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lesson one. dont buy fucking quad bikes or motorised vehicles for tiny children.
Sorry Suzy but the child isn't paying any price at all, no suffering, no sensation. Nothing.
The parents have to face this every day for the rest of their life.
As for court action, fine if it helps some people cope with the need for revenge/vengence but let's face it, nothing will compare with the life-long punishment of personal guilt.
of course. Nothing a parent does that results in the death of their child should be punished because a life is purely valued on the people who are left behind??
If someone gets killed but has no friends or family to grieve for them, then its not really a crime at all
Crime and punishment is about justice, not revenge or vengence.
This was a tragic accident brought about, in part, by her parents negligence. NB negligence, not murder, not manslaughter.
Justice has been served, their negligence has robbed them of a child. You're a parent, you must understand how great a punishment that will be for them.
It doesn't need a court to recognise their crime - except to satisfy onlookers.
I do understand what a loss it must be. Absolutely devastating. Every parents worst nightmare.
What I DONT get, is how some parents can be so completely lax about their childrens safety.
I mean, this isnt like the "letting your kids out to the park on their own" kind of issue, this is lettig them drive on a public road at an age where they should still strapped in to a childs car seat when theyre in a vehicle.
Honestly, i DO feel torn because they must be suffering so much, but on the other hand, its their own damn fault, and now a child is dead.
They were in charge of her, and now this.
If it was a babysitter or a childminder who'd made that decision shed be hung drawn and quartered over it by now
Me neither. Charging them, convicting them - even having them hung drawn and quartered won't change that though.
And the last part is what will make the first part much greater than death through illness/accident etc. They will have a huge amount of "what if?" and "my fault" going through their minds every day...
Partly because the babysitter's loss would be tiny in comparison.
But that doesn't mean that the girl was killed because she was on the quad. Unless she lost control then the blame lies entirely with the driver coming the other way who did not see her.
No it doesn't. But it is nice to know that the driver was not over the drink drive limit, as the BBC article stated.
Is there actually an age limit for these type of things?
On the road yes. It's 16, with full insurance, having passed a test, wearing a helmet, with a properly road-modified vehicle. They had none of these things (maybe a helmet).
And explain to us how a 7 year old, with no training in the highway code, and presumably close to zero hours of experience of riding the thing could ever claim to be in control of the vehicle? In the same way that it's not necessarily a drivers fault if they hit an animal, it's not necessarily a drivers fault if they hit someone riding a vehicle with as much road sense as an animal.
Actually if you hit a commoners animal in the New Forest (where I live) you'll be sent a bill for it. You are held responsible.
Unless an animal, bike, pedestrian etc actually makes a sudden movement into the path of your vehicle you have very little excuse for hitting it.
You have to drive within the limit of you field of sight and make appropriate decisions on objects withing that field. It's called hazard awareness.
This driver didn't even realise she'd hurt the girl much and drove off?
Exactly.
where does it say it was a hit and run?
surely the blame is on her parents who let her (and her brother) drive the quads on a public rd - that in itself is illegal.
Well if she wasn't breathalyzed at the scene but some time later who knows what her actual levels were at the time of the accident or if she had a drink after.
Still seems to me the parents are more at fault for actively breaking numerous laws in the first place - how did they even get the bikes there in the first place - if they were in the back of his car or trailer then they should have been brought back the same way - or had he had the kids drive illegally in both directions?
As it is the law to drive a car is being changed to make it more likely that anyone getting their full license is closer to 18 then 17 and laws says 16 is the minimum for that quad - world of difference between 16 and 7.
But then again, no, hold on a second. We can't have it both ways. When it was believed the driver had been over the limit some people were saying the driver must be at fault regardless of the circumstances of the accident, simply for being over the limit.
