To actually feel sorry for the woman driving the car in the Wimbledon car accident

Also, for those who are darkly hinting that there are “other reasons” they can think of why this happened, can you give a couple of other possibilities that cover the known evidence? Given that they would have tested for alcohol or drugs and checked the car and its sensors for mechanical malfunctions, that she didn’t brake or swerve even after mounting the kerb and going through a fence?

The only other possible explanation I can think of is that she is a psychopathic murderer who wanted to kill little girls and deliberately aimed for them. Is that what you’re arguing? And even then, she also managed to fool what would have been many medics, including almost certainly faking objective tests results such as blood and ECG tests, into believing she’d had a seizure.

What other possibilities are there?

She doesn’t sell range rovers for a living. That’s yet another stupid piece of misinformation floating around. Shame on those repeating it.

I looked on LinkedIn this morning, and there’s a woman with the same name and appearance noted as such. Also recent trade industry rags interviewing her. I will happily edit my post if this is not correct info, but it seems to be.

All parties involved have money and wealth in this situation. Which one makes the most difference?

She doesn’t sell range rovers for a living. That’s yet another stupid piece of misinformation floating around. Shame on those repeating it.

There is also the fact that this story had the ingredients for the media to run with it. In that sense the fact it was a wealthy woman in a huge SUV that crashed through a school fence is relevant. All factors that would increase reader engagement, so that the media covered it all the more, and clearly wound up some mumsnetters.

It might come as a surprise to them that these accidents do happen as a result of people having seizures / blackouts but they do. In the case I mentioned before I cannot find any mention of it in any press coverage, not even local, although a big car ran out of control and hit a woman and child on a zebra crossing. The child was so severely injured they spent 6 months in hospital. Perhaps that was because it was at a junction where there had been fatal accidents that did get press coverage or because none of the people involved were wealthy or white. It did go to court but the verdict was that it was an accident, nobody was culpable.

I have to say @ShouldhavebeencalledAppollo , my personal "hook" for this is a) having children the same age as the deceased, so thinking about how I would react in their shoes and b) I am the same sort of demographic as this woman and, to put it bluntly, in my neck of the (suburban) woods if you see a car being driven badly, stuck somewhere unable to reverse and therefore requiring another one-five cars to back up out of the way to help, taking up two parking spaces because of poor spatial awareness of the vehicle/inability to reverse out, performing an illegal maneouvre where the likely damage would be to another, smaller vehicle - it is always a Land or Range Rover. I've driven these cars in rural Zimbabwe to hitch farm loads - they are not needed or appropriate in London. Often ime the driver has an insufficiently developed ability to control the vehicle. They don't have a handle on the size of the thing, or its power. I've asked a few of the parents at my children's school who have them whether they've gone on an advanced driving course to understand better how to use it - blank looks.

And now it turns out the woman sells Range Rovers for a living, which in other less tragic circumstances would be an amusing irony.

I don't know what happened. Neither do you. But I don't think sudden onset fit and memory loss is the only possible explanation. If I was a parent to one of these girls I would push to see and examine every last scrap of evidence.

The families of the victims have money as well. Which party's money are you suggesting has made a difference? I honestly can't tell. You could be saying the lack of charges is due to the driver's money, or that the families of the victims have been able to have Met investigation reviewed due to their money.

Money makes all the difference in a case like this and it is incredibly naive to think otherwise.

So you know little about medicine or seizures but believe no one with epilepsy should drive. You believe they are morally wrong to drive. You are making a moral judgement when you have no knowledge of the condition. That’s not morally superior.

Who blamed those that erected the fence? But if we are going to come up with wild conspiracies and made up reasons the driver was to blame. Why can’t people speculate about wether having a school field next to a road with a thin fence was a good idea. It could come up at the inquest.

How is it heartless and selfish? You won’t answer why you drive now? You said you would give up driving if it was you. You but you are risking people’s lives every time you drive, now. So why drive now? Is that heartless and selfish? Knowing you could cause the death of someone, doing something you don’t need to do. But you do it anyway. Anyone, including you or your husband could have a medical episode at the wheel and kill someone. But it’s a risk you are willing to take. Why does someone have to die for you to not take that risk? Not very morally superior is it?

Making out you would step outside the law if you were the parents and saw her driving again, isn’t morally superior. Is childish and ridiculous because you would do nothing.

What skin in the game do we have? Do you have skin in the game?

I think the underlying reason that people like to speculate about situations like these is to mentally protect themselves.

