Appointing responsibility after a tragedy?

[Banzai_Joe]

Yeah, the risk assessment is an interesting one. How much is a risk assessor expected to 'assess' for any given situation.

Take (for surrealism sake) the Final Destination films, look at the causality of most of the deaths, they are borne out of sheer randomness which almost no one could anticipate. (forgetting the "can't escape death" theme)
I suppose that's the kind of thing i mean; say a car driving over a bridge over the M1 and blows a tyre on some glass in the road, some of the rubber flies into the air and hits a low-flying duck, knocking it out the sky and onto the windscreen of another car on the M! below, which swerves but doesn't crash, miles later the duck eventually slides off the windscreen onto the road and panics the driver of an oncoming car who swerves, crashes and cause a multiple pile-up ending in the death of many people.

How would they assess the blame there? Even if they could trace it back to the blown tyre?

 

[mistercrabb]

Yeah, the risk assessment is an interesting one. How much is a risk assessor expected to 'assess' for any given situation.

Take (for surrealism sake) the Final Destination films, look at the causality of most of the deaths, they are borne out of sheer randomness which almost no one could anticipate. (forgetting the "can't escape death" theme)
I suppose that's the kind of thing i mean; say a car driving over a bridge over the M1 and blows a tyre on some glass in the road, some of the rubber flies into the air and hits a low-flying duck, knocking it out the sky and onto the windscreen of another car on the M! below, which swerves but doesn't crash, miles later the duck eventually slides off the windscreen onto the road and panics the driver of an oncoming car who swerves, crashes and cause a multiple pile-up ending in the death of many people.

How would they assess the blame there? Even if they could trace it back to the blown tyre?

They'd blame the idiot who swerved around a dead duck

 

[Nexus]

Well i can't legislate for what other people want to post. My OP quite clearly states that i was using the M5 crash as an example, but there must be quite a few similar events where my questions apply. But it could be a made up situation too i guess.

To take away from the M5 crash, how about a the Red Arrow tragedy that killed the pilot? Would someone be held accountable for that? What if the pilot had actually crashed into a crowd? Then what?

Well that's better!

The risk assessment for an event like an airshow would have covered such an eventuality and have suitable insurance to cover the worst case scenario, which is why it would be expensive to put on in the first place.

My only experience of the Red Arrows is when they perform at Silverstone and I know that all the dangerous moves happen away from the track where there are no spectators.

I believe it's also pretty much expected of the pilot to do everything within his ability to ensure that in a crash situation that he/she attempts to do so in an area free of people.

Finally, although I've never been to an airshow, I would imagine just like motorsports that the ticket says something about it being an inherently dangerous event, so effectively you are attending at your own risk.

 

[Banzai_Joe]

Heh, i edited my post afterwards.
Check out my NEW exmaple....with the duck!

 

[elmarko]

This kind of thing is always a can of worms. It is human nature to want revenge on someone when you feel they have harmed you, and its human nature to want someone to blame when you are harmed. Should someone be deemed responsible and punished? I don't think so personally, but then I wasn't hurt directly by this. There will be people out there who will want someones blood. The law will never be able to reconcile these 2 perspectives, so the middle ground will likley be to find someone at fault and jail them.

The people effected should not be considered when making objective decisions.

Imagine if you filled the jury with family members of the deceased.

People who are personally effected are not often capable of being rational & seeing the situation for what it was,

Sometimes accidents happen, not every mistake is gross negligence.

It also depends on if you favour virtue ethics or consequentialism.

I'll give you a theoretic scenario.

Person A

A drunk man get's into his car - driving home he didn't hit anybody else (despite poor driving) but was clocked on a camera for dangerous driving & was eventually done for drink driving.

Person B

A drink man get's into his car - driving home he hit's a family car - killing a husband, wife, 2 children & a baby - he was clocked on the camera for dangerous driving & was done for drink driving & manslaughter.

It was the decision that lead him to get into the car while drunk that put the life of innocent people in danger, why should person A receive a lessor penalty when they simply "lucked out" by not hitting anybody?.

