Gary Hart Crash

[Anonymous]

This is the bloke that's just been to court after having been the cause of a bad train crash.
Wot do peeps think of the following points:

1. Should he recieve a custodial sentence for his behaviour which was clearly criminal negligence which led to major loss of life?
2. If so should all peeps who fall asleep whilst driving receive custodial sentences if they are spotted doing it or have any kind of accident as a result?
3. Do events governed to a large extent by bad luck be taken into account and punishment
be made greater if these lead to serious loss of life?
4. Should the road/ rail authorities be held responsible and someone selected to go to jail for not taking greater steps to prevent road vehicles crashing onto a railway line?

Just a few extra points:
He'd been up all night on the internet and phone
He had had an incident where he had nearly crashed b4 he crashed onto the line.
He maintained throughout the case that he hadn't fallen asleep

[Anonymous]

I think its the motorways authoritys fault since they didnt provide ample barrier protection. whether he had "fell asleep" or blew a tyre their should of been enough protection to keep the vehicle on the road.
I also blame the train driver. these trains weigh thousands and thousands of tons. (30 ton a carraige??) a land rover is not going to be a problem for a train. The driver should of hit the land rover and gone through it. instead he rammed the anchors on which caused the track to buckle and flip the train of the rails. you cant just slam your brakes on, whether a train, car, boat. On a different point saw a artciulate lorry lock up his anchors the other day, all his tyres burst and it ate the road, came back after and they were tarmaccing it back up again. I thought my car makes some smoke when I lock up, you aint sin nothing yet.

[Anonymous]

it dosnt matter how "small" a landrover is in comparison to a train. At 120mph a bid will completely crumple the front of the train up, so the landy would have done a hell of a lot more damage, so the driver was quite right to put on the brakes.



"I'm a junky with a monkey"

[Anonymous]

@ 120 mph a bird ( i assume thats what you meant) would explode. @ 120 mph a person just explodes, not a pretty sight either. The body of the train yes would of crumpled but thats only a shell the frame of the train is unbelievably strong. They have to be strong to take the shunting. Im not saying he shouldnt of braked. just not locked up when it was obvious that he couldnt of stopped the train before the collision.

[Anonymous]

The driver of the train is responsible for the safety of the passengers on that train surely

[Anonymous]

I suppose the train driver had such a small amount of time to think and to react, that he just panicked, and slammed the anchors on full.....I've done it in my Nova in the past.....in such situations, you don't have time to think "right, lets apply the brakes gentle to avoid lock-up" you just go "shit...where's the brakes!"

I also think that the road and rail authorities aught to take a lot of the blame as mentioned above, because there was NO barrier at all at the part where he left the road.....the barrier stopped short, and if he'd been a bit further down the road before he lost it, he might have hit the barrier.

I do recon that he shouldn't have been driving though, and driving knowing that he was tired was stupid, but we've all done it right?
I've gone almost 50 hours without sleep and driven (exam and assignment time whilst in final year of uni :O), and knew I shouldn't have.....I tend to wake up when driving though, but it's so easy to fall asleep on the motorway.

I know he says he didn't fall asleep, but I want to know how he can possibly be 100% sure? It only takes a second of lost concentration to cause what happened.

Was he was just plain un-lucky.....if he hadn't been where he was at that time, he would have gone off into a field, and injured no one but him self.
I don't know....is it fare to place all the blame in him, or just say it was a tragic accident that was no ones fault?

If he was drink driving and the accident happened, I'd say lock him up and throw away the key....no doubt he was driving dangerously.
Since it seams it was purely caused by him being tired, I'd say to go a little easier on him, but still let it be known that he was being dangerous driving when he was so tired.
He still says he didn't fall asleep though, and talks about this sound he got from the Land Rover or the trailer, and that it "all broke loose"........I wonder if there was a mechanical failure with the vehicle or trailer?
I know investigations will have looked into this, but surely with the Land Rover being smashed in half, they'd never find any technical problem with it that might have caused the accident :-/
What if a steering component broke sending him out of control.....they might not find the evidence of it happening, since the front was smashed by the train!

That's a few of my views anyway :)

[Anonymous]

I think hes gonna kill himself as it stands now,its harsh to put that amount of guilt on him-there is the motorway authorities and the railways(GNER is it?) fault also,it just aint right to pin it smack down on him,he deserves a punishment,but so should the rest of them,I really do think he is gonna take his own life now

sideskirts soon

[Anonymous]

Well, i have fallen asleep at the wheel before going down the M18, i started to feel a little tired as i had been on the early shift at work but not very tired, just a little bit, the next thing i knew the car swerving woke me up and my girlfriend at the time had grabbed the wheel as we almost went under a lorry. Its easily done, but if he had fallen asleep he would know about it, cant just not notice you nod off. Fair enough he may be lieing to cover himself but why would he lie about it for all that time?
I do think the motorway authorities should take some of the blame as if they made sure no car or lorry could get off the road like that it wouldn't have happened, and if there were enough places to stop on motorways people could stop as soon as they felt tired.
I mean, you cant just have a kip in the hard shoulder can you, and some stretches of motorway dont have services for about 50 or 60 miles, what sort of help is that, almost an hours drive from where you first think, ohh i should have a rest.



The name is misleading - I am not wise, or wooden.