I think you're probably wrong.
As we've already discussed, the decision to go ahead will have been made at a very high level indeed.
I doubt very much they'd go to court without some sort of case that stands up. What they really don't need is an emotion based trial by jury that convicts followed by a public campaign and an appeal that declares him innocent and condemns them as insensitive brutes.
And just where are they going to find jurors who have not at the very least heard of this accident and who can apply complete inemotion if that the word to find a man who watched his 4 kids die guilty of any culpability. This is going to have one of three outcomes:-
Whichever of 1 2 or 3 above - he is already sentenced to a life of wishing he had never gotten up that day!!!!!
It's the same as any other trial of this type, and there's no need to find people who have never heard of the trial or who have no emotions, you've bounced across to the extreme. You just need someone who is not directly involved, and who isn't so emotionally screwed that they can't think straight in a court room.
What about his wife and other family? If the partner of a relative killed that relative through negligence, would you be happy to say "oh well, poor chap" and let him off?
I think a few people are letting the green oval get in the way..
Mind you there's a fair few candidates for the local Amateur Dramatics club!
The same way they do for any terrorist trial.
Crawl back under your stone, Ian, you've already demonstrated more than necessary that you do not agree with the concensus here, you are indeed fortunate that such petty snipes are tolerated for what they are.
The only consensus I've seen is that we don't have enough details yet.
Which is why he should be allowed to answer the charges in court without his case being prejudiced by media exageration and speculation.The charge as I understand it id causing death by dangerous driving, not owning and operating an unroadworthy vehicle. Perhaps someone here could explain how those two dispparent features can be reconciled. In some respects the causing death charge is preferable because that attracts trial by Jury of Peers, whereas the unroadworthy vehicle doesn't. BICBW, IANAL
What the press can print is strictly limited and if they break the rules they will be censured, and we must assume Mr Gresham has appointed competent legal representation who will look after such things, .
The
Read
And why am I having to find web pages with a simple search in less than two minutes to address your rather florid statements?
I'm getting the impression that you have a 'point of view' here...
On or around Tue, 29 Jul 2008 15:21:20 +0100, Ian Rawlings enlightened us thusly:
which one? :-)
one was quoting bits of legal stuff about licensing.
You are of course entitled to your impressions, I just wish they'd leave the poor bugger in peace.
On or around Tue, 29 Jul 2008 14:19:46 +0100, MarkVarley - MVP enlightened us thusly:
At some point the official seating capacity was reduced to 10, so it depends on the age of the motor.
Why it happened to me!!! The first car I brought was a Consul 375 as part of the deal the seller agreed to get it MOT'd. It failed the first MOT due to a corroded brake pipe on the rear nearside wheel. The seller had the brake pipe changed and had the car re-MOT'd and it passed.
I was driving to work 2 days later when it suffered a total brake failure. The slave cylinder on the rear nearside wheel had fracture and the brake pipe was no longer connected to it.
It was obvious that the slave cylnder had suffered a stress fracture has a result of the brake pipe being changed, but there was no way the the MOT tester could have predicted it.
regards
Terry
What is an 'automotive engineer'?
In proper engineering anyone who is called 'an engineer' is a graduate from a recognised university in an engineering discipline, in some places, especially the Scientific Civil Service, you can't call yourself an engineer until you become a 'fellow' of your appropriate professional body, which usually happens several years after they leave university and get a 'proper job'.
As a general rule real automotive engineers work for motor car manufacturers, racing teams or insurance companies. A few work for the government doing crash investigation...
As for the people who service your car and do MoT tests...
Most people who work in a garage these days, if they have any formal training, have an ONC/BTEC and are NOT engineers, they are technicians.
Anyone who did a proper apprenticeship will probably now be either over 50 or have been trained by one of the big manufacturers who still maintain the proper training facilities.
There are ways for someone who is an engineering technician to become an 'engineer'. But it takes almost a decade and not many do and I doubt you'll find one in your local garage doing routine servicing...
I would think it's patently obvious these statements are disclaimers. So it "met the legal minimum standards" but it's not necessarily in a "satisfactory condition", To do what? Drive? Or meet the legal minimum standards (that make it fit to drive?) Engineered to make you responsible for the condition of the vehicle, not them, even though it "met the minimum standards" as laid down by them. The tester (who is employed by them indirectly) avoids prosecution in any case. Testers that I know don't miss dangerous faults, they wouldn't like it on their conscience. Define the difference between "fully" and "minimum" here. Testers don't work to minmum standards, if it's not safe for any reason, they don't pass it.
In message , Austin Shackles writes
Just as a matter of interest is a 110 CSW a car? My 90 CSW is described on it's registration document as a Light 4x4 utility Vehicle.
The original LR was a rag top was it not a car surely. So a CSW may be a van derived car I suppose. But where does that fit in?
On or around Tue, 29 Jul 2008 19:06:35 +0100, Terry enlightened us thusly:
which is the point about the test only being valid at the time of testing.
Also of note is that nothing (apart from really old things) now has single circuit brakes, so nowadays your cylinder failure wouldn't have killed all the brakes. I believe in LR terms dual-circuit came in sometime around
1979, but it might've been earlier.
You should know better than to ask a question like that. :-)
Just checking that we're all still awake!
Of course they're disclaimers.
The test covers certain items related to safety & emissions. Standards for these are laid down by the MOT tester's manual, which are the minimum standards that a reasonably maintained vehicle is expected to reach. Things like brakes having a minimum effectiveness for a reasonable pedal pressure, & applying more or less equally on both wheels on an axle, the steering having no more than a certain amount of play at the rim of the steering wheel, & so on. They're all laid out in the tester's manual, with acceptable tolerances, some of which amount to the tester's discretion.
One example is the test for seat belts, which require them to withstand a pull by the tester and to have no visible signs of damage. It doesn't prove that the mounting point or the webbing will withstand the strain of restraining a 100 kilogram person in a crash situation.
I have known major, dangerous faults appear without warning, a few miles after a safety inspection by a qualified technician, too.
I can think of three test stations near where I live, one of which will find a reason to fail a car purely because the tester doesn't believe
*any* old vehicle can possibly be safe, one of which will pass it if presented by a local workshop, but not otherwise, & the other of which will pass it, as long as he finds no major problems.Testers also have to be able to justify a fail as being the result of an item being outside the permitted tolerance, or they are liable to disciplinary action if an appeal is upheld.
All within the rules.....
The final result is that it is and has always been the driver's responsibility under the law to ensure that the vehicle being driven is in a safe & legal condition & I sign a sheet every day I work to say that as far as I am aware, the vehicle I drive is in such a state as far as I can ascertain when leaving the depot in the morning, & prosecutions have been made in the past when drivers have missed defects on the walk round check.
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