One evening in September 2020 a telephone call was received by West Mercia Police highlighting concern for an individual’s safety. The caller requested that a welfare check be carried out as the woman in question had threatened to take her own life.
The incident was deemed to require a ‘Grade 1 emergency response’ and two officers, including PC Wood, were dispatched to deal with the matter in a marked Police car displaying blue lights. PC Wood was driving.
The Police car being driven by PC Wood proceeding at high speed along the A38 and entered the A38/Birmingham Road junction against a red traffic light signal and there collided with a Chevrolet motor car which was at the time making a right-hand turn from the A38 towards Birmingham Road, with the benefit of a green traffic light signal. My clients, Joseph and Rebecca were travelling in the Chevrolet as passengers.
The Chevrolet was upended by the force of the impact and rolled up to 3 times before coming to a halt, balanced on its side. Both of my clients, along with their friend who was driving the car and who had to later be cut loose by the fire brigade, had the terrifying experience of ‘coming round’ trapped and injured in an upended vehicle. Joseph, in particular, was bleeding heavily from a deep laceration to his head but managed to extricate himself from the wreck. Ambulance staff were quickly on hand.
My clients have acknowledged that they feel extremely lucky to have been able to ‘walk away’ from such a devasting accident; but naturally both of them suffered psychological trauma on top of their physical injuries.
Telematics data later obtained from the Police car demonstrated that PC Wood was driving his motor car at a speed of 69mph on approach to the junction. The speed limit at the junction where the collision occurred was only 40mph.
The Police car was still travelling at 69mph only 40 feet from the point of impact, or 0.4 seconds prior to the collision. The typical ‘stopping distance’ at a speed of 70mph – per the Highway Code – is 315 feet; mechanical data indicated that the speed of the Police vehicle at the moment of its impact with my clients’ car was likely to have been in the region of 66mph.
As the IOPC (Independent Office of Police Conduct) investigation into this accident later stressed:-
“Emergency Response drivers are responsible in law for their actions. The statutory exemptions do not afford such drivers any protection against compromising safety and the objective test of driving standards would be considered against that of a competent and careful driver as set out by statute.”
Police driver’s “Roadcraft” training https://www.roadcraft.co.uk/ injuncts them to continually risk assess the situation and adopt a speed of approach that will enable them to stop if necessary, particularly when proceeding through traffic lights. The duties of good observation and the ability to stop are paramount. As the Roadcraft handbook directs – “Your speed should allow you time to stop should an oncoming vehicle suddenly present itself in your vehicle’s path.”
The use of warning equipment i.e. emergency lights and sirens does not give Police drivers automatic ‘right of way’. The lights and sirens are a request for other drivers to give way to the emergency vehicle, and do not empower Police Officers to drive as if they were in an ‘action movie’. A Police driver responding to an emergency is still supposed to treat the junction as a give way and be aware of other vehicles, which may not have fully appreciated his direction of travel or speed of approach.
Sadly, PC Wood failed to obey these precepts and a collision occurred as a result, which could easily have had much more terrible consequences than it did – not to diminish the mental scars which my clients were left with.
I brought a claim for compensation on behalf of both Joseph and Rebecca. In response, liability for PC Wood’s negligent driving was soon admitted by West Mercia Police and I was able to settle Joseph’s claim for damages in the sum of £24,000 and Rebecca’s claim for £19,000 plus their legal costs.
My clients’ names have been changed.
