Escort police knock down 80 yr old woman

[4plusthehound]

Escort police, protecting Sophie Wessex, knocked down an 80 year old woman yesterday.

Why does SW need a police escort? Motor bikes surrounding her car?

AIBU to think this is madness?

Have you started threads about the dozens of people, going about their daily business who get 'mown down ' and killed or seriously injured in London every year by delivery drivers, emergency services drivers, drunk drivers, cyclists? Delivery drivers delivering a very important £5 Boohoo dress to a nonentity, cyclists delivering a burger to a nonentity? Thought not.

Don't be so ridiculous.

It has not yet been established who, if any, was at fault here.

If a person stepped out onto the road when they didn't have a clear view of oncoming traffic the driver would not be at fault. The pedestrian would be.

When the exact circumstances of this tragedy are known THEN you can pass judgement, but not before

Do you drive? Would you be happy to be convicted of a crime if a pedestrian stepped onto the road in front of your car?

And in whatever case there is absolutely nothing to attach blame to Sophie. She doesn't get to decide on her security, the route, how fast they go or anything. No principal does.

(Well actually Dodi Al Fayed did - that worked out well.)

Those "poor" kids illegally riding an Electric Motorbike capable of 80mph who died after hitting a bus while the police were half a mile away....

Those Poor Kids?

Slightly different circumstances there as one could argue theirs was self inflicted....

Absolute disgrace that the council hadn't done anything about a dangerous crossing where people have to step into the road to see if anything is coming - and it'd been reported several times to them!

Wasn't the view obscured because an advertising hoarding had been covered over for the coronation?

I was shunted off the road by a load of Police outriders one afternoon to allow Princess Margaret and Diana come by in their posh car.
To say plod were "enthusiastic" in their job would be an understatement. They cleared the South Circular. Both the outriders and the Daimler were well over the speed limit.

I've often wondered what they would have done if I hadn't complied and pulled over.
Can you get nicked for slowing down a royal by simply minding your own business and driving legally?

I get stopped for the royal family and politicians almost daily (although a lot less since the children no longer go to school in Battersea, the queen died and Charles doesn't spend much time in London). The helicopters have also dropped off massively.

They are dangerous
It is unnecessary .
They can sit at a junction for 2 minutes like the rest of us.
They speed through the 20 mile an hour zones at 40 (that's a guess)

They have up to 8 police bikes and 2 cars. 4 bikes come forward and stop traffic- often several minutes before the arrive, cars come through with bikes at each side- those bikes then speed off to block the next road and the ones that have been blocking the junction form the escort.

Interestingly it is often the more minor royals and MPs who seem to require the most roads closed.

'They can sit at a junction for 2 minutes like the rest of us.'

Perhaps you're not old enough to remember the armed bloke who tried to drag Princess Anne out of her car and hold her to ransom?

They can sit at a junction for 2 minutes like the rest of us.

Excellent proposal. Then when there's a terrorist attack on their stationary vehicles innocent members of the public can get killed and injured in the crossfire.

Great idea.

The whole point is to avoid a terrorist attack - why turn them into sitting ducks?

The Royals get escorts to official engagements, because the engagements are public knowledge and the routes fairly predicable.

The whole point is to avoid a terrorist attack - why turn them into sitting ducks?

Or how about we shove them in an innocuous 15 year old Honda Civic and make them drive their own car - thereby not drawing attention to themselves in their bleeding huge shiny Daimler with a flag on the front surrounded by coppers forcing the South Circular to grind to a halt?

I bumped into the Queen of Belgium in a corner shop in Bruges. She'd popped out on her bike.

You aren't comparing like for like
The Queen of Belgium on her bike is unlikely to have been a published event that could become a terrorist attack

Any more than Kate going to sainsbury's with the kids is going to be published for those who want to attack.

Royals (or any other heads of state) going to published / common knowledge events are targets.
It's not even that long ago from a MP was murdered for doing his job.

@Gtsr443
I bumped into the Queen of Belgium in a corner shop in Bruges. She'd popped out on her bike.