A more blunt example is a man dropping 50kg square weights off a building aiming at the people below.

Should his punishment be any less if he get's lucky & misses somebody's head?.

 

[Colasanto]

Yeah, the risk assessment is an interesting one. How much is a risk assessor expected to 'assess' for any given situation.

Take (for surrealism sake) the Final Destination films, look at the causality of most of the deaths, they are borne out of sheer randomness which almost no one could anticipate. (forgetting the "can't escape death" theme)
I suppose that's the kind of thing i mean; say a car driving over a bridge over the M1 and blows a tyre on some glass in the road, some of the rubber flies into the air and hits a low-flying duck, knocking it out the sky and onto the windscreen of another car on the M! below, which swerves but doesn't crash, miles later the duck eventually slides off the windscreen onto the road and panics the driver of an oncoming car who swerves, crashes and cause a multiple pile-up ending in the death of many people.

How would they assess the blame there? Even if they could trace it back to the blown tyre?

The car that had the duck on the windscreen for miles should have pulled over to the hard shoulder to take it off, that ultimately would have avoided the driver behind to crash, thus avoiding deaths.

Although the driver shouldn't swerve for a dead duck in this case, it's human nature to avoid something coming at you, so you naturally swerve without thinking of the consequences to avoid the dead duck. However I think the ultimate blame for that accident would lay in the hands of the driver that had the duck sitting on his windscreen for miles, as he had plenty of time to avoid the accident and get the clearly dangerous duck from their windscreen.

 

[Stretch]

aahh ok....just going by what i heard on the news this morning mate.
M5 crash was a (bad?) example, i'm talking about responsblity after any kind of tragedy really.

It depends if someone can be help criminally responsible. There's all sorts of things that can happen and obviously apportioning blame can get very complicated. It's not enough just to have made a "mistake", you have to be negligent.

If someone has failed to do their job properly, been reckless, broken the law e.g. was drunk or ignored health & safety legislation, not followed procedure, not got the correct permit, not qualified, no insurance etc then they can be sent to prison for manslaughter. In some cases the blame amounts to organizational failure (e.g. after a large rail disaster) and a charge of corporate manslaughter is levied and directors can be held responsible.

 

[Banzai_Joe]

If all the facts about the duck incident were known though, starting with the car with the blown tyre, would the outcome of blame likely be the same?

 

[Banzai_Joe]

The people effected should not be considered when making objective decisions.

Imagine if you filled the jury with family members of the deceased.

People who are personally effected are not often capable of being rational & seeing the situation for what it was,

Sometimes accidents happen, not every mistake is gross negligence.

It also depends on if you favour virtue ethics or consequentialism.

I'll give you a theoretic scenario.

Person A

A drunk man get's into his car - driving home he didn't hit anybody else (despite poor driving) but was clocked on a camera for dangerous driving & was eventually done for drink driving.

Person B

A drink man get's into his car - driving home he hit's a family car - killing a husband, wife, 2 children & a baby - he was clocked on the camera for dangerous driving & was done for drink driving & manslaughter.

It was the decision that lead him to get into the car while drunk that put the life of innocent people in danger, why should person A receive a lessor penalty when they simply "lucked out" by not hitting anybody?.

A more blunt example is a man dropping 50kg square weights off a building aiming at the people below.

Should his punishment be any less if he get's lucky & misses somebody's head?.

But surely you cannot charge someone with a crime they didn't commit (heh, usually anyways).
Person A was charged with the crime he DID commit, but as didn't kill anybody he cannot be charged with that. Person B did, so he was charged accordingly.
To me, that's quite straightforward.
You cannot charge someone with someone they 'may' have done.

I understand the predicament, but isn't the law quite clear on such things as in the case of persons A amd B?

 

[Colasanto]

If all the facts about the duck incident were known though, starting with the car with the blown tyre, would the outcome of blame likely be the same?

Yes, how would the blown tyre with rubber flying up and killing a duck be the initial drivers fault. Thats just bad luck and he was oblivious to the incident, the driver after him seen the duck on his windscreen for several miles in your example, therefore he had a duty of care but clearly didn't bother, so that is negligence on his part.

