alcazar

iTrader: (2)

.............for hurting no-one.

Seen on Teletext this morning, driver in County Durham filmed overtaking 8 other cars at once.

Charged with dangerous driving, he got:

1. banned for two years,
2. £720 fine,
3. 4 month suspended sentence,
and 4.........his insurance will go through the roof.

What's to bet he had to pay a £15 "victim" surcharge too?

Alcazar

FlightMan

Without knowing the exact circumstances overtaking 8 cars in one go sounds fairly reckless to me. For instance if we assume the cars were doing 40mph, he'd have been overtaking for approx 4/10's of a mile. That's a long distance to be on the wrong side of the road.

To be punished 4 times though is excessive I'd agree.

Luminous

iTrader: (3)

Difficult to comment without knowing the circumstances. The distance needed to overtake that many cars all depends on the circumstances. If you get a train of people following a tractor that just don't want to overtake you can pass a whole bunch of cars in 100m.

SwissTony

iTrader: (19)

pah, that is nothing

I regularly 'undertake' whole bloody streams of cars sitting on the outside lane, just because the dozy ******* are either too stupid to realise that there are other lanes or are just mindless sheep following the other prat in front of them.

I like to see how long it takes before one of them notices. Record so far was 28 cars

RJMS

iTrader: (2)

Don't understand the logic here, what difference does the speed of the cars make to the distance they're taking up on the road. 0.4 of a mile is 640 metres which means that there would have to be some 85 odd metres between cars (7 gaps of 91 metres less say 6m for the length of an average car), I would suggest that you would not see that kind of gap between cars travelling in the outside lane of a busy motorway - never mind doing 40mph.

It really does all depend on the exact circumstances I think.

Jay m A

iTrader: (2)

Quite. Round my way there are these hopper buses limited to 30mph (sticker says so on the back!) that drive down a 3/4mile long dead straight piece of NSL. Usually with a few cars sat behind that can be dispatched with minimum fuss and TED.

All depends on circumstances.

LG John

Obviously we don't know the circumstances but it smacks me of the usual british justice systems short-sightedness.

There are plenty of circumstances were you can overtake 8 cars in one go safely and without going excessively fast or possibly even speeding at all. There are also plenty of times where overtaking just one car can be recklessly dangerous. However, they way this country works '8' sounds really bad cause, like, well, it's a lot isn't it. Hmmm. Better give him a custodial sentence just to be on the safe side.

Devildog

But the cars are moving. The faster they move, the more distance is covered.

What is relevant is the speed differential between the cars being overtaken and the car doing the overtake as well as the speeds involved as this will dictate the time and hence distance covered on the wrong side of the road.

8 cars @ 30 meters apart take up say 265m of road

@40 mph they will cover appx 20 metres per second.

If the overtaking car is doing 60mph, that equates to appx 30 metres per second, or 10 m/s more - it would take 26.5 seconds to overtake the 8 cars

26 seconds on the wrong side of the road at 60 mph = half a mile, give or take.

thats a long time and a big distance to be in the opposing lane.

(all figs very approximate, btw)

RJMS

iTrader: (2)

Yes of course, I should have read the post I replied to a bit more carefully. It does all of course depend on the gaps, I think your 30 metre assumption is probably a little bit generous in a typical "queue of people not prepared to overtake a slow moving vehicle" type scenario but the fact remains that there's more to it than just the road space being taken up by the cars.

StickyMicky

8 cars seams a bit extreme, to be honest anything more then 2 and i just bide my time, as you just never know what is going to go wrong !

RJM25R

iTrader: (1)

Overtakning 8 cars is extremely reckless!

At any point, one of those 8 people may decide to overtake the car in front of them as well. Would it be fair to say that most people on the road use their mirrors before puling out? Or would you say that most people are guilty of complacency, and wouldn't be expecting a car coming up behind them on the wrong side of the road?

I would certainly NOT overtake 8 people, in fact I think I can honestly say that i've never overtaken more than two cars and thats risky. . . .

EddScott

I would say the guy couldn't afford a good solicitor.

What about the guy doing 150+ in his Honda NSX? Yes he got done for speeding but not reckless driving.

One could argue that the NSX driver wasn't putting anyone else in danger except himself.

8 cars depends on the circumstance. Theres a road leading into Alyesbury that was a Roman road hence being straight for a few miles. I used to use it alot and passing several cars in an old 2.0 diesel Maestro van was easy.

phil_wrx

iTrader: (2)

me my self id leapfrog 2 at a time then stick the finger up at the guy at the front for making me waste valuable fuel :P

RJM25R

iTrader: (1)

Still reckless though......

SwissTony

iTrader: (19)

what for trying it in a maestro van

c_maguire

Guy was in a white Merc van swerving in and out of the traffic round blind bends on a single carriageway country road. Seen the footage and no question he IS a ****. Didn't overtake 8 in one hit, took him about seven attempts. So in this case he really does deserve what he got.
Kevin

Puff The Magic Wagon!

iTrader: (2)

The law is here

162-169: Overtaking : Directgov - Travel and transport

"Overtake only when it is safe and legal to do so."

As long as he didn't do it too fast/recklessly/cause other cars to swerve out the way etc then its legal if carried out safely.

ash002004

iTrader: (1)

on what sort of road was it though? single each way? and was there a solid white line on their side of the road? need to post more details on what/when/where etc

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

I'm not against him being punished if he was in the wrong, but IF he was, then ONE punishment please.

