Mum appeals for US suspect's return

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by August

but having driven on English roads myself I can attest how disconcertingly easy it is to do this. Intersection turns seemed to be particularly troublesome. Every fiber of my being wanted to turn tight on a right turn and turn loose when going left. "Righty-tightey Lefty-loosey" took no small amount of effort to ignore such ingrained instincts.

Must agree with you there but in the exact opposite context having driven across most of Europe over the years.

Nearly 75% of countries in the world require drivers to drive on the right side of traffic and tt is theorized that left-handed traffic began in the days of horse travel. The left-sided position but them at the advantage of having easy access to their sword with their right-handed in case of an enemy encounter.

A list of left sided driving countries.

Anguilla
Antigua and Barbuda
Australia
Bangladesh
Barbados
Bermuda
Bhutan
Botswana
British Virgin Islands
Brunei
Cayman Islands
Christmas Island
Cocos (Keeling) Islands
Cook Islands
Cyprus
Dominica
East Timor
Eswatini
Falkland Islands
Fiji
Grenada
Guernsey
Guyana
Hong Kong
India
Indonesia
Ireland
Isle of Man
Jamaica
Japan
Jersey
Kenya
Kiribati
Lesotho
Macau
Malawi
Malaysia
Maldives
Malta
Mauritius
Mauritius
Montserrat
Mozambique
Namibia
Nauru
Nepal
New Zealand
Niue
Norfolk Island
Pakistan
Papua New Guinea
Pitcairn Islands
Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha
Saint Kitts and Nevis
Saint Lucia
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
Samoa
Seychelles
Seychelles
Singapore
Solomon Islands
South Africa
South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands
Sri Lanka
Suriname
Tanzania
Thailand
The Bahamas
Tokelau
Tonga
Trinidad and Tobago
Turks and Caicos
Tuvalu
U. S. Virgin Islands
Uganda
United Kingdom
Zambia
Zimbabwe

https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/...-the-left.html

[Jimbuna]

It would appear she already has a previous driving conviction for “failure to pay full time and attention”

Anne Sacoolas, 42, was fined £200 for being distracted behind the wheel near her home in Virginia in November 2006.

The charge “failure to pay full time and attention” usually relates to drivers caught making calls at the wheel or traffic lane discipline.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknew...id=mailsignout

IMHO that makes her a 'repeat offender'

[Aktungbby]

LONDON—British Prime Minister Boris Johnson called Monday for a U.S. diplomat’s wife who police say was involved in a fatal car crash to return to the U.K., saying she shouldn’t have used diplomatic immunity to leave the country.
The intervention followed the death of 19-year-old Harry Dunn in August after his motorcycle collided with a car near a Royal Air Force base in Northamptonshire, central England, that is used by the U.S. as a communications station.
Anne Sacoolas, the wife of a U.S. official, left the U.K. shortly after the accident, according to police and the victim’s family.
Northamptonshire police said the 42-year-old American woman was a suspect in an investigation into the crash and had “previously confirmed to us that she had no plans to leave the country in the near future.”
Mr. Johnson urged Ms. Sacoolas to return.
“I hope that Anne Sacoolas will come back and will engage properly with the processes of law as they are carried out in this country,” Mr. Johnson said in a television interview. “If we can’t resolve it, then of course I will be raising it myself personally with the White House.”
A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy declined to comment on the identity of the driver of the car involved in the crash.
“Any questions regarding a waiver of the immunity with regard to our diplomats and their family members overseas in a case like this receive intense attention at senior levels and are considered carefully given the global impact such decisions carry; immunity is rarely waived,” the embassy spokesman said.
The U.S. ambassador in London has already been petitioned by British Foreign Minister Dominic Raab for Ms. Sacoolas’s diplomatic immunity to be waived. Nick Adderley, the police chief in Northamptonshire, has also written to the embassy urging a waiver.
Mr. Dunn’s family said they wanted Ms. Sacoolas to return so that they can begin to grieve the death of their son.
“I wouldn’t want to think that she put herself on that plane to go home to avoid what she’s done,” Charlotte Charles, the mother of Harry Dunn told the British Broadcasting Corp.
Ms. Charles added that she was told at the time of her son’s death that Ms. Sacoolas had no intention of leaving the U.K.
Ms. Sacoolas couldn’t be reached for comment.
It is unclear what the U.K. could do to force Ms. Sacoolas’s return. Under the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, diplomats and their families are immune from the criminal jurisdictions of their host state. However, that immunity can be waived by their home country.
“I do not think that it can be right to use the process of diplomatic immunity for this type of purpose,” said Mr. Johnson.

I SUSPECT THE DIPLOMATIC WHEELS ARE CURRENTLY IN MOTION AND THERE WILL BE A RESOLUTION IN THE MATTER...

[Jimbuna]

I sincerely hope so.

[Aktungbby]

Anne Sacoolas, 42, was fined £200 for being distracted behind the wheel near her home in Virginia in November 2006.

I'D NO IDEA FINES WEREN'T PAID IN DOLLARS IN THE STATE OF VIRGINIA....FAKE NEWS!

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Aktungbby

I'D NO IDEA FINES WEREN'T PAID IN DOLLARS IN THE STATE OF VIRGINIA....FAKE NEWS!

I'm thinking a conversion has been done to show the value of the fine to a British readership.

[Platapus]

I wonder if there was, as they say "alcohol involved"?


I understand that the Brits have little sense of humour about such things

[August]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

Must agree with you there but in the exact opposite context having driven across most of Europe over the years.

Nearly 75% of countries in the world require drivers to drive on the right side of traffic and tt is theorized that left-handed traffic began in the days of horse travel. The left-sided position but them at the advantage of having easy access to their sword with their right-handed in case of an enemy encounter.

Yeah and i've heard the right handed traffic began as a question; "What side of the road should we use?" The "Right Side" of course!

But what is sad is that there was a time that a standard could have been instituted without any real inconvenience to either group, but now there's no fixing it without huge infrastructure changes and major major carnage.

[Platapus]

It might be a bad decision for the UK to change after this long.


The Swedes did that.


http://realscandinavia.com/this-day-...tember-3-1967/

[mapuc]

I remember old friends and relatives telling me who chaotic it was the first couple of weeks.

I also remember a documentary on Swedish tv some years back

The first 3-4 month or so there was an increase of incident(as mentioned in the article)
But what the article forgot to mention, was that 5 or was it 10 years after this change of traffic, the scientist(don't know the correct English word) could see by comparing the statistic 5 or 10 years before the change a huge reduction of accident in the traffic.

Markus

[Bilge_Rat]

it is an unfortunate situation, but no, I don't see the U.S. waiving diplomatic immunity over a traffic accident.

Diplomatic immunity is a fundamental pricinciple and exists so that a foreign country does not detain diplomats on bogus charges just to put pressure on the Diplomat's home country. Not saying the UK would do it, but once you establish a precedent, other countries will use it in the future.

When I lived in Ottawa, the City government was always complaining about diplomatic vehicles (which were easy to identify because their cars all had red license plates), since they routinely ignored parking and traffic rules, ignoring all traffic tickets and often causing traffic jams or even accidents. The only recourse when a diplomat was really abusing the system was for the External Affairs department to complain to their host country and have them recalled.

[Platapus]

I think the issue is that this is not just a traffic accident, it was the killing of someone



Some other sources are claiming that this individual may not actually have diplomatic immunity.



Something like this should be easy to determine. Diplomatic Immunity is like being pregnant. Either you have or you don't have Diplomatic Immunity depending on the credentials.

[Jimbuna]

A woman at the centre of a row over diplomatic immunity will not return to the UK, according to briefing notes held by US President Donald Trump.

Anne Sacoolas is suspected of being involved in a car crash that killed British motorcyclist Harry Dunn, who died in Northamptonshire on 27 August.

Mrs Sacoolas later left the UK to return home to the US, after telling local police she had no such plans.

The note was photographed as Mr Trump addressed reporters at the White House.

It reads: "(If raised) Note, as Secretary Pompeo told Foreign Secretary Raab, that the spouse of the US government employee will not return to the United Kingdom."

Mr Dunn's mother Charlotte Charles said the US's apparent approach was "beyond any realm of human thinking".

Speaking to Sky News about the photograph of the notes, Mrs Charles said: "I'm just disgusted.

"I don't see the point in Boris Johnson talking to President Trump, or President Trump even taking a call from Boris Johnson.

"If he'd already made his decision that if it were to be asked and if it were to be raised, the answer was already going to be no."

Downing Street confirmed Mr Johnson had urged the US president to reconsider the decision to grant immunity to Mrs Sacoolas.

At the press briefing, Mr Trump called Mr Dunn's death a "terrible accident" and confirmed his administration would seek to speak to Mrs Sacoolas.

Police have said CCTV of the crash in which the teenager died shows a Volvo travelling on the wrong side of the road.

Speaking at the press briefing on Wednesday evening - after his conversation with the prime minister - Mr Trump said: "The woman was driving on the wrong side of the road, and that can happen.

"You know, those are the opposite roads, that happens. I won't say it ever happened to me, but it did.

"So a young man was killed, the person that was driving the automobile has diplomatic immunity, we're going to speak to her very shortly and see if we can do something where they meet."

The crash in which Mr Dunn died happened close to RAF Croughton, a US Air Force communications station, where Mrs Sacoolas's husband Jonathan worked.

Northamptonshire Police Chief Constable Nick Adderley said, "based on CCTV evidence", officers knew "a vehicle alighted from the RAF base at Croughton" and was "on the wrong side of the road".

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-englan...shire-49995867

Looks to me like talk is cheap and hardly surprising when you take into consideration how much the POTUS has been spouting over recent years

[eddie]

I hope her conscience is killing her right now, but with her leaving the country the way she did, she doesn't have a conscience. But you know what they say about Karma, it can come around and pay a visit to her too, wish I could be there when it happens.

[Jimbuna]

You and me both matey.