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

There is no moral issue here.
Based on what you are saying, morally, none of us should ever drive again, as anyone of us at any given time could kill somebody.

Do you drive? If so, how do you morally justify doing so knowing that such a tragedy could occur at your hands?
If you don’t drive, do you still intend to ever be a passenger in a vehicle knowing that such a tragedy could occur at the hands of the driver?

What has Anne Sacoolas got to do with anything? She was prosecuted and convicted.

It did because as I said there was a lot of conflicting evidence and the medical issue was not as well known as Epilepsy. I had never heard of it. There was also an issue that the Police involved were inexperienced, had obviously focused on the victims and the welfare of others involved, and had let drivers leave the scene who could have filled some of the gaps in the evidence. I do think it was reasonable to let a jury decide, the decision was that the prosecution had not proven it wasn’t automism and that the balance of probability was that it was,

Having said that the driver was not middle class and white and it would not be the first time in my direct experience that there wasn’t institutional racism involved in the Met Police’s decision to prosecute.

You keep posting the same stuff and avoiding questions.

You said you would definitely give up driving if you were her. If it’s that easy, given you are a risk every time you drive, why not give up now? Why risk anyone’s life? Why drive at all?

You don’t know what you would do because you aren’t in that position. And hopefully you never get ill being the wheel and cause an accident so you won’t ever actually know what you would do.

You also made some vague statement about what you would do if you were the parents and saw her driving. But won’t actually say what you would do. You posted it twice but won’t say what you think you would do.

You talk about moral issues whilst implying you would take the law into your own hands if this woman dare drive and you were the parents.

Whether she drives again or not is not a moral issue. It’s a legal one. It’s not immoral for her to drive again.

Say you were in a road accident where you did nothing wrong and people in the another car died. Would you still think it's morally wrong to ever drive again? I think a person involved would find it incredibly hard to get behind the wheel again but I don't think it'd be immoral.

Well this could account for the teachers being so publicly vocal about sharing the driver prosecuted.

If it was the school, they may end shouldering some blame. That far less outrageous that most of the speculation on here about the driver.

This is untrue. They did do the relevant tests for seizure.

Thank you - l knew this kind of testing was used for seizure related diagnoses but l wasn’t sure if it would be routine.

A poster upthread keeps questioning the morality of the driver resuming driving if she remains seizure free for the prescribed period. I don’t think there is a moral issue here if the driver did have a seizure. The Anne Sacoolas case very clearly demonstrates the difference.

Sleep deprivation EEGs are done fairly routinely in the department my partner runs.

A sleep deprivation EEG can sometimes detect seizure markers long after the event. I may be wrong but l don’t think that’s something that the NHS would do as routine, but it may have been done later as part of the investigation. I also don’t think earlier testing can be ruled out - if the driver reported a seizure at the scene surely this would have been followed up urgently given the circumstances.

Again, if I've made any errors in expressing my partner's epilepsy knowledge, that's my mistake, not theirs, as they're not on my shoulder hovering.

I totally agree with you about SUVs in general as not being an appropriate choice of vehicle for Wimbledon. But that's a different argument. They are legal, and the driver was driving legally, and she had a medical episode whilst driving. Hence the reason for not being prosecuted.

My partner said they've seen bus drivers (very scary) through to cyclists all with seizures later on in life, being tested for epilepsy.

I would argue that Anne Sacoolas who killed Harry Dunne by driving on the wrong side of the road, and then fled the UK with the connivance of the Foreign Office, is far more in the wrong.

And yes, the inquest will clarify things.

The lynch mob mentality is alive and well it seems.

I’m sorry but if this is the conclusion you’ve come to then you clearly don’t understand the legalities or indeed, what a moral issue actually is. If the accident is deemed to be the result of involuntary loss of control of the vehicle due to a seizure inducing condition of which she was previously unaware, then she has done nothing wrong. There is nothing legally or morally to stop her driving again if she remains seizure free. That’s the law. The decision to get behind the wheel again is entirely hers once she is deemed fit to do so, and that’s entirely as it should be.

You’ve said this a few times now. If this woman genuinely lost consciousness because of a seizure, having never had one before, why are you apportioning blame when there is none ? It was an act of nature which tragically resulted in the deaths of two children. She didn’t intentionally kill them, it was an accident. So however much you want there to be, there is no ‘moral issue’ here. She may drive again after the required seizure free period, or she may not. Either way it’s her decision, and whatever she decides her morals will not be compromised, if she is blameless for what happened.

Self-evidently a lot of people on this thread DON'T understand the legalities.

Not going to read the whole thread again - it would be too painful- but I'm pretty certain some people have advocated punishment including some who advocated vigilantisim

It’s not the legalities: we all understand those. It’s not punishment - no one has advocated that. It’s the moral issue - and I simply can’t fathom why posters are quite ok with this woman driving again. Yes, she could legally drive if approved, but what human being would feel it decent to drive after killing children?

I actually think anonymity should be enforced more widely in cases like this.

I still think the police could have done more to keep the heads and school community informed, even if no difference to the outcome; that was ill-judged of them.

Well said. By this logic a lot of posters must be in the pay of FIAT !!

So in your case it didn't make it's way to the court either?

Why on earth would you think it has anything to do with money ? The woman hasn’t been charged with anything and the tabloids are generally not permitted to identify suspects until the point of charge. That applies to everyone - rich or poor. And the anti collision system would have been useless as it doesn’t activate any automatic brake interventions in the event of heavy acceleration, which there would almost certainly have been if she was unconscious with her foot on the accelerator. The investigators concluded that there was no evidence of the brake being applied. The conspiracy theorists are out in force today aren’t they ?

The responsible party is whoever put up the flimsy fence around the schoolyard instead of a proper wall. The community or the private school?
This terrible accident could occur again.

@Bibblebobblebibble

"Same here - I can't believe that on Mumsnet of all places, there is not more outrage regarding the potential of these vehicles to maim and kill children.

It actually makes me think that some of the comments on here are from a PR person hired by the wealthy driver or pro SUV lobby."

You cannot seriously believe that if people disagree with you it can't be that they hold a separate opinion they must be being paid to do so? By your logic logic people who are the most vitriolic about the driver are they being paid by the equally wealthy parents? Reality is they're just other humans with other opinions

Surely you can't seriously think this,?

I was involved in a case where someone claimed to have had a blackout which led to an accident where two people were seriously hurt. It wasn’t epilepsy but the medical evidence was that in that context it was most likely that it was a blackout. There was lots of conflicting evidence both from the defendants and witnesses and incomplete CCTV., including that at some point the driver did regain enough awareness to take some action. Obviously the interests of the injured were a heavy consideration. However in the U.K. justice system the onus is that the burden of proof lies with the prosecution and there was simply not enough evidence that it was caused by anything other than a blackout for at least some of the passage of the car for a guilty verdict. The term for the legal defence is automatism.

I absolutely see how the teachers and parents feel but clearly the Police cannot pursue a prosecution unless they can prove she was conscious throughout the incident. Even from what we know, the failure to brake etc., that would be very difficult. The Police have clearly not handled this well with the victims but in both cases the driver will have to live with the terrible consequences for the rest of their life.