Double standards?

[acex1138]

Driving after work last night i miss the light on south road over sir donald bradman.

Looking in my rear view i notice a car coming up its been pissing down all day the road has massive puddles all over it. I start thinking yeah he's not gonna be able to slow down in time.

I say to myself he's really not gonna have time to slow down.

No

No

No

No (good 4 seconds of me saying no with him sliding through the water).

CRASH. Right into the back of my Calais

I keep it together i lean out my window and note his license plate and im like ok mate next left well sort this.

He follows me i get out of my car

You ok I ask him?.... dude seriously are u ok. yes good.

Please tell me you have insurance. (thank f*** he does).

Guys real nice and cooperative swap details call my sisters husband who's a hardcore road nazi (traffic cop) to see what we need to do.

So today i meet him up at the cop shop to report it all... he's got insurance so its all good my cars gonna get fixed up... it was seriously just an accident the road was seriously horrible yesterday, I accept it. Im telling the guy to relax a bit because one of my chick friends did much worse into the back of an expensive car and it was her fault ( bad brakes) and hte cops just gave her a warning.

Takes all my details tells me I can go, asks for his license, first comment 'oh your a p plater'.

I message him 20m ago to find out how he went, I told the cop it had to be accidental, and the cop has gone and slapped him with travelling to close, given him a massive fine and demerit points.

Im not defending the guy he's same age as me... but seriously I dont think he deserved that, his insurance premiums go up and a warning would have been punishment enough.

EVERY SINGLE GIRL I KNOW has done something liek this or worse and gotten no more than a warning. I know a few of you will be 100% in support of the cop... but seriously if this was your hot sister I reckon sapol would have let them off.


Im not saying the guy should have been let off.... but donating the retirement fund & possibly losing the license for minimal non life threatening damage... its pretty crap.

[Bravotwozero]

Pretty standard practice. If you get the cops involved and they determine who's at fault, they'll generally dish out a fine. Nothing to do with P plates.

[stocky]

Pretty standard practice. If you get the cops involved and they determine who's at fault, they'll generally dish out a fine. Nothing to do with P plates.

Why should the guy get done for travelling too close? If the OP was able to sit there and count out at least 4 seconds between seeing the guy and crashing, then obviously he was a fair distance back and there was some other factor, such as being distracted, or even just sneezing, that comes into it somewhere.

[CANYONERO]

theres 2 reasons why girls get away with a warning and guys dont . thats life.

[Bravotwozero]

Why should the guy get done for travelling too close? If the OP was able to sit there and count out at least 4 seconds between seeing the guy and crashing, then obviously he was a fair distance back and there was some other factor, such as being distracted, or even just sneezing, that comes into it somewhere.

Doesn't matter why. Just saying that is usually what happens. Can't give a guy a ticket for being a douche can you? So it has to be something.

[acex1138]

sucks he was a nice guy, told one of my mates whos a cop about it and got an honest answer from him which is something you usually see from sapol, and i quote.

"if he was a hot young a girl with awesome boobs, i'd let her off, but he's a bloke, i'd make something up, probably would have done him for failure to maintain effective control of a vehicle, u can make that fit every situation"

[ashbox]

lucky he didn't get it with driving without due car and not playing attention,
do feel sorry for the guy but he obv wasn't driving to the conditions

[acex1138]

yeah. im still beside myself over my car. just yeah cant help but feel sorry for the guy

[ClairBear]

theres 2 reasons why girls get away with a warning and guys dont . thats life.

Because we get the girls out

[JMP]

What if instead of your car there was pedestrians walking across the intersection? I sort of agree with the cops here as there is no reason for him to have hit you. He should have been driving to the conditions firstly and secondly paying attention on the road. If he had done either of them he wouldn't have hit you and if he had hit some low life that takes anybody to court for anything then in the end we all pay for it through our premiums.

[stockyvrcalais]

sucks he was a nice guy, told one of my mates whos a cop about it and got an honest answer from him which is something you usually see from sapol, and i quote.

