NIP in a company vehicle Options

[Muggerbee]

hi guys, obviously not my area of expertise but here it is :

My company just received a NIP from the BIB for the following :

Dangerous driving, careless driving and failing to report in a vehicle i was driving, I was advised of the complaint from the drivers wife (not in the vehicle) to my company on the same day and forwarded the following statement to my employers :

At approx xx.xx on the morning of xxth february 2011 I was driving xx Vehicle xx xx xxx a 44 tonne 6 x 2 Tractor unit and triaxle trailer combination unladen.

I left the site at ( xxxxxxxx Street) turning right onto the Axx xxxxxxxxRoad, At the junction with xxxxx xxxx ( a 2 lane traffic light controlled junction to allow left turns into xxxxx xxxx) traffic conditions were medium to heavy, road conditions wet and visibility average for the time of day and year and overcast weather.

I proceeded straight along the Axx ( which reverts to a single carriageway immediately after this junction ,picture attached) keeping a good distance between the vehicle and the kerb due to a combination of an uphill right hand bend and the presence of pedestrians on the footpath whilst maintaining a speed at or about the posted limit easily due to the unladen nature of the tractor/trailer combination.

Approximately 500 metres further along the Axx there is a traffic light controlled 2 lane junction with xxxxxxxxx road, as I approached this junction the lights changed to green and I used the right hand lane to continue, as there were vehicles indicating to turn left into xxxxxxxxxx road. Immediately after the traffic lights there is a road marking instructing traffic in the outside lane to move left, I complied with this before the road width reduced.

At this point i became aware of a dark coloured Smart car attempting to overtake me in this hazardous position, I therefore reduced road speed in order to allow the driver to complete this dangerous manoeuvre before they further endangered themselves or oncoming traffic. However the driver swerved sharply in front of my vehicle causing me to brake. I gave a single short blast on my horn to warn the driver of my proximity and resumed normal driving, at a point further down the road the driver of the Smart car began weaving, put on the vehicles hazard lights and gesticulated in an aggressive manner for me to pull over. As per standard advice I locked the drivers door of my vehicle (passenger side already locked) and when the other vehicle pulled over I overtook in order to avoid the potential violent confrontation that the mannerisms suggested. The vehicle then followed me for several hundred metres before i lost sight of it at xxxxxxxxxx.

The assertion of the other party was that i wiped out the side of his smart car and forced him into oncoming traffic on an uphill right hand bend on a single carriageway .

Obviously, in my opinion, this muppet tried to pull off an overtake in a car with about as much power as a mouses fart and seriously mucked it up. My employer has now had to give the plod my details, so whats the next course of action ??

Cheers

This post has been edited by Muggerbee: Thu, 10 Mar 2011 - 16:08

[Advertisement]

[jobo]

are you the driver here, ? what if anything have your employer done with the statment,, it reads from that that the complaint involves an accident taking place, was there any sugggextion that contact with anything took place( whilst you were driving ) as clearly it seems the smart car was trying to draw you attention to something

This post has been edited by jobo: Thu, 10 Mar 2011 - 16:28

[Muggerbee]

The assertion is that i wiped out the smart car on an uphill right hand bend, then he overtook me at the next set of lights and politely requested me to stop and discuss :-), I would say that i would not even have felt said smart car whacking into a 16 ton unladen vehicle and what the **** was he doing trying to overtake on a single carriageway uphill bend ?? and who in their right mind pulls over when being aggressively gesticulated to ? generally, as a rule of thumb, to have an accident you have to hit something in it's rightful position .. or am i being thick ?? :-)

[jobo]

The assertion is that i wiped out the smart car on an uphill right hand bend, then he overtook me at the next set of lights and politely requested me to stop and discuss :-), I would say that i would not even have felt said smart car whacking into a 16 ton unladen vehicle

the question wasnt would you,,, but DID you any any way suspect a collision had taken place, either through feeling contact or noticing the crumpled smart car

This post has been edited by jobo: Thu, 10 Mar 2011 - 17:02

[Muggerbee]

@jobo

Nope, the first i was aware of the presence of said car was when it started behaving like kenneth noye. obviously at the alleged point of the incident, my attention would have been focussed on the immediate hazard of pedestrians on the footpath, not someone attempting an illegal manoeuvre.

in short, i'm quite confident of my driving at the time, just want to know how to proceed with this vexatious allegation

[jobo]

hmm, you avoiding answering, so il try from another point of view, the careless driving alligation is , in the absence of an independent wittness, largly down to your word against his and shgouldnt be that hard to see off, the failing to stop/report is your real problem, if you can convince the police/mags that you did not know an accident had taken place, then thats a defence, but you have the complication of the other driver trying to converse with you in a '' damaged'' car and if this could/should have triggered a concern an accident had taken place


you will get your own form and then you will proberbly be invited for interview,, if you attend,, then you can read out your account from the statement you have writen, perhaps with a few clarifications, i asked if your employer had forwarded the statement to the4 police ?

