Car crash outside Westminster

[youarenotkiddingme]

Now it's just happened as RG was outside reporting for GMB.

No one knows what happened or why and if it's suspicious or not.

But I think the fact the immediate reaction was for armed police, no one to approach the car until they arrived and a huge cordon was applied once they'd seen driver shows that we do in fact live in a time where the suspicion is always the worst rather than the best.

Thank goodness no one else other than the driver is involved.

@ImmortalityMyDarlings you're right. I think i Just found it nicer to think that the man had probably fallen asleep at the wheel and had an accident and it was being made more of for no reason than the other alternative.

Spoke too soon. Terrorism is suspected.

"A man has been arrested on suspicion of terrorism offences after a car crashed outside the Houses of Parliament, injuring two people."

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-45180120?ns_linkname=news_central&ns_campaign=bbc_breaking&ns_source=twitter&ns_mchannel=social

Thanks Aragog (great name btw!).

I guess with the widening corden and recent poisoning's it made me think it could have meant something else.

I'm always one who'd rather question than speculate though.

I just hope if this mans innocent having his face plastered over news isn't going to be harmful.

I thought the same about releasing photos of the man @youarenotkiddingme. It is a very suspect/unfortunate place for it to happen but if he's had a genuine accident his face is tarred with that brush now.

If it is terrorism, does anyone else find the incompetence and apparent lack of actual explosives (or a coherent plan!) rather reassuring?

Not really (sorry, don't mean to sound like I'm putting you down, I'm honestly thinking about your question). I think organised attacks and attacks like this one are two separate things. One person making an individual statement (for want of a better expression) doesn't show a want of organisation in the wider "world" of terror, it's completely unrelated to it, in my mind. Does that make sense?

metro.co.uk/2018/08/14/video-westminster-terror-attack-shows-police-officer-diving-way-car-7837076/?ito=twitter

New video of car and route taken to drive into the barriers, BBC showed just now. I can see from this why they suspected it was more than just an idiot in a car (well, the other type of idiot).

Look at the cars behind it. Was suspect’s car being followed by police?

I see what you mean by being tailed. As he goes around and across the pedestrian bit and then towards the barrier a car at the pedestrian bit buys across and starts heading that way.

That video shows much more information about what actually happened.

Clearly shows 2 policemen jumping out of the way.

Whatever is the reason behind this it would clearly appear that he made a snap decision for some unknown reason to veer off course.

My thoughts are with those injured and hope they make a speedy recovery both physically and mentally.

Sky news has met doing live update now

Suspect is not co operating in enquiries 🙄

I though it looked like two police vans were following him and he changed his mind whatever his plans were. Maybe a snap decision rather than calculated.

Someone just asked about footage. Said they have heard this but it appears to be ambulance on a call.

I think this looks like a drunk/drug driver. The island he swerved around seems to come as a surprise to him, so he then steers to go around it which sends him over the first raised pedestrian section. He then corrects himself on the second road but is still going too fast so slams into the barriers ahead.

He said no police were following.

No weapons found in car.

No other passengers.

Don't believe suspect is known to MI5 or anti terror police.

Cobra meeting called for 2pm.

Suspect not identified and he's refusing to co operate.

News also reported that DWP building has been or is being evacuated.

All the info points to it being a suspicious incident but nothing they know yet seems to point to terror attack to me - just rather nothing seems to rule out the possibility.

X posts!

It's possible it's an illegal immigrant who panicked over something and now doesn't want to identify themselves for fear of deportation.

Something just doesn't scream terror attack over this one - neither does it scream accident.

I suspect that this was a road rage attack against the cyclists.

Terrorists want people to know their cause, to spread the terror. There are no reports of shouting their cause at the scene, no follow up attack with knives etc and he chose a relatively quiet time of day.

If he's a terrorist he's a pretty crap one.

No he didn’t, and he’s also not a politician which kind of proves my point! They don’t care who is in the line of fire as long as they’re protected in their fancy parliament!
Before you smear all mp's, remember tobias Ellwood MP, who put himself in danger trying to save the life of PC Keith Palmer .

Before you smear all mp's, remember tobias Ellwood MP, who put himself in danger trying to save the life of PC Keith Palmer

He did, and it was heroic. Funnily enough it was his army background which gave him the courage to do it, he said so himself.

Why are people so obsessed with defending MPs as a whole? A group who need it to be laid out in a set of rules that bringing prostitutes to their workplace is unacceptable?

To be fair, Hen, people defend MPs as a whole because it's only the odd individual out of - 635? - that lays a giant turd and means that something has to be made "official" that most politicians wouldn't do in the first place. (Expenses was a bit of an exception, but even then they weren't all raking it in by any means.)
I wouldn't defend MPs by citing one decent bloke caught up in one exceptional event, though, that's a bit of what-aboutism. I wouldn't even cite Simon Hughes, who rather than responding to one immediate event in front of him made a considered decision to consistently face down intimidation and death threats over a period of time. Both good blokes, but no more representative of MPs as a whole than the rotten eggs.
Sorry, Hen, blathered on a bit there.

it looks to me like he might have been deliberately aiming his car first at cyclists, and then at the police, and the cars was smoking. Might just have been the crash that caused that, but even so, so many brave police men running directly towards a smoking car that has just attempted to run down tow of their colleagues, with no idea what was inside.

The police are amazing

DolorestheNewt I get what you’re saying though.

Ignore it. Terrorism thrives on publicity.