They don’t want to believe bad things can happen with no one to blame. They don’t want to believe they could be in the parents position and there be no one punished. They don’t want to believe they could easily be the driver. It’s far more comfortable if the driver made a conscious decision that they knew would likely end in someone getting hurt. It’s easy for our brains to accept there was a villain and that it could never be them.

If there was nothing the driver could have done to avoid it, it could happen to them. Every time they drive a car there’s potential that the same could happen to them with no forewarning, even if they drive a punto.

It’s more comforting to come up with a hundred different and ridiculous reasons that it was the drivers fault, because it makes them feel better.

This thread is bringing out the beast in people. Blaming those who erected the fence?

I have posted nothing about seizures - I know little about medicine.And nothing about punishment - I do know a bit about the law. Who cares if the driver was rich or poor - not relevant. But I maintain most strongly that our sympathy should be with the two children and their families.

I appreciate that posters on here clearly have skin in the game, but their belligerent insistence that this was “just one of those things” and that of course if the woman wants to she can drive again sounds heartless and very, very selfish.

For those saying they don’t believe it was a seizure, what do you think happened?

Her phone will have been seized and checked for activity.
She would have been checked for alcohol and drugs.
Her car would have been examined for mechanical failure.
Her car’s data (from all the sensors and airbag deployment) would be gathered.

Even if she was distracted why didn’t she brake or swerve at all? She would have been aware something was wrong after mounting the curb. Braking and swerving would happen.

It seems some would rather a witch hunt.

I understand your outrage, but I don't see why this is a moral issue. What do you mean by decent?

If, as seems to be the case, the driver suffered an unforeseeable seizure, in what way is she culpable? If she is in no way culpable then she is not responsible let alone accountable for the tragic deaths of the children. We cannot anyone accountable for something they were not responsible. In these circumstances she didn't kill the children.

This thread is nuts. There was a year-long investigation, and the results will be presented, and examined and cross-examined, at the inquest (which was deferred pending the cps decision).

The police thought they did a good thing by sharing the top level conclusion and cps decision, and instead have been met with a barrage of criticism from people trying to second guess the inquest verdict on the basis of no knowledge or expertise.

Now they've been bumped into another 'investigation', which can only be about how they handled relations with the families etc, but the existence of which gives the false impression that there was something wrong with the crash investigation itself. Surely this investigation could have waited until after the inquest.

It’s actually not a lack of empathy. You can look at a situation and have empathy for people on all sides of it.

Regardless of what people here think. Sometimes awful things happen, but no one is to blame.

20 odd years ago, I lived in a village and a young boy about 4 ran out between to parked cars. A car going less than the 30 mile an hour speed limit hit him.The boy ran out straight in front of the car. And killed him. When the driver wasn’t charged the father and other family members started a hate campaign against the driver. He ended up leaving his job and moving away. He was deeply affected by the accident. But there was literally nothing he could have done. I understood how painful it was for the family. But I could also have empathy for a man driving home from work, carefully, but had to live with what happened and then had to pack his and his families lives up, move his children’s schools, move away from family because the family became violent. What the family did absolutely wasn’t ok, but I could have sympathy for their loss and what they were feeling.

It’s actually very empathetic to look at a situation and have empathy for people on all sides. I don’t think the Op said the driver was deserving of more sympathy. Did they? Did anyone else?

The level of ignorance on this thread is quite an eye opener. Posters quite prepared to spout complete nonsense about a medical issue without even the knowledge a bit of basic googling from reputable sources would provide and then spin their stupidity into theories and judgements about this tragic accident.
Explains a lot of the nasty minded ill informed responses on other topics.

I didn't say I don't feel any sympathy, just that I'm not reserving as much for the survivor, who didn't lose their own children.

Lack of empathy is starting a thread about the poor person that got to go home at the end of the day

They didn’t see the manner of driving which is what is relevant. The car and the scene will be forensically examined, what can the statement of someone turning up after the event add? They have no information about the actual collision or the events leading up to it.

So many posters' comments are vile and are clearly driven by hated of this women because she is wealthy.

Isn't having an epileptic fit or the driver having a medical episode the most likely scenario? How else can you explain the events? It was such a bizarre and appalling accident. Obviously you can't blame the families of the small girls for how they feel.

There's the car park where many people park before going for a walk on the common. It's usually quite busy.

Thick and awful awful people. This thread is one of the worst I have ever seen. And fucking depressingly stupid when it comes to facts about epilepsy. The ignorance is actually astounding.
Every time you get in your car there is a risk of similar happening to you.

The poster l replied to stated that the vehicle drove through a brick wall. It did not. It drove through a fence and hit the building. Not the same thing.