which traffic light is theirs. Fatal crash at one I'm familiar with, where a newly licensed young man, not speeding, thought he had the green light, headed into the intersection, was fatally t-boned. Lousy road design, where old roads and new were cobbled awkwardly together.
ReplyDeleteThis junction would not be built like this now. It is a remnant of quieter times. No petrol station would be allowed on the corner. But to change it now, with a roundabout or traffic lights, would be costly, possibly including the cost of moving and compensating the petrol station. They won't spend such sums until there have been enough fatal accidents.
DeleteThat's a junction where road markings and signage should be in tip-top condition - perhaps with flashing lights too. I wonder how many accidents have happened there? By the way, I do not want any fireworks, littering or noise pollution when I die - just tears and sausage rolls.
ReplyDeleteThere are lots of markings. Making a right turn from the way the car came is very difficult because of speeding traffic coming down the hill from the left. You can't see it until it is upon you. There are a lot of accidents there, possibly 4 or 5 a year, but this one was of a magnitude above.
DeleteI could not watch it twice. If beginning drivers were made to see the clip, it should come with a packet of everything that went wrong and how they can avoid such a consequence.
ReplyDeletePerhaps being required to analyse a series of such clips would inculcate greater care and awareness.
DeleteI am usually immune to clips like that, but like Joanne above, I cannot watch it a second time. Just be pleased that your driving license tests are as severe as they are, or there would be lot more of that happening.
ReplyDeleteTime and time again you hear of young people the area, some who you know or who your children were at school with, having serious or fatal accidents because of stupidity. Cars are not playthings.
DeleteLooks like he was high on something at the time. And the junction had nothing to do with it. Good he didn't hit anybody and cause another 6 deaths.
ReplyDeleteYes, he could have done this at any junction. I suppose the inquest will reveal whether he was intoxicated. Someone said they saw the car flash across in front of them as they were coming down the hill from the right, and if they had been moments earlier it would have hit them.
DeleteIt looks apparent from the video that he was going waaaaaay too fast. As Rachel said, it's fortunate he didn't hit anyone else.
ReplyDeleteAny of us who live here and use this junction regularly could have been going past at the time.
Delete