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M25 Closed For 10 Hours? Blame Brunstrom
At about 2am today a tragic crash on the M25 southern section cost six people their lives. According to news reports the motorway will remain closed until ’at least midday’ for the Police investigation of the crash to take place.
The manual that Police use to investigate roads fatalities is the ‘ACPO Road Death Investigation Manual’ and Chief Constable Richard Brunstrom is responsible for it. It was written under his control during his tenure as chief of the ACPO road safety committee. Brunstrom based it on the murder investigation manual.
But Safe Speed says that this was a monumental blunder because the objectives of road crash investigation should be completely different.
For murder investigation the primary objectives are
- To identify the perpetrator
- To ensure that the evidence is adequate to obtain a conviction
- For road crash investigation the proper primary objectives should be:
- To understand the cause of the crash with a view to preventing similar crashes in the future
- To inform relevant authorities about the root cause or causes of the crash
- Issues about blame, responsibility and prosecution should be far further down the list.
In air, marine and industrial crash investigations the balances and objectives are perfectly correct. In road crash investigation the objectives are grossly distorted by Mr Brunstrom’s blunder.
Paul Smith, of http://www.safespeed.org.uk said: “Closing the M25 for 10 hours on a busy bank holiday wasn’t necessary and Chief Constable Richard Brunstrom is responsible. He literally wrote the book on road death investigation and he got it completely wrong. Police officers at the scene are gathering the wrong evidence with the wrong objectives.”
Proper investigation of road crashes would concentrate on determining the root causes, but that’s not what the Police are being tasked to do. Instead they are attempting to apportion blame and ensure that evidence is available to convict someone. This is not the best way to save lives on our roads. Proper investigation of root causes would lead to completely different actions and the prevention of crashes in the future - not punishment after the event.”
”Air, marine and industrial accident investigation has proper objectives and proper results. Why can’t we do that on the roads too? Getting it wrong costs lives and once again Richard Brunstrom is responsible.”
”If you have ever wondered why these ‘epic’ road closures are a modern phenomenon, there’s a very simple explanation. Brunstrom ‘wrote the book’ from the wrong perspective. Shockingly it does not attempt to reveal ‘root causes’ of crashes - instead it seeks to apportion blame.”
BBC story: http://tinyurl.com/3ajk8w
Road death investigation manual: http://tinyurl.com/d8w8l
Remove Brunstrom Petition: http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/RichardBrunstrom
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