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

[bagpuss90]

I’m sure I’ll be flamed here . I totally sympathise with the bereaved parents- I can’t stress that enough. I can understand them wanting justice . As we know the driver of the car suffered an epileptic seizure at the wheel - she had no history of epilepsy. I don’t see what she could have done differently. She has to live with what she did although it wasn’t her fault. AIBU to feel quite sorry for her ?

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

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.

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?

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

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.

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.

The lynch mob mentality is alive and well it seems.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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?

Says a lot about you to be honest, Lack of empathy.

@Sirine1708 , Inquests are always open to the public and therefore journalists so there is no likelihood of closed doors hush up.

This attitude of some that this was a powerful vehicle which is expensive so somehow we must find a way to attack the driver who is wealthy is really quite horrible. Would the lynch mod of jealous correspondents be as vile had it been a delivery driver in an equally powerful van?
I repeat my earlier post that we wait for the inquest.

I am sure the driver was in no fit state to walk home she bit through her tongue & was disorientated sure she was taken to hospital & given an electrocephrograph to see the brains electrical impulses from this they can see if she had or is having fits. Not sure any of this would be on her word only. Unfortunately there are not physical tests or blood test to check if you really have ADHD as you said, you could be lying who knows?

No, I do not feel sorry for a wealthy housewife who sped through the streets by the common in nothing more than a tank and then, it would appear, used every trick in the book to walk away scot free. I will reserve my sympathy for the bereaved and traumatised.

Where did you read about her biting through her tongue? I've looked through a number of articles yesterday and none mention it.

It’s mentioned in The Sun.

/fin