 

[Banzai_Joe]

Yes, how would the blown tyre with rubber flying up and killing a duck be the initial drivers fault. Thats just bad luck and he was oblivious to the incident, the driver after him seen the duck on his windscreen for several miles in your example, therefore he had a duty of care but clearly didn't bother, so that is negligence on his part.

Inadvertently, my duck example has actually raised more questions, like:
how could the driver with the duck stuck to his windscreen remove it at 70mph? Maybe it fell off as he was trying to get to the hard shoulder or the next exit.

I just wonder how far the legal boundaries go as to trying to apportion blame in such a matter.

 

[andicole0]

As I understood what I saw on the news this morning the council were approached and told the rugby club that no 'certificate' was necessary for their event. Therefore no risk assessment would have been carried out. Interesting to see rumours that they didn't have a bonfire.

If anyone from the rugby club were accused it would only be as a scape goat. No one should be travelling too fast not to stop in an emergency, it was wet and foggy, everyone should have been already driving extra carefully.

Andi.

 

[Banzai_Joe]

As I understood what I saw on the news this morning the council were approached and told the rugby club that no 'certificate' was necessary for their event. Therefore no risk assessment would have been carried out. Interesting to see rumours that they didn't have a bonfire.

Interesting, so would 'they' then turn to the council to blame for not sending out a risk assessor? Or deeming that one wasn't necessary?

 

[Colasanto]

Inadvertently, my duck example has actually raised more questions, like:
how could the driver with the duck stuck to his windscreen remove it at 70mph? Maybe it fell off as he was trying to get to the hard shoulder or the next exit.

I just wonder how far the legal boundaries go as to trying to apportion blame in such a matter.

Well he obviously wouldn't try to remove it whilst going down the M1 at 70mph. You stated in your example he travelled a few miles before the inevitable pile up happened behind him. Thus he had plenty of chance to pull over to the hard shoulder carefully in that time.

I'm just assessing it like such, if this is the story that played out in court, no doubt about it the 2nd driver would get the blame.

 

[sammo62]

Knowing lorry drivers the cause was more likely one of them watching a DVD in the cab than the fireworks.

 

[andicole0]

Interesting, so would 'they' then turn to the council to blame for not sending out a risk assessor? Or deeming that one wasn't necessary?

Of course they would.

Andi.

 

[Windle]

As I understood what I saw on the news this morning the council were approached and told the rugby club that no 'certificate' was necessary for their event. Therefore no risk assessment would have been carried out. Interesting to see rumours that they didn't have a bonfire.

If anyone from the rugby club were accused it would only be as a scape goat. No one should be travelling too fast not to stop in an emergency, it was wet and foggy, everyone should have been already driving extra carefully.

Andi.

What about the eyewitnesses that survived the crash that said driving into the smoke was immediately like having a blindfold pulled over their eyes.

Scenario: Several cars crash within the smoke, cars coming up to the smoke see the smoke and slow down but can't see what is in it. It's not practical to stop completely on the motorway so they proceed cautiously into the smoke, become instantly blind and crash into the obstruction within the smoke. Repeat and you have the accident that happened on the M5.

Common sense would suggest that any event adjacent to a major highway would have elements of risk associated with it, therefore if the council truly did sign off on it somebody was really off the ball.

 

[MaX_PoWah]

I am guessing negligence and nuisance would play a part..

But one of the factors of negligence and nuisance is foreseeability, if they had done this several years before and nothing had ever happened, and they had no reason to believe it would cause a problem on the road.. would it not be deemed too remote..

But then i am guessing this would be a public nuisance, i am guessing the rules are different

 

[Tefal]

odds are it will just be deemed unforeseeable and no one will be charged or anything.

 

[cainer]

But the rugby said they didn't have a bonfire....

a full on firework display creates loads of smoke in its on right, i dont know the scale of the display they had at the rugby club but if they had a big one then its possable it could have caused a problem