Now we know the driver wasn't over the limit at all. So are those people now prepared to admit that the only person at fault was the child, since she was the only one breaking the law and acting recklessly by being on a public road illegally with an unlicenced and uninsured vehicle? Or are they still moving the goalposts to try to blame the driver come what may?
the child is 7 years old probably with no knowledge of the highway code or what is legal or illegal so no the child was not at fault. the fault as i see it rests solely with the parents for allowing her to drive the quad on the public rd in the first place. thats illegal and definitely had the overall bearing on her death. is there any thing to say legally the driver of the land rover was at fault? - doesn't seem to be...
The way i see it, its a 7 year old on public roads with no training, insurance, meaning in my opinion that its completely illegal. Also pointed out in the report it was 7pm, which means it'll be pitch black, which obviously reduces visibilty.
So, if the driver was over the limit, then yes they should be convicted, but it also works the other way of the 7 year old should have never been allowed on the road in the first place, whether they're following their dad in his landrover or not.
Nowhere and neither did I.
I assumed at the start of this thread that the driver was pissed and I was wrong, others are still specualting that it was the parents fault and they may still be wrong.
Just because the parent were irresponsible in letting their kids drive on the road, does not automatically mean they're at fault for the accident, it could have been careless driving where the same result would have occured if the girl had been riding a push bike.
Equally the girl could have lost control and veered onto the path of the car.
Since we don't really have the details to be sure either way anything said here is mere specualtion.
No.
Just because she was found to be sober doesn't mean she should be cleared of any wrong doing. Careless driving?
All we know is that the parents are guilty of letting the child break a traffic law, we still don't know the cause of the accident.
Yes, the child's safety is ultimately the responsiblity of her parents. Parents must make a decision between protecting their children from everything and not letting them have any life experiences, or not protecting them from enough (being negligent). I don't think this was a case of the latter, it was simply a tragic accident. If you live in the middle of a town or suburbia where boyracers are scooting round at 50mph in residential areas of course you're going to have a different perspective, but I'm relatively fortunate to not have been cloystered completely. I went out, played on the street, and so on - where some parents don't let their kids go further than they can see for fear of some sexual predator snatching them.
I think you have to consider that even if you wouldn't let your kids on quad bikes, because it's a deathwish etc. [insert hyperbole here] - these parents were doing what they thought was best, given their knowledge of the risks and so on. It went wrong, but I don't think it was inevitable. The media only grasp onto stories like this because it gives people something to go 'ooh, those parents are awful - shouldn't be allowed kids!'. 10 kids are killed or seriously injured on the roads every day in the UK, which are tragic accidents just like this.
I have to wonder, why the other driver was arrested "on suspicion of causing death by careless driving while unfit through drink or drugs" if she wasn't at fault. It's not like the police have to arrest you, then can just invite you in for questioning.
The biggest problem I have with casting premature judgement on any parties is that we don't know the full story. The police arrested the woman, but what is being reported in the press is just the 'maximum speed!' of these quads. Like being in control of one and under a certain age makes you compelled to ram the throttle open at top speed without any fear.
Certainly, take what you read in the press with a pinch of salt and try to remember that most parents aren't evil child molesters / negligent / random scaremongering description - they do what they think is best. Sometimes things go wrong, and sometimes they make a bad choice. But the press don't pick up on stories where there is negligence only - they pick up on stories that can be spun so people will read them and get all incenced.
its nothing like like letting your kids out to play on the street or go to the park. Its letting your small child have control of a motorised vehicle on a public road in the dark
Nor that it seems to matter to those who have made their mind up about her guilt.
As far as this forum is concerned, the only premature judgement seen has been against the driver of the vehicle involved, who was promptly condemned as an evil drunk driver who killed the poor girl due to her state, and even when it became clear she had not been over the limit at all some still suggested she must have been going too fast or without paying attention. All of that without actually knowing how the accident happened.
Incredible that people might think all of that, but it doesn't occur to them that it might just be possible (and about seven hundred thousand times more likely) that if anyone lost control and veered into the other's path it might have been the small child in charge of a 100cc quad bike with no experience or qualification, rather than an adult with qualification and experience of the vehicle she was driving.