Newport Car Crash

[RedEyeBaby]

I am very saddened to read of the death of three friends from Newport, and of the horror of the other two sitting in the car next to their dead friends for two days and nights.

I'm not sure why the police were unable to act faster - surely there is a window for life with a missing person, and the faster they are found, after going missing for whatever reason, the better.

The police suggested to one of the mums that they would turn up with hangovers. All five of them? Really?

I seem to remember things being better than this in the past, but perhaps it varies by force. But why should that be? I saw a thread on here over the weekend about this, before they were found and some posters suggested a car accident. It would have been so easy to send some patrols out on likely routes. I can't help but think that they might all have survived if found faster. 46 hours is just hellish to wait.

So I wanted to ask as many of you who would want to, to get one of the free family tracking apps on your phone. I have life 360 and when I broke down at night in the snow in the middle of nowhere, with two babies in the back, and I called the police, they were very uninterested. My parents found me on the app and were there within an hour, and they would have done so if i was unconscious. After 46 hours my phone would have run out of charge, but if those young people had had something like this, who knows, it may have turned out differently.

I guess my aibu is to ask if aibu to think it could save lives to use such an app. It's free and obviously there is no benefit to me, it's not my app.

Is there any need to be so rude?

I'm not sure that find my phone works on android? I might be wrong

Same as Apple you log into your Samsung account & there's a phone tracer

I do have a lot of respect and gratitude for the police, I'm not one of these 'f the police' types.

It’s fairly common for police to attend on a live lane breakdown, especially in bad weather and if there are small children in the car in the snow ffs?

I didn't know that, and my mum wouldn't have known that if she needed to find me. It's another good idea though, thank you.

With FMF you can see where the phone is at that point, with Life360 you can also see where the phone has been for the last two days. It shows the route on a map.

I would be just as rude to someone who phoned an ambulance for a sprained wrist. Our emergency services are under immense pressure and don't deserved to criticised for not giving a crap about something that's not their job. Not to mention for not "searching hard enough" when realistically we don't know anything that goes on behind the scenes! It just feeds into the disrespect for the police which ultimately leads to more crime.

This is obviously a slightly different situation but I would advise everyone to also get the OS Locate app so if you need to you can give a decent reference. It’s pretty reliable, works up mountains ect after all.

what does life360 do that FMF doesn’t? Presumably a paid for app so I’m interested

It's a free app. You set up a family circle so you can add as many family members and it doesn't matter what phone they have.

Yes, but they only come and either get you to the side or direct traffic around you until a breakdown vehicle can get to you. So you let the police know and you get a breakdown service on the way like an adult.

It's not the same: I called the non emergency number.

Op it is sad. I didn’t realise what had happened until seeing your thread. We do have find my iPhone set up

I think criticising the mum of one of the girls is really below the belt.
I mean, FFS.

Why be so rude though? Can you not make your point without rudeness? Would you speak this way to your colleague, boss, a police officer, in person, or are you only rude online in anonymity? There are humans on the ends of these threads.

This will be subject to independent review, the police referred themselves already.

The area where it happened is very busy during the day. If the car was easily noticeable, there's no way it would have gone unseen for this length of time by passers by, with or without police involvement. The difficulty is that where they've crashed isn't well visible at all, it's concealed by bushes. Thousands of people drove past in the 48hrs since their accident and didn't see their overturned car. Some of those people were specifically looking for them. Even with the involvement of helicopters, it wasn't obvious where they were going, it seemed more logical they would've returned to Porthcawl since one of the girl's handbag and cards were still there. But they seem to have been heading from Llanedeyrn in Cardiff back towards Newport which doesn't quite make sense. It would've taken a while to find them even with the helicopters anyway, the locations they visited that night are around 45 mins away from each other. We don't know whether the outcome would've been any different regardless. This is not to exonerate the police, of course the investigation will look into all areas and I'm not at all dismissive of the allegations they've made mistakes. There has been a lot of bad press recently in relation to Gwent Police who led on this investigation. In my experience, South Wales Police who assisted them take reports of missing persons seriously and act fast (I had to make a report myself and they were excellent). Let's wait for the review.

It's all extremely tragic and left me shaken and saddened as a parent.

Yes I remember that one -it was shown as a walkthrough if finding a missing person and tracking last movements-all sorts was discoveries about his life but in fact it was a very simple driving accident quite close to home and car hidden by trees.

I'm a human too and can get defensive when your loved ones are constantly called names. I've seen police officers be called all sorts on MN. It's frustrating. So if I heard that same criticism of the police in real life I absolutely would get just as offended. There are humans on the other ends of the threads, but there are also humans under the hats, with husbands and wives, mothers fathers and children.

This is what breakdown cover is for. You are mad not to have it if you travel any distance from home, or with young children, or use motorways. If you have no cover and get a flat tyre on the motorway, are you going to fix it yourself with traffic whizzing past and 2 babies in the car? It's not something your parents can necessarily help with either. You need to get the babies out to safety and let someone with flashing lights sort the car. Think ahead and make sure you have breakdown cover, a phone that works, money, food, enough clothes for you and kids to be outside for a while, etc.

I'm also not surprised that adults don't want their parents tracking them. It's great for romantic couples who know each others movements or perhaps for teenagers with their parents. I think it's an invasion of privacy for adults, and open to abuse. This kind of incident is vanishingly rare.

The police probably assumed the teens had stayed at a friends house, five people together not coming home for a night doesn't necessarily seem a potential tragedy immediately. A girl/boy alone gone missing is usually a bigger trigger.

Thanks op I will get this app. For some reason I thought they could track you by your phone anyway. So was wondering why they couldn't do this here. Didn't realise you had to have an app.

It’s fairly common for police to attend on a live lane breakdown, especially in bad weather and if there are small children in the car in the snow ffs

But that wasn't the scenario the OP mentioned. A live lane motorway breakdown is a danger to the driver of the broken down veh & other drivers. But if the police do go to a motorway breakdown theyll usually move the veh to a place of safety then leave. Someone broken down on a normal road needs the AA not the police

Not everyone ones to be tracked but we do have an sos service for the motorbike- for precisely if we crashed in a more remote location and were incapacitated. It's linked to satellite so not dependent on a mobile signal

What has happened is tragic but yet another MN post about trying to justify the merits of installing a tracking app on all your family members phone.

This will never sit comfortably with me.

What would the family have done? Tracked the phone then 'saved' them, no probably not, but what they would have been faced with was a horrendous accident and scenes that no professional should be trying to deal with.

Tracking adults does not prevent accidents things happening.

Thank you - that is useful to know.

I agree with you and I have breakdown cover now. I had been trying to save money because I was really struggling.
My personal choice is that I don't mind having my mum able to see where I am. She doesn't judge me if she sees me pop into McDonald's! :-) I can switch it off if I need some privacy but always switch it on for journeys.