Mr B:
Am I the only person to notice da silva is guilty because he’s foreign but john vasey is innocent because he’s british.
I’d like to point out I have little knowledge of either case but some posts on both threads are borderline xenophobia.
Have not read that thread so do not know.
It does not matter what country you are from, you do the crime you do the time
OLT:
All I have said is the lorry driver was not concentrating on the road ahead. If he was he would of seen vehicles slowing down or stopped and acted accordinly. No other driver crashed into that queue, they all managed to see it.
He was concentrating on the road,his speed was down to 30 mph at impact he had lost 26mph before the impact.
I am going to SPECULATE on what MIGHT have happened -
Driver is trying to split his time between doing something in the cab and watching the road ahead.
The cab distraction is taking up a greater percentage of the two tasks.
He keeps glancing up to look ahead very quickly and sees vehicles ahead but not exactly what they are doing.
Again, so much concentration is being used on the in-cab bit that the road signs are not noticed.
As he gets much closer, he glances up again and suddenly now realises that the vehicles he assumed to be moving are not -Now much too close but slams on brakes which reduces some of the speed.
This is PURE SPECULATION
ROG:
I am going to SPECULATE on what MIGHT have happened -Driver is trying to split his time between doing something in the cab and watching the road ahead.
The cab distraction is taking up a greater percentage of the two tasks.
He keeps glancing up to look ahead very quickly and sees vehicles ahead but not exactly what they are doing.
Again, so much concentration is being used on the in-cab bit that the road signs are not noticed.
As he gets much closer, he glances up again and suddenly now realises that the vehicles he assumed to be moving are not -Now much too close but slams on brakes which reduces some of the speed.This is PURE SPECULATION
that is a fair speculation rog, so what is wrong with my speculation?
could there be any chance that she’d just gone past the lorry and was maybe looking in her rear view and hit the lorry in front at 70 and almost immediately got hit by the portugese driver
also as a parent who’s had kids in the back of a car, could she not also have been distracted by one of the babies crying or the two older boys playing in the back as she overtook.
he could’ve been watching her overtake him to distract him from what was ahead?
i’ve driven a lot in LHD in this country and like others have said not many take notice of the signs and dont slow down until they meet the problem but in a LHD when warning signs are up you tend to keep an eye on anything passing you in case you have to take evasive action
THIS IS ALSO SPECULATION
the only proven fact in this case is that he hit the back of the car, a jury refused to convict him of the more serious charge which means there was no evidence he was looking at the laptop
i can accept bubsy06’s inability to comprehend that something other than what he’s read in the paper because of his inexperience and his apparent lack of roadcraft, maybe when he’s got some mileage under his belt he’ll be able to see the possible bigger picture.
Without independant witnesses or cctv footage we will never know and could probably come up with many specutations as to what actually happened.
hello to you all.
I am sure that Angela (davids mom) will be happy in the knowledge that even after this sad event that the transport community are disscusing the outcome of the sentence. For her and the rest of the family a 100 years would be to short, but we have to be realistic the sentence was given and we have to move on. no amount of time will bring the family back, the driver will have to live with the fact that he has killed six people by his actions, time will not heal the loss that the family are feeling but they will get on with there lives, hopefully celebrating the lives of David and his family rather than the hatered they feel against this driver. I hope that a lesson has been learnt (although we all knew the lesson) that any driver car,van or hgv has a responsablity to drive with care, if they dont, the unthinkable could happen.
Thank you all for your warm reception.
I feel that the family loss is great and hence their outcry at the sentence handed out, sadly the law of the land cannot offer true justice all of the time. I would hate to be in their position, mourning the loss of an entire family, through tragic circumstances such as this.
We all accept the fact that the driver needs to be punished after all, he was responsible for a rear end shunt, but instead of showing hatred to the driver, I feel they should be looking at the overall picture.
A Driver in a LHD Vehicle on UK roads where we drive on the left, basically looking at it in full, it was a passenger driving, we all know the difficulties seeing ahead when sitting in a passenger seat. I’m not defending the driver in any way, for that reason alone he should of been more cautious whilst driving.
My heart sincerely goes out to the families involved, as I say, I would hate to be in that position, the family are free to join in this discussion, and personally I would like them to do so, if only to try and get a grasp of the overall problems truck drivers on the UK roads have to endure. I hasten to add, not to defend anyone, but to maybe help them get rid of the hatred they currently have in their systems, as that alone can cause more physcological damage than any bereavement.
