[Northern Monkey]

Some cows weigh as much as a car.It would be an interesting fight.Cow vs car but i think neither would come out of it very well.Airbag would save the driver but the car would be fecked.Imagine making that insurance claim 'I....I....er....I kinda crashed into a....a cow'

[Tom4784]

Sad situation but I understand why they did what they did.

[Northern Monkey]

Cows are big scary motherfeckers.Me and my 4 year old got blocked by a heard of cows and bulls.Fecking huge!The farmer had to come and drive us through the middle of them.Sticking their big heads through his jeep window.

[smudgie]

Poor dog.

The police may have had no choice, especially if they had already tried to catch it and it was a danger to other traffic.
Isn't it illegal to swerve and miss a dog when driving ( bit off topic maybe).
My main issue with this is why the chuff it is making the news channels when there is so much else to report.

[Kazanne]

Originally Posted by Cherie

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...by-police.html

I read about this earlier Cherie,it made me really sad when it was deemed the only way they could deal with it was to run it over and kill it,I really don't know how I feel now,no one wants an accident but what if it had not been a dog and something much bigger,would they have done the same I feel killing it a bit extreme.

[Cal.]

Dogs>Other Animals>People

andthatisthetruthofthematter

[Livia]

Major mistake and a PR nightmare for the police. As far as I can see there were no animal control officers, not even a police dog handler present. The dog was probably terrified and I'm sure an animal control officer would have had a better handle on what to do, especially considering the "solution" the two patrol officers took.

[joeysteele]

Creeps for me, they would surely have to stop any traffic,if there was very much anyway, to remove the dead Dog.
Shocking this story and heads would roll for me for sure.

[Kizzy]

Aw the poor thing but yes I agree it was the right thing to do, my daughter was involved in an accident that could have been really nasty if not for her quick reactions and those of 2 other drivers when some loon stopped dead in the middle of the fast lane of the M62 due to a deer.

[user104658]

I dunno. YouTube a couple of motorway smash videos and it's fairly obvious why they would play it safe. At those speeds, swerving to miss a dog could very easily be a fatal error for multiple people.

Hindsight is all very well and good, with more time to stop and plan perhaps they could have done it differently, but in the heat of the moment and with lives in very real danger, I think they acted quite sensibly and decisively. Sentiment aside... It simply isn't worth risking people's lives in that way to rescue a dog.

Flip it on its head: imagine these officers had continued to try to catch the dog, or had left or waited for colleagues to close the road, and in the mean time an car with a young family (or multiple cars) are involved in a fatal collision. People then (I hope!) would be saying that the officers should have removed the hazard as quickly as possible, by any means necessary.

[Cherry Christmas]

Originally Posted by Toy Soldier

I dunno. YouTube a couple of motorway smash videos and it's fairly obvious why they would play it safe. At those speeds, swerving to miss a dog could very easily be a fatal error for multiple people.

Hindsight is all very well and good, with more time to stop and plan perhaps they could have done it differently, but in the heat of the moment and with lives in very real danger, I think they acted quite sensibly and decisively. Sentiment aside... It simply isn't worth risking people's lives in that way to rescue a dog.

Flip it on its head: imagine these officers had continued to try to catch the dog, or had left or waited for colleagues to close the road, and in the mean time an car with a young family (or multiple cars) are involved in a fatal collision. People then (I hope!) would be saying that the officers should have removed the hazard as quickly as possible, by any means necessary.

It was 3am and why not stop the traffic?

[user104658]

Originally Posted by Cherie

It was 3am and why not stop the traffic?

3am doesn't mean there was no traffic, a lot of goods transport goes on overnight on motorways. And stopping traffic would have involved either leaving the dog unattended or waiting for other officers to arrive, who may have been nowhere nearby. Closing a motorway takes more than just a police officer standing in the middle with their hand up. For one, at the very least, they need to find a long straight stretch with good visibility in order for traffic to stop safely (you have to assume some vehicles travelling at 90+ mph, even with perfect reaction times stopping distance is huge). Even THEN, stopping traffic flow on an unlit motorway carries a risk. All it takes is ONE driver not paying attention, going too fast when the road is curving, and you've got a potential pile up.

[Cherry Christmas]

Originally Posted by Toy Soldier

3am doesn't mean there was no traffic, a lot of goods transport goes on overnight on motorways. And stopping traffic would have involved either leaving the dog unattended or waiting for other officers to arrive, who may have been nowhere nearby. Closing a motorway takes more than just a police officer standing in the middle with their hand up. For one, at the very least, they need to find a long straight stretch with good visibility in order for traffic to stop safely (you have to assume some vehicles travelling at 90+ mph, even with perfect reaction times stopping distance is huge). Even THEN, stopping traffic flow on an unlit motorway carries a risk. All it takes is ONE driver not paying attention, going too fast when the road is curving, and you've got a potential pile up.

