PC guilty of girl's crash death.

[jumpy]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/tyne/7990188.stm

Watch the film and keep an eye on the speed counter in the bottom right hand corner.

Having held a license for 15 years or so now, watching the last few seconds of the in car cctv made my stomach turn with the inevitability of what was going to happen next. You can see the group of kids on the pavement; the speed at which the vehicle is travelling means there's only a second or two between the car cresting the rise and the pedestrians coming into view and the collision occurring.

Had the officer driving used his blue flashing lights and the siren, there would probably have been no accident. Had he not been driving at almost 100 miles per hour in a built up area for the purpose of stopping a vehicle that was flagged by the anpr system, information that was later proved to be out of date, he would not be facing an almost certain custodial sentence and a teenager would be alive today.

Apart from the obvious tragedy of the situation, I can see it from the point of view that too much reliance on computers and the veracity of their information played no insignificant part in the chain of events leading to an unnecessary death.

What a waste.