"if he was a hot young a girl with awesome boobs, i'd let her off, but he's a bloke, i'd make something up, probably would have done him for failure to maintain effective control of a vehicle, u can make that fit every situation"

no real suprises there

[acex1138]

yeah i guess i feel it more because i remember being 19, on my p's and having a cop pull over, pull out a book, accuse me of speeding when i wasnt and then open his book and when realising I was on P plates telling me he was charging me with not displaying them (then informing him what p2's are...) him then going 'no worries ill just find something to defect you with'.

I'm actually going to end up in one of the police forces either here NSW or QLD. And I can say that my low opinion (that can really only be expressed here) of police conduct from the majority of what I have seen (met some real champs who have been decent cops as well).

I can say I wont be treating people like that.... and for the whole yeah it could have been pedetrians there etc. The cop wasnt there. If I had been the attending officer there worst I would have done would be defect his car and issued him with a warning. In my current occupation I deal with revheads, bad drivers and the typical stereotypes you all see (and some of you may be) defected and fined all the time for their conduct on the road. He wasnt like them so he will learn from the shock of the event, he's genuinely thankful no one was hurt and will be making efforts to be more cautious, and his insurance premiums are about to go WAY up.

As far as im concearned thats better than a massive fine and demerit points, fines do NOT help people learn. Case in point, remove the fines from speed cameras and double the demerit points from them.. you'l see a reduction in speed of that area.

Living in Northeast Adelaide with many dodgey cops who picked on p platers all the time they got me to a point of being afraid to drive anywhere and avoiding anything to do with the police, move southwest of the city to marion and I'd have no problem interacting with the police there.

The more I think about it I should have gotten Marion police dept to handle it instead of port adel.

[CSP]

Are people these days not aware of the laws? You need to be able to stop safely behind any vehicle in front of you. That means you need to drive to the CONDITIONS as well as the speed limit. If you hit someone in front of you, you weren't doing one or both of those things and SHOULD ALWAYS be penalised - as was the case in the OP. GOOD! Hope the moron learnt his lesson.

Now if only we had some sort of proper driving instruction system in this country!

[ClairBear]

I say to myself he's really not gonna have time to slow down.

Given you knew this immediately when you looked up I would say he was travelling too close and/or too quickly. Therefore why shouldn't he be charged? It's a lesson to him to keep at least 2 bus lengths in the wet and keep the speed down. The rest of us in Adelaide managed to stop safely that day in those conditions.

[Decicrate]

To the OP why do you think he didn't deserve to get fined?

He broke the law plain and simple. It was not an accident, it was a crash caused by someone not obeying the road rules.
Just because he was sorry and seemed like a nice guy doesn't mean that he gets a "get out of jail free card"
He deserves the fine and the higher premium.
Maybe the next time he drives in wet conditions he may have some more respect for other people around him.

On another note if you ever see a car coming up behind you and you think that they are not going to stop and you can't move out of the way, try tapping your brake pedal so your brake lights flash. This can sometimes wake the idiots up and get them to stop before crashing into your car.

[HamaTime™]

To the OP why do you think he didn't deserve to get fined?

He broke the law plain and simple. It was not an accident, it was a crash caused by someone not obeying the road rules.
Just because he was sorry and seemed like a nice guy doesn't mean that he gets a "get out of jail free card"
He deserves the fine and the higher premium.
Maybe the next time he drives in wet conditions he may have some more respect for other people around him.

On another note if you ever see a car coming up behind you and you think that they are not going to stop and you can't move out of the way, try tapping your brake pedal so your brake lights flash. This can sometimes wake the idiots up and get them to stop before crashing into your car.

Are people these days not aware of the laws? You need to be able to stop safely behind any vehicle in front of you. That means you need to drive to the CONDITIONS as well as the speed limit. If you hit someone in front of you, you weren't doing one or both of those things and SHOULD ALWAYS be penalised - as was the case in the OP. GOOD! Hope the moron learnt his lesson.

Now if only we had some sort of proper driving instruction system in this country!

Why do you people act as if you know exactly what happened in these situations and know enough about it to justify calling people Moron's and ********s and all that. People can make mistakes, people can misjudge circumstances with the best intentions at heart....The OP has had his car damaged by this so called 'Moron' who 'deserves to be smashed with a full fine, demerit points and all' and he still has the heart to feel sorry for him and have some compassion for him.

