. But yes I agree there's seems to be a lot more "don't care about the consequences" or even "I know about but still don't care about the consequences". It's also the "entitlement", as you said, that seems common now - "I'm entitled to drive how I like, it's my car and I pay road-tax" etc etc."Unless he actually tried to fall asleep, rather than tried to stay awake when too tired* ,then it was an accident." - Nah
. That's being a bit too understanding and generous IMHO. He made many decisions leading up to the crash which were obviously going to render him too tired to be in control of a vehicle. He could have pulled over many times before he crashed. We come back to responsibility. Now if he'd been struck by lightning and swerved that'd be an accident in my book. If he skidded on a wet road - well he should've been driving more in accordance with the conditions. If we applied the same rules/checks/competencies on private car drivers that we do on lorry/plane/train/ship "drivers"... well..... or are we saying we should reduce those rules/checks/competencies right down to those that [don't] exist for 'motorists'?I know this "accident" thing is something Stu's interested in so one awaits the next comments
. I'm not saying SOME/MANY things aren't accidents, and I'm not saying people should necessarily be fined a zillion pounds for a "mistake", but it's too easy to absolve responsibility in many cases as well and that lack of responsibility needs to be acknowledged/"punished" somehow. If not, let's bin MOT's, pre-flight-checks, flywheel-guards etc and save ourselves a load of cash and wasted time.