[Muggerbee]

ok, in points,

no my employer has not forwarded this to the police, the first official contact was the NIP

No, i know of no independent witness, as he obviously followed me down the road and therefore would not have had the opportunity to obtains such

re failing to stop, if for example a toddler on a trike bumped the back of your car as you were moving forward then that would be the effect of a smart car on a 44 tonne tanker so one would not be expected to notice it unless looking out for it

re conversing, gesticulating in an aggressive manner in a not obviously damaged car at road speeds does not imho signal to me " excuse me, we may have had a coming together, can we please exchange details" it says come and have a go if you think you're hard enough ..

in short, i felt nothing, saw nothing and the first inkling i had of any issue was when some **** carved me up then started acting like he wanted a fight, SOP in that situation is to lock the doors and leave it .

nothing evasive, i just expected you to be able to read the statement, like i said, i do parking around here, not wankers with an axe to grind trying to bankrupt me :-(

ta

This post has been edited by Muggerbee: Thu, 10 Mar 2011 - 18:30

[jobo]

your statment doesnt really cover that, and it needs to before you give it to the police

[Muggerbee]

it's a statement of fact, from the point of view that i wasn't aware of any accident, and if one happened it was somone hitting me from the rear during an overtaking move on an uphill bend ..

[jobo]

it was written for your employer and doesnt actually say you werent aware of an accident, though it may well imply that,
if you wish to use it for reading to the police, then you need to make very sure it clarifies all the questions they may want to ask you, before they actualy ask them, people can find themselves tripped and trapped in to all sorts of thing when interviewed with the tape running and thinking your way through any technical weakness in your story is not a bad thing

if you give the police evasive answers, they will be on to it in a shot

This post has been edited by jobo: Thu, 10 Mar 2011 - 18:49

[Muggerbee]

ok got ya , bear in mind this was written immediately after the initial complaint from joe public, so is a real time version of events without me drawing on any supposition gleaned from an actual accusation and statements from anyone else. so if i was an actual traffic plod reading it and comparing it with the accusation from the other party, i would surely see that the other party had seriously messed up and was trying to cover his arse :-)

[jobo]

thats why im suggesting you may need to clarify certain matters, in the light of the knowedge you now have

as ive told you, i believe the failure to stop/report is your biggest weakness and this will run even if they accept the accident was his fault not yours

[Muggerbee]

that was my thinking :-( however if i was unaware of any accident and the complainant was 100 percent to blame for any damage added to the fact he behaved like the classic road rager us truckers see everyday ???? and i've a good mind to sue his ass off for the aggro he's caused me :-)

This post has been edited by Muggerbee: Thu, 10 Mar 2011 - 19:11

[jobo]

that was my thinking :-( however if i was unaware of any accident and the complainant was 100 percent to blame for any damage ???? plus i've a good mind to sue his ass off for the aggro he's caused me :-)

there total seperate charges, one doesnnt prove or disprove the other, you would need to show it was reasonable that you were unaware, even taking into account his subsequent actions, im not saying you cant, ju8st that, that may well be the line of questioning, if you over do how much of a threat you thought he was to you, they will start asking you why you didnt report his actions to the police, if you didnt think he was a threat, why didnt you stop and see what he wanted

[Muggerbee]

simple answer, cos when you do 100 thousand miles a year in a truck you get that sort of incident every other week and you don't get involved .. just realised tho, the company only contacted me today to say they had the NIP and the incident was on the 11th feb ???

[peterguk]

just realised tho, the company only contacted me today to say they had the NIP and the incident was on the 11th feb ???

What matters is when the RK received it.... Leasing company? not how long it's been sat on your employer's desk...

This post has been edited by peterguk: Thu, 10 Mar 2011 - 19:30

[jobo]

just realised tho, the company only contacted me today to say they had the NIP and the incident was on the 11th feb ???

What matters is when the RK received it.... Leasing company? not how long it's been sat on your employer's desk...

accident, peter, it matters not when anyone recieved it

simple answer, cos when you do 100 thousand miles a year in a truck you get that sort of incident every other week

Devils advocate, so you gets lots of enraged driver claiming you cut them up, do you ?

nb you dont need to convince me, just think your way through it,

but i know from hard experiance that they will ask these leading questions

[Muggerbee]

see, parking and decrim is my forte :-( now i wish i lived in a country with a constitution lol :-) so, basically, sit tight, wait till the BIBs call up and then try to explain to them why a smart car should not really mess with the back end of a tanker ??? and why professional drivers don't stop for angry motorists when they've no apparent reason to expect to ???

@jobo

25 years without a point or endorsement, 1 minor bump in the last 20 years ( a bit of fence) exemplary driving record, holder of licences for 2/4 and lots of wheels so i'd say that I get a lot of drivers thinking they have right of way when i know full well it's mine, however, i've not hit any of them :-)

p.s.

is it possible to cut someone up on a single carriageway, when they're behind you and you're doing the speed limit ?? :-)

This post has been edited by Muggerbee: Thu, 10 Mar 2011 - 19:47

[jobo]

yep, thats just about the gist of it, get prepared and wait,, these are serious accusations and its only right the police give it a good investigation, unfortunetly that you

im not having a go mate, just doing your thinking for you, so your not caught unprepared

This post has been edited by jobo: Thu, 10 Mar 2011 - 19:46

[Muggerbee]

appreciated m8 .. like i said, not my area really, and never realised i could just pick up the phone to the filth and say that registration number 123 abc just hit me and sodded off and it could cause this much crap :-( x maybe i should park outside his house till he goes to work, let him go within 6 feet of my car then get on the phone ?? lol