Operation
SMOKING GUN

Ok, I sit here feeling sick at this one, wondering how to put this. The picture above is where Hugo Morris,18, Harvey Owen,17,Wilf Fitchett,17, and Jevon Hirst,16, lost their lives. Hugo lost control of his car, after already driving and negotiating many miles on these types of roads successfully, the road was classed as "national speed limit 60mph" but from my understanding, Hugo was unaware just HOW sharp this bend was that was approaching him, This is a 90 degree bend and the road surface description at the time of the accident, says it was, wet or damp.

A news report said,

The inquest was told that post-mortem examinations revealed none of them had any internal or external injuries, and had died as a result of drowning.

Giving evidence to the hearing, crash investigators for North Wales Police said there were "no catastrophic mechanical failures" with the car.

However, both rear tyres were only half the required inflated pressure for carrying four people. Mr Thompson said, in his view, Hugo had driven into a bend on the road too fast, causing the vehicle to come off the road.

He said he calculated the maximum theoretical speed around the bend was 38mph.

But he added: "Having driven the bend myself the fastest speed I felt comfortable negotiating the bend was 26mph."

He said the Ford Fiesta had entered that bend at a speed that was in excess of the limit to negotiate it, even though that may well have been below the road's 60mph limit.

Mr Thompson said the actions of Hugo Morris needed to be considered in the accident.

While it had been raining heavily, with leaf cover on the road, the investigator said he did not consider weather conditions played a role in the collision.

But he said in his view, the crash "was avoidable".

Delivering her conclusion, senior coroner Kate Robertson noted that there had been inadequate signage on the approach to the bend. 

 I wonder, if that section of the road had been classed as a 30mph and there had been better signage, with a crash barrier going round a 90 degree bend, with a black box fitted in the fairly new drivers car, I would not be writing about this, and, to quote a VOLVO advert "Sometimes, the moment that never happens, matter the most" is such a powerful and defiantly a pause for thought moment. 

The Department of Transport guidance to say "Roads should be designed so that mistakes made by road users do not result in death or serious injury".  So Hugo made a "MISTAKE" (who hasn't made a mistake while driving) but this one, cost Hugo and all his passengers their lives.

First, this road "and many others like it" should have never been classed as a national speed limit road, second, the bend, and I say again "and many others like it" should have HAD a crash barrier, preventing any car from leaving the road. I am sick and tired of the FULL blame that goes to new or inexperienced drivers. We all were inexperienced just after passing our driving test. 

You can ONLY get experienced by driving many miles on many different types of roads. I am in favour for new drivers to have a black box for the first 10,000 miles of their driving, only a few Insurance companies do this, they will have a record of their driving.

If it was mandatory, that all new drivers, HAVE to have a black box fitted in their car for the first 10,000 miles, this will install a particular driving habit for the driver, (programme safer driving habits so to speak) 

The call for Graduated Driving Licencing

There is a strong argument for Graduated Driving Licencing. Some of the countries that have this system, have been doing this for decades (Australia 2000, New Zealand 1988, Canada 1994) and have 2 practical tests or 1 practical with 100 hours registered on a log book.  Also, their systems start from the age of 16years old, in Alberta, Canada, starting at 14. There are other options available to us, the multi-stage system, where newly qualified young drivers, would have to avoid driving between midnight and 4am or limit the passengers for six months.    

Now this may sound like a good idea at first and I believe would have some affect but only some. I have been a driving instructor for 10 years now and most of my students are off to university, or don't actually get a car straight away so they wont always get the experience in the first six or possibly 12 months. The other thing that would worry me is, that if a group of friends wanted to go to the beach for the day (and why not, most of us mum's and dad's did) and had to take two or more cars because they are restricted to only one passenger each, could this result in possibly racing!  

You can ONLY get experienced by driving many miles on many different types of roads. I am in favour for new drivers to have a black box fitted, for the first 10,000 miles of their driving, along with road speed limits that are fit for purpose. 

If it was mandatory, that all new drivers, HAVE to have a black box fitted in their car for the first 10,000 miles, this will install a particular driving habit for the driver, (programme safer driving habits so to speak) The proof is, Drivers with Black Boxes, Drive Safer.

This may surprise you, it did me, that the UK population is equal to ALL of those countries put together! We have approximately 1.7m tests every year with some 4 to 6 months waiting time. At the moment there is a shortage of driving examiners and each one carries out around 7 tests per day  so to  introduce a second test would double this number. The government just physically won't be able to this, not without extensive reorganisation and the employment of many, many more driving examiners. So we couldn't have this version of graduated driving licencing. What about restricting new drivers for the first six months after passing their driving test.

Why would we want to follow countries whose road safety record is below ours?  Currently, we are joint 6th safest country to drive in according to WHO (the World Health Organization) and Australia is No 17 with twice as many road deaths as the UK per 100,000 people, Canada No 19 and New Zealand is No 32 with nearly 3 times the road deaths per 100,000 people.  

There are a few other ways that we can reduce teenager road victims, we can keep them in their bedrooms until they are 25, that might be a little extreme but it would save a lot of lives. What I'm trying to say is, is that they have their lives to live and enjoy. In the countries that I have mentioned, teenagers are being restricted in their freedom, and while this is going to prevent some teenagers being a victim in a friend's car crash, there are other and, in my opinion, better ways. In most European countries, you can't drive until you are 18 years old but most countries have a worse accident rate than us. We live in the 21st Century with many decades of experience and information about our roads. We have technology that is, quite literally, out of this world.  And we are just not using it.     

Isn't it about time we did? 

The proof is, Drivers with Black Boxes, Drive Safer