Cruise meeting crash

Just seen the news that seventeen people have been injured at an organised Cruise meeting in Hertfordshire.

Apparently two cars were racing when they touched and lost control, plunging into the watching crowd.

The speed was said to be in excess of 60mph.

Why is this type of thing allowed to go on? Public roads are not race tracks or cruise venues. The police know about it and turn a blind eye until this kind of thing happens.

You steam guys have to adhere to so many rules etc to run in public. These idiots risk not only their own lives but others using the roads for their selfish fun.

And the fine for not wearing a seat belt is quintupling, plus points, so the police can continue to raise funds from easy targets, while the really dangerous stuff that's harder to deal with just goes on unmolested.

Let's see what charges if any follow the Horrendous crash making the headlines.

Plasma

It's not allowed to go on, it's breaking the law and prosecutions will result. I don't understand your points about seatbelts or steam engines - what has that got do with it. Surely if you are worried about safety you would welcome measures to improve it.

They weren't racing.

I don’t understand either plasma. There are often mobile speed cameras in my area and you can be done for going a few miles an hour over the limit. On the other hand we have motorcyclists racing up and down a local dual carriageway at over double the national speed limit and the police do nothing. This happens most weekends even in winter unless the weather is very bad.

I'm sure that people will be charged and I would guess that the punishment will be severe (we have to make an example don't we?)

To be honest I am not sure how I stand on this. Whilst people have been injured and this is indeed very serious, I also feel that this is an accident albeit one caused by stupidity / carelessness, it is probably safe to say that none of the parties involved intended this.

If I look back through my life and think of all the stupid things that I have done and gotten away with, it makes me realise how lucky I am to still be here not to mention not in prison. I have certainly on more than 1 occasion driven at more than 60 in a 30 limit (a long time ago!)

The irony of course is that the people owning and driving these cars are in many ways like the people ion this forum. They will be familiar with many of the things we have and use in our workshops and would no doubt be applying many of the skills we use.

It is more a shame that there is no better and safer space available.

Regards.

David.

Easy enough to take your car on a track day if you want to drive it hard. Or joint a club, get a basic comp licence and do the odd hilclimb, sprint or speed test.

Edited By JasonB on 19/07/2019 11:26:20

According to the news report, the Cruise meeting was in a carpark - this incident was not part of it, but caused by people "going rogue" (to quote the organiser).

(edited for spelling - need new batteries for the wireless keyboard )

Edited By Rob Rimmer on 19/07/2019 11:27:14

Andrew, i probably didn't make my point very clearly.

I appreciate the safety of seatbelts and applaud measures to increase safety of vehicles. My point was that the authorities will deal with seat belt offences because they are easy to prosecute, compared with avoiding dealing with issues such as the ones caused by these car cruise events.

My comment about steam was aimed at saying running live steam in public requires insurance etc something which these cruise boy racers do not have, unless of course they informed their insurer they intended to exceed the speed limits and drive in a dangerous manner so could they please have cover for that.

Rob I also appreciate that it was taking place on a car park, but this is still a public place and perhaps a road, so that means nothing. The fact it was rogue elements seems neither here nor there, judging by the tyre Mark's from doing doughnuts in the car park lots of the attendees were not simply displaying their cars in a static manner.

Jason, surely you jest. Waste good money on a track day to have to stick to yet more rules! When I can waste money on tyres and fuel and not have anyone with a black flag stop me from having fun.

Firstly, I do not condone the behaviour exhibited at that, or many similar events.

I have had performance cars of one sort or another for all of my life, and I have done lots of track days and the sort that Jason mentions, but I have no desire to go to an event like that.

If you look at the video involved of the crash, it didn't happen in the car park. It happened because one car pulled out on to the road, and another was left with nowhere to go and hit it, and then both cars went off the road and hit spectators.

There is no point in getting into 'the car that hit the car that pulled out was speeding' etc scenario - none of us are crash investigators, and it is they that will decide what went wrong.

I attended many forest rallies back in the 80's and 90's. Anyone that has ever been a rally spectator would not stand where the spectators did yesterday, it is asking for trouble if something goes wrong - sadly, you are then just a human skittle.

With hindsight, it was an accident waiting to happen, as are so many videos I have seen of car meets in the past.

Should these sort of events now be banned? Not for me to say, but as a law abiding citizen, we live in enough of a nanny state as it is.

I've actually looked at the footage, he didn't look to be going that fast, certainly not racing, someone pulled out in front of him. I don't see the attraction of this kind of event, but not everyone shares my interests. What happened to live-and-let-live?

As far as I am aware there is no legal requirement to have insurance to run a live steam device in public, unless you are talking about a road vehicle where the same rules apply as for other road vehicles.

Landowners and event organisers may well require you to have suitable cover, but this is not a prohibition or absolute requirement.

However despite this being the case I am firmly of the opinion that only a fool would not insure themselves against possible risks.

Quite agree, but I expect they don't want to pay the insurance.

David, as someone who has experience of track days, rallying etc I value your input, as you said any event worth its salt would not let spectators stand where those were in this incident.

As regards banning such events, I'm not against them per se, but there is a time and place, not on public roads risking other people not to mention those emergency services personnel attending.

For the record I am an accident investigator, trained to advanced level in accident investigation and reconstruction. I have dealt with far too many fatalities where ambition exceeded ability and I'd love to see no more. I would not venture a professional opinion based on a few seconds of video and some shakey eyewitness recollections. Hopefully the investigators involved will glean sufficient evidence from the scene to explain how things went wrong. I always recall the mantra taught to me during my training; an accident is a rare, random multi-factor event to which it is impossible to ascribe a single cause.

I was wrong about steam modellers having to be insured etc for public display, sorry for that. But as I mentioned, the parties to this incident will void their insurance cover if they were not driving within the confines of the policy.

Regards plasma

There will no doubt be a chorus of “the police should stop them” but with the current state of police finances and the cutbacks there have been then there are scarce personnel resources available at any time to be able to cover these occurrences. I think the police manage to do a brilliant job with the finite resources that they are allocated, I know that police morale is very low at the present, not sure a 2.5% pay rise after 10 years of austerity will improve it much. My son in law is a police sergeant with nearly 30 years experience and he can’t wait for his 30 years to be up and he can get his pension, counting the days till it happens. It will be interesting to hear the post-mortem on this incident and how much blame will be thrown at the police.

Dave W

Dave W

I was in the job till 3 years ago when I got my 30 in. Tell him he will wonder how he had time for policing once he retires lol.

I know that resources are tight and rationing is rife but so is poor management with some projects and policies making the front lines job harder than it needs to be. Plenty of chiefs but not enough Indians springs to mind.

Regards plasma

I used to live not too far from the mad mile link

Whether you choose to exonerate or blame police for being under pressure these days they more or less turned a blind eye back in the time I lived there before such pressures existed.

I once had the dubious distinction of attending a police road accident in the middle of the night and transporting the emergency canine back to my clinic and asked if I could exceed the limit - managed to exceed 100mph on that stretch with blues and twos following behind (we were all younger once)

Yes I agree. Both my son's are in the Police. One is a Sergeant responsible for two large towns and a vast rural area in between. The other night he was the only officer on duty! Most of the time they are working below safety standards, if it was industry they wouldn't be allowed to do it, but with no contract of employment they have no choice other than to go off sick, which a lot are doing.The Government rely on their goodwill, but there is a limit.

From what I'm told, some management decisions are also crazy and you couldn't make them up. They both tell me morale is at an all time low. I doubt the pay rise, if it happens will make any difference.The pension they should be getting was severely pruned by Mrs May when she was Home Secretary.....a real morale booster!

As I said before, it needs people to keep on lobbying their MP, so easy to do with emails nowadays. Pester them enough and something might change.

Plasma, he doesn’t speak with much regard of management especially fast tracked, I am sure he will enjoy his retirement and find plenty to do.

Dave W

I have a few comments:

Plasma is not well informed about insurance (at least in the UK). If you have ordinary road insurance, the insurers are not allowed to decine their responsibility because the driver was going too fast, was drunk, was racing, was on the phone, etc etc. That applies only to the bit of road traffic insurance that is compulsory.

Jason B is not up to date on the requirements and costs for entering any speed event in a motorcar. All such events require special boots, gloves, helmet, fireproof suit, etc. And most of this stuff has to fit properly and goes out of date fairly quickly. Say £500 just to turn up, never mind getting the car to comply etc. The MSA has the sport firmly in its control, and the insurers know that any non-MSA bunch is not going to play by the recognised rules, so they will not offer insurance for the organisers, land-owners, etc.

The 'event' took place on a car park, which is different from the highway. Not for insurance, it isn't, though - a car park is regarded as a public place so road insurance is needed (along with lots of other boring stuff).

And every employed person has a contract of employment, but some jobs don't have them in writing.

I'm not against anyone having a rant at such activities, just trying to make sure they are not making claims that might lead to others saying 'We can ignore them as they obviously don't know what they are talking about).

So please don't rant at me ...

Cheers, Tim

Tim

Mostly agree with you. MSA ratified circuit race costs will be around £400/500 average meeting costs (entry fee, fuel cost for race and tow car, bits and bobs etc) over a season assuming no major mishaps and excluding the cost of car, helmet overalls etc. For sprint/hillclimb this will reduce to around the £250/350 mark. For track days normally only a 'suitable' crash helmet is needed, while the only car special safety equipment may be a fire extinquisher.

Dave