In this thread alone there have been many points put over, from drivers with varying degrees of experience, older hands with 20 + years experience tend to see the more realistic side, whereas the younger drivers have not gained enough experience of everyday driving to realise there are one hell of a lot of factors to consider.
I can only thank god that to date, I have never experienced anything like this incident and hopefully god willing I never will.
anyone wishing to understand how this type of shunt happens need only hang about at junction 1 of the m6 every morning or evening.watch the traffic as it backs up from the a14/m1 junction.
incidentally most of the 30+ fatals that have occurred in recent years at this junction happened in good weather.
is there a whole wing of hgv drivers in clink,regarding this junction?
i’m guessing there must have been hundreds of similar acidents to this one there,but none involving a complete family.
regarding the weather on the night in question i remember it was bad on the m6 in the midlands and a friend of mine towing an artic upto manchester was struggling badly as it was stop start traffic all the way due to bad weather and a string of accidents…but i wasn’t up that way at the time so i don’t know.
wrecktech100:
anyone wishing to understand how this type of shunt happens need only hang about at junction 1 of the m6 every morning or evening.watch the traffic as it backs up from the a14/m1 junction.
I hate that junction in the morning/afternoons, who ever designed that junction needs shooting!!! why FFS did they not think for a second that SOME people may want to go south bound instead of north bound 
I hate the bit even more when you come off the M6, come down the slip road to the T/L’s, it’s 2 lanes till just after the t/l’s when it suddenly goes down to 1 LANE and EVERY CAR DRIVER TRIES THEIR GOD DAM HARDEST TO QUEEZE BY YOU AS THEY CANT BE BOTHERD TO WAIT A COUPLE OF SECONDS as it then goes back to 2 lanes. I know its because of the M1 fly over but such a bad design!!!
Shunts happen very often on that stretch because IMPO traffic can come to a stand still very quickly on the A14
Also not a lot of people seem to realise that the slip road on the M6 has 2 lanes not just one, so people some times stop on the M6 with the rear end hanging out as they try and squeeze into the 1 lane when in fact its 2 lanes 
OLT:
All I have said is the lorry driver was not concentrating on the road ahead. If he was he would of seen vehicles slowing down or stopped and acted accordinly. No other driver crashed into that queue, they all managed to see it.
He was concentrating on the road,his speed was down to 30 mph at impact he had lost 26mph before the impact.
I have read all 5 pages of this thread and it is a very sad story. The driver was convicted in a court, not for dangerous driving, but careless driving. As OLT said the speed was down to 30mph at impact.
I despair at the posts that are citing the nationality of the driver, he is exactly the same as us, in fact similar to me. I could be delivering a load in France, Poland, Hungary or Italy.
The deaths of the Stathams made big headlines, but the grief felt by the close families would be just as bad if it had been one death or 15.
I didn’t like the way the media allowed the facts to become twisted, or the reporting of the case after the trial. A British crown court trial is the very best in the judicial system, it should not be described as a circus.
The Statham family were not butchered. Rachel Nickell, and Samantha Bisset were butchered.
Charles Manson, Sweeney Todd, and Robert (Willie) Pickton butchered their victims.
This was a tragic road accident and whether the driver is Portugese, Spanish Romanian or British, he will have to live with himself every day, just like we would, if we were involved.
My sincere condolences to all who are left behind 
Wheel Nut:
OLT:
All I have said is the lorry driver was not concentrating on the road ahead. If he was he would of seen vehicles slowing down or stopped and acted accordinly. No other driver crashed into that queue, they all managed to see it.
He was concentrating on the road,his speed was down to 30 mph at impact he had lost 26mph before the impact.
I have read all 5 pages of this thread and it is a very sad story. The driver was convicted in a court, not for dangerous driving, but careless driving. As OLT said the speed was down to 30mph at impact.
I despair at the posts that are citing the nationality of the driver, he is exactly the same as us, in fact similar to me. I could be delivering a load in France, Poland, Hungary or Italy.
The deaths of the Stathams made big headlines, but the grief felt by the close families would be just as bad if it had been one death or 15.
I didn’t like the way the media allowed the facts to become twisted, or the reporting of the case after the trial. A British crown court trial is the very best in the judicial system, it should not be described as a circus.
The Statham family were not butchered. Rachel Nickell, and Samantha Bisset were butchered.
Charles Manson, Sweeney Todd, and Robert (Willie) Pickton butchered their victims.
This was a tragic road accident and whether the driver is Portugese, Spanish Romanian or British, he will have to live with himself every day, just like we would, if we were involved.
My sincere condolences to all who are left behind
My sentiments exactly.