The Waleses pop out on their bikes when they're not working too. Kate goes shopping in the supermarket and The Range. Harry used to go to his local Tesco. I don't see what your point is.

Car locks are very different today
The cars are bullet proof

You do see the RF and senior politicians out and about without the need to hold up the traffic. It isnt all about security

They are not royal engagements!
They are taking their kids to school, going home from work, popping to their mums, going out for supper. It is about their private lives as much as their public ones.

Going out for dinner at the Churchill- that took escorts and mini vans last week- have no idea who it was.

If Harry and Meghan's driver had killed an elderly woman by speeding and running across a pedestrian crossing in one of the busiest roads in London there would be 20 Mumsnet threads baying for their blood, it would be the cover headline on every single newspaper with pages and pages of coverage inside calling them murderers and demanding they face criminal charges and to be stripped of their titles.

But because it's one of the white royals, people are victim-blaming an elderly woman who was horrifically and violently killed, trying their hardest to minimise and play the whataboutery card by pointing out other people get killed too (oh so if I go out and murder a kid, that's okay and no biggie because other people murder kids too, is it?), finding excuses to justify law breaking that killed someone, and the press narrative has overwhelmingly been "poor poor Sophie lets give her all our sympathy because she's the real victim here."

The suggestion that Sophie Wessex can't possibly sit in a stationary secure car with bodyguards for 30 seconds because of the apparent army of terrorists who stalk her every movement just waiting to pounce (but who are apparently extremely incompetent at being terrorists, since a car being in motion stymies them) is the worst kind of special pleading. Royalists really will make up the most deranged nonsense to justify "I think royals are better than us and should be allowed to do absolutely anything they like because I enjoy being a forelock-tugging serf."

Just despicable double standards. No one should be above the law.

No one should be above the law.

No one is above the law. Why don’t you just chill your beans until we know what happened? It seems highly likely that the pedestrian stepped out in front of the vehicle. It’s pretty despicable to cry racism over a road traffic accident.

After last week's NY debacle it would appear Harry and Meghan's security detail aren't the safest drivers about.

Why bring anyone's colour into it?

No victim blaming from me - it's a tragedy. No 'whataboutery' - the thread was started as yet another to whip up ire against a member of the RF. If people are so up in arms about a pedestrian being killed in a road accident where are all the other threads demanding action to prevent it happening?

You obviously have access to the information that RAVEC use to decide who gets security - you'll be privy to the threats aimed at individuals? No? What a surprise.

Where are the double standards? The accident is being investigated.

I don't understand the thinking on this at all. Are people really suggesting that members of the RF, let's include Harry and Meghan for fairness, are all happy about killing pedestrians? That's just so totally crazy and lacks any form of critical thought. Because there is no gain on them willy nilly killing people. Let's suppose they're all psychopaths and sociopaths and don't care about killing people, their position in society is only awarded to them by the will of the people. Clearly if they go around killing people, they're going to lose that goodwill and they will lose their position.
So, ultimately, it doesn't really matter what they're feelings are about killing people, whether they care or not, they're always going to attempt to keep pedestrians alive. Either because they're like normal people and don't want to do harm to others; or, even if they quite like offing people, they won't because they don't want the bad PR.
Seriously, MN is a barmy old place.

Nobody thinks that they are happy killing people what a stupid suggestion. There is a justification for them to have an escort.

But the escort must be highly trained and careful not to hurt other road users too. I think this is the first time an accident like this has occurred. Which says it all really the number of escorted journeys they must have between all of the RF and other state visitors.

I have no problem with an escort, clearing the road ahead, etc., as that also happens with other things like heavy/wide loads.

I just fail to see any justification at all in making it high speed though. Fair enough for motorbikes to go ahead to stop traffic from side streets, over-ride traffic lights, etc., to ensure the royals aren't unduly held back in congestion etc.

But certainly not to facilitate breaking speed limits. And certainly not for the police to break speed limits just to get to the next junction to stop the traffic there. Let the royals travel within the speed limits and then the police escorts can travel within speed limits too. Clearing the way of traffic/congestion is as far as it should go.