It wasn't a motorway it was an A road in Wales

[Cherry Christmas]

And can you stop speaking to me like I'm a 5 year old

[user104658]

Originally Posted by Cherie

It wasn't a motorway it was an A road in Wales

It's a dual carriageway so closing it would involve exactly the same, and speeds are the same, so this isn't really an important distinction. The headline also describes it as a motorway.

[user104658]

Tl;Dr closing a motorway requires several emergency services vehicles which may not have been available nearby, and waiting for them with traffic swerving around could easily end in disaster.

[Livia]

Rolling roadblock.

[user104658]

Originally Posted by Livia

Rolling roadblock.

You would need multiple vehicles to block a dual carriage way in both directions, plus at least another 2 people to then catch the dog. How long is it reasonable to allow a serious hazard to continue while you try to set that up? Especially with underfunded, understaffed police?

Maybe they have a higher presence around your area. Where I am it took the police 45 minutes to respond to a call about a fight in the centre of town, involving bricks and bottles, and 5 men stamping on a young guys head. And that's not half way down a random road in wales... The police station is literally two streets away.

Like I said in an ideal world and with the benefit of hindsight, multiple options were possible. At that very moment with a clearly potentially fatal situation developing, I think acting quickly was justified.

Would people have this issue if it was a badger or a fox? No, its just because its a domesticated dog. People can't deal with it because they're sentimental about dogs. Which is fine, but I'd hope sentimentality doesn't come into play when emergency services are protecting human lives...

[Kazanne]

Originally Posted by Toy Soldier

You would need multiple vehicles to block a dual carriage way in both directions, plus at least another 2 people to then catch the dog. How long is it reasonable to allow a serious hazard to continue while you try to set that up? Especially with underfunded, understaffed police?

Maybe they have a higher presence around your area. Where I am it took the police 45 minutes to respond to a call about a fight in the centre of town, involving bricks and bottles, and 5 men stamping on a young guys head. And that's not half way down a random road in wales... The police station is literally two streets away.

Like I said in an ideal world and with the benefit of hindsight, multiple options were possible. At that very moment with a clearly potentially fatal situation developing, I think acting quickly was justified.

Would people have this issue if it was a badger or a fox? No, its just because its a domesticated dog. People can't deal with it because they're sentimental about dogs. Which is fine, but I'd hope sentimentality doesn't come into play when emergency services are protecting human lives...

Erm,excuse me,I would feel exactly the same had it been a badger/fox etc,all life is precious,I am not sold on the idea that deliberately running into it and killing it was their only option,I am sure drivers who knew the situation would happily have stopped and helped to catch it,poor animal was probably already terrified,afterall had it been some nutter or drunk person running in the road,would they have done the same to them ?

[Jamie89]

Originally Posted by Kazanne

Erm,excuse me,I would feel exactly the same had it been a badger/fox etc,all life is precious,I am not sold on the idea that deliberately running into it and killing it was their only option,I am sure drivers who knew the situation would happily have stopped and helped to catch it,poor animal was probably already terrified,afterall had it been some nutter or drunk person running in the road,would they have done the same to them ?

I don't really know the ins and outs of exactly what happened because there hasn't been a lot of detail, but at a guess, I'd agree with you that it may not have been their only option. It would be very unusual for only one option to be available. But I'd imagine that being in that situation, a quick decision would have to be made, they wouldn't necessarily have the same luxury as us of being able to sit back and fully analyse the situation and weigh up the pro's and con's of every possible solution. I don't think the decision would have been taken lightly (I'd hope not anyway) but their priority being human lives I can't critisise them. If a relative of mine had been seriously injured or killed as a result of traffic swerving out the way of the dog I'd wished that any action would have been taken to prevent it.

Originally Posted by Toy Soldier

Would you swerve at 70mph to avoid a fox? If you would, I seriously hope for the safety of all road users that you don't drive.

Some people would through instinct, the shock of seeing something in the road infront of you, a split second moment, it's highly likely that a lot of people (including generally good drivers) would do that.

[user104658]

Originally Posted by Jamie89

Some people would through instinct, the shock of seeing something in the road infront of you, a split second moment, it's highly likely that a lot of people (including generally good drivers) would do that.

True, most people's instinct is to get out of the way or slam on the brakes... But then, that's how pile ups happen, and they do happen semi-regularly.

[Kizzy]

How would a rolling roadblock stop a dog?

[bots]

i know that area of the road very well. Its not like a standard motorway, because there is not the room and distance around a 3 lane motorway plus hard shoulder. Its 2 lanes directly accessible from the side of the road, so a dog jumping on the road has an immediate effect on traffic. Still not happy with the principle particularly of killing anything that happens onto the road, but I can understand the dangers a roaming dog could present to traffic.

[Amy Jade]

I live by here and I'm not making accusations at all but the police officer who claims to have been bit by the dog refused to show the alleged bite mark

[Ammi]

...just to say Cherie, there is going to be an internal enquiry into this, I'm not sure whether it'll achieve much as there were only those police officers there...seeing the pic of the road though, it is the main running through dual carriageway so quite a busy road and I would have thought has large HGV traffic most times of day and night...here's the link from the Telegraph..

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...-officers.html