People make mistakes, have some grace and understand how people feel.

The OP said, he counted at least 4 seconds watching the guy, waiting for him to hit him....how much space is there????

A Fine and demerit points are not warranted for every situation....sometimes they can aggravate the situation.....

[CSP]

Did he hit you from behind? If so, I know enough about the situation to know he is 100% completely at fault (and deserves fines and demerit points) UNLESS there was a manufacturing defect with his car that directly caused the problem.

[illusionalvr]

i think some people need to step back and realise that an accident is an accident. theres always a chain reaction that leads to it. in saying that, im sure if you were driving along and hit black ice, no signs or anything, could you consider yourself at fault for failure to see what cant be seen?

[minux]

Did he hit you from behind? If so, I know enough about the situation to know he is 100% completely at fault (and deserves fines and demerit points) UNLESS there was a manufacturing defect with his car that directly caused the problem.

He could have been driving a Ford Territory? That would explain a lot.

[HamaTime™]

Did he hit you from behind? If so, I know enough about the situation to know he is 100% completely at fault (and deserves fines and demerit points) UNLESS there was a manufacturing defect with his car that directly caused the problem.

Yes he is at fault because he ran into him at the back. I was not disputing the point of who's fault it was, if you can find anywhere in what I said where I alluded to it.....?

The issue I was raising with what you were saying is that you blatantly called the guy a 'moron' who showed genuine remorse and really felt the impact of the situation, rather than not learning from his obvious 'mistake/accident' and dealing with the situation immaturely and like 'whatever' attitude...

Also, given all that what the OP has said regarding the situation, and given that the OP who has suffered a loss in this situation (his car being damaged) and has still managed to feel sorry for him and have empathy for the guys situation....and here you are, a complete third party to the situation and blatantly call him a moron and criticize him....

[Decicrate]

Why do you people act as if you know exactly what happened in these situations and know enough about it to justify calling people Moron's and ********s and all that. People can make mistakes, people can misjudge circumstances with the best intentions at heart....The OP has had his car damaged by this so called 'Moron' who 'deserves to be smashed with a full fine, demerit points and all' and he still has the heart to feel sorry for him and have some compassion for him.

People make mistakes, have some grace and understand how people feel.

The OP said, he counted at least 4 seconds watching the guy, waiting for him to hit him....how much space is there????

A Fine and demerit points are not warranted for every situation....sometimes they can aggravate the situation.....

No where did I call the guy a moron or a ******* or say that he deserved to be "smashed with a fine"
Bottom line he broke the law plain and simple.
There could of been many reasons why it happened, but at the end of the day he was at fault.
Maybe the fine and the points loss combined with the excess and the raise in his insurance premium may make him a more alert driver in the future.
If your actions have no consequences, then you usually don't change your actions.

[Tsunamix]

If he had a few seconds in which to brake, and didn't, either he's not driving to the conditions (Following to close) or driving without due care and attention.

Following too close is the lesser fine.

He got off easy.

[minux]

End of the day, no one is hurt, he is out of money for excess on insurance and he sounds very apologetic.

Fair chance he learnt a valuable lesson in driving to conditions. Fine is not really worthy imho. It's like a kick in the guts when you have just been castrated.

I am curious as to how one can charge someone for travelling too close. Clearly he wasnt travelling too close, he just lost contro of the vehicle. Great one to challenge in court.

[ClairBear]

If your actions have no consequences, then you usually don't change your actions.

This pretty much sums it up. Imagine this p-plater, who by default is an inexperienced driver hence the plates, got off with no fine or charges. What message is being delivered? The consequences of his actions will now be a reminder to him that if he isn't more attentive whilst driving he could be fined and charged. Life is about lessons and hopefully this young man will now keep well back and pay attention, especially in the rain.

[CSP]

He could have been driving a Ford Territory? That would explain a lot.

Hahaha! The vehicle that I thought of when I was typing that bit about mechanical failure. Why people still buy those dangerous POS' is beyond me!