Ban, OR fine, OR suspended sentence, but NOT all 3!!

Labour: tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime*

* ......so long as it's motoring-related and the motorist can be easily found, ie: has plates and road tax, and so long as he's not rich/an MP/connected.

Alcazar

Abdabz

The ban and the fine always go hand in hand, and there's never any harm in that. The suspended sentance for a driving offence seems extreme, one can only guess that the driver in question had massive genetalia on his/her head and used this cranial shlong to influence their driving in full view of the fuzz.

Abdabz

Oh and as for their insurance going up, too forking right - the shlong head is a flippin liability. Who would underwrite a person just out of a two year ban having been found guilty of driving like a pillock?

michaelro

Seems it was a little more than just overtaking a few cars..
'Worst Case' Of Driving Filmed By Cop

Sky News: Dangerous Driver Christopher Mark Graily Banned After Video Shows Him Overtaking Eight Cars At Once |Sky News|UK News

Don't think it helped he was driving a Merc Van...

Edit: After watching the video, the actual overtake isn't that bad. The cars were far enough apart that he could have pulled in if he needed to.

dunx

iTrader: (3)

That's what is wrong with this country, you can manage to overtake and you instantly become a "criminal"....

Most of the "sheep" out there are brainwashed into complying with the H&S is all mentality.

I must admit most cars I overtake seem to flash, "blues" usually !

LOL

DunxC

P.S. As an ex-local to the area, great chunks of the A614 are just superb for safe overtakes, O.K. on a left hand bend is BUT often visibility out there is superb, as the change of gradient allows a large look ahead.

P.P.S. I wonder if he'd be amused by my pals TVR vs H'busa races to the yatch club ? ? ?

mightyyid

Complete bollocks.

There are roads here that are long straights and open country roads for miles - in those instances, if they were going 50 and I was doing 60 (although I would always argue speeding is more relevant when overtaking for safety's sake), I could easily overtake 8 cars in a row and it is perfectly safe.

The number is irrelevant - the circumstances are not.

Your argument regarding people looking before they pull out is irrelevant in that if you have two cars in front of you, what's to say the guy in front of you looks in his mirrors. 8 cars has the same impact (no pun intended) as two cars - if they do not look then they're idiots.

As with others, the number of cars is irrelevant - the circumstances are not.

Hate this nonsense about numbers. All bolloxs.

mightyyid

Actually, my soap box is still there. Answer this - what's more dangerous:

1 - Overtaking 8 cars, travelling at 50, on a straight road in a 2006 Porsche Turbo

2 - Overtaking 2 cars, travelling at 50 on a straight road in a 1992 Escort diesel van

Pretty obvious one is making a safer manoeuvre since in the first case there is every chance the driver will be on the right side of the road for less than the second driver...

I rest my case...

HappyMan

just seen the video and can't see what all the fuss is about. The roads are straight ffs. I've seen worse driving elsewhere. If it was so dangerous how come the copper following him manages to do the same overtake safely??

Where is the blind bend he overtook on? It might be dangerous to some people but to me looks like another typical whitevanman.



Didn't deserve this sentence at all. You guys have been well and truly brainwashed by this nanny state. Hang him to dry i say.

Leslie

No way one can pass an accurate judgement of course. If you can see for miles down a straight road and there is nothing in sight then it is probably safe enough. If you are on a two lane road with a few bends then however you do it, 8 cars is a big number to pass all at once since there are very few gaps in the approaching traffic for such a distance involved.

If the above poster said, he was staircasing his way through in a van in a frightening manner, he deserves all he gets!

The law of averages as applied against you in modern day traffic is just too heavily loaded towards dropping you and more to the point, some other innocent person, in the cacky!

Les

Shark Man

Overtaking in this day and age is a lost art:An antisocial crime of the highest order. I've overtook 10 cars in one go

However: to be be more specfic, it was a convoy of 5 cars/vans and 5 caravans (twin axle ******* as well) - they were stall/display people from a nearby kitcar show that was on the day before (I know, as I went ).

We'd been stuck behind this for over half an hour. There was a mile tailback behind me, and people were jostling to get ahead space by space. Taking people on the inside lane on every island as no one at the front was overtaking when an oppertunity arose or giving the 'vanners any indication of what misery they were causing. I do the same. Not clever, granted and I wasn't the only one doing it, had a puma up my **** all the way playing sheepy doing excatly what I did and using me as his eyes ( not helping ), and in between seeing if he could get past me.

Well, I eventually find myself behind the caravans - they turn off down the same road as I was going down...doh! Luckily its just at the point where up came a Roman road (finally) and that stretch I know has no entrances or junctions. As luck would have it also a huge clearing traffic.

2nd gear, Mirrors (for Puma) Indicators, Mirror (for Puma, again) and I'm off.

Once I got ahead of one van - the road was still clear, so kept on past the next one, then the next and so on. There was still no oncomming traffic up until the last van where it was still way off in the distance, so it was no issue and therefore no need to pull back in between the 'vans.

Admittedly I was doing well over the speed limit when I finished the manouver, but my addage is pedal to the metal until safe; Don't faf about when overtaking.

HappyMan

You are my hero sharkman. We salute you.