Colour blind car driver convicted for collision at Shiplake Crossing

[AntoniC]

A 59 year old colour blind car driver was today convicted of driving onto a level crossing and colliding with a FGW train after he mistook red flashing signals as amber signals.

He was fined £1500.00 with £775.00 court costs.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-spot-red-flashing-lights-level-crossing.html

Colour-blind driver's miracle escape as train crushes his car when he failed to spot red flashing lights at a level crossing

• Driver Phillip Koomen, 59, mistook red light for amber as he approached level crossing
• Peugeot car was pushed 30ft along track as train driver slammed on brakes
• Shaken driver was hauled from mangled wreckage and escaped with a broken arm
• No passengers were injured in collision, but crash caused £80,000 of damage
• Mr Koomen pleaded guilty to charge of dangerous driving

A colour-blind motorist failed to spot red flashing lights at a level crossing just moments before his car was pushed 30ft along a track by an oncoming train.

The Peugeot car belonging to 59-year-old furniture designer Philip Koomen was crushed and dragged along as the driver of the First Great Western train slammed on the brakes. He broke his arm in the drama.

Koomen said that he had not seen the warning lights as he drove up to the unmanned crossing, which had no barriers and which London Mayor Boris Johnson had highlighted as a safety concern as far back as 2006, when he was MP for the local area.

The shaken driver was hauled from the mangled wreckage after firefighters cut off the car’s roof, driver’s door and boot to allow rescuers to clamber inside.

He was lucky to escape the horror collision with just a fractured arm and none of the 20 passengers on board the train were harmed..... (more)

 

[transportphoto]

Sorry, but in my opinion he shouldn't be driving if you can't correctly identify traffic lights.

TP

 

[Nym]

Sorry, but not being able to identify traffic lights or flashing lights has sod all to do with being colour blind if you passed your driving test, you should be medically fit to drive, and even being completely black/white colour blind you are able to recognise traffic lights and signals.

So I really don't see the relevance of colour perception in the headline...

 

[MK Tom]

Well driving on British roads you should know that any flashing lights on a level crossing means ''don't go''. There is only one design of level crossing light in this country - when it flashes, you stop. When it doesn't flash, then you're good to go. Anyone who passed a driving test should really know that.

 

[Cliveblackpool]

I've known colour blind people with red and green - seen as different shades of brown, and they are often very clever at 'perceiving' the colour, and cover up their defective vision.
2 flashing crossing lights, amber below is pretty obvious.

 

[Johnuk123]

I take on board what has been said but not being able to actually see a red light cannot be an ideal situation.

 

[hairyhandedfool]

Extra extra, read all about it, Daily Mail in 'using largely irrelevant fact to drum up reaction and increase sales' shocker! :roll:

 

[Nym]

Extra extra, read all about it, Daily Mail in 'using largely irrelevant fact to drum up reaction and increase sales' shocker! :roll:

*wristflicks* Well I never...

But really, what does colour perception have to do with it? I fail to see how it's even relevant, unless the idiot used it as a defence, and if this is the case he should have his licence taken off him...

 

[John55]

The man was convicted of Dangerous Driving which is a serious offence.

The fact that the colour blindness was mentioned will be his defence trying to find any sympathy it could from the court to reduce the sentence/disqualification. This forum shouldn't get excited about such things which are routine courtroom strategies.

 

[Johnuk123]

When you see a traffic light you have 2 different ways of telling its state.

If you're colour blind you only have one.

How can being less able than other people be seen as satisfactory ?

 

[Nym]

How can being less able than other people be seen as satisfactory ?

Because there is still a distinction and there are much more dangerous drivers on the roads than someone who needs to have a double check of traffic lights sometimes, that in it'self is unlikely as distinction, as you said, is not a problem, just has less options.

Some people who have difficulty with colour perception are better drivers than many others on the road and satisfy all of the conditions to drive commercial vehicles up to 44 tonnes, drive military vehicles and have driven both for the MoD and for Commercial vehicle operators, completing over 200,000 accident free miles per year. Having also passed several additional standard and advanced driving tests...

So, I put to you, that this is satisfactory...

 

[tbtc]

there are much more dangerous drivers on the roads than someone who needs to have a double check of traffic lights sometimes

So that's okay then?

 

[Nym]

So that's okay then?

DVLA says so...

This one prat who's trying to use lack of colour perception as a defence against being an idiot shouldn't be tarring everyone else with colour perception difficulties with the same brush, most of these people have no problems distinguishing traffic lights.

It is simply sometimes necessary to approach with more caution as over distances of over 150m it can be hard to distinguish the location of the light at night.

Should we also bear in mind that those with problems perceiving colour usually have more sensitive night vision and can see better at night than those with good colour perception, so should we ban everyone who can see colours from driving during the night?

 

[90019]

How can being less able than other people be seen as satisfactory ?

Do you believe that disabled people who use hand controls shouldn't be on the road, then?

 

[richw]

I have a colour visual impairment. I know if at a level crossing, whatever the colour if it's flashing stop. At normal traffic lights if the top bulb is lit then that is stop, bottom light lit up means go. I've learnt to manage it by knowing the positions and not the colours of the lights.

 

[Stephen55a1960]

Sorry, but in my opinion he shouldn't be driving if you can't correctly identify traffic lights.

TP

Quite:roll:! No sympathy here. He's lucky the train wasn't going any faster -It would have been a very different outcome.

 

[andykn]

It is simply sometimes necessary to approach with more caution as over distances of over 150m it can be hard to distinguish the location of the light at night.

To help, many traffic lights have a reflective border so you can tell if the illuminated bulb is at the top or bottom of the display.

 

[Nym]

To help, many traffic lights have a reflective border so you can tell if the illuminated bulb is at the top or bottom of the display.

I know, hence the 150m part, that's about the outer range of most headlights on dim dip that aren't anti-social HID's with poor self levelling balances.

Within 150m one can distinguish this outline, outside of that kind of range, at night this is a lot harder, but one's reaction times on a road with lights, usually with a limit at or below 60/50mph is time enough to react to the lights when known, caution is usually taken in any case.

 

[jscho84233]

Thing is though, at a level crossing, if any lamp is illuminated, red or amber, flashing or not, you stop. Every driver must know that, surely? His colour blindness is completely irrelevant.

 

[Cherry_Picker]

Quite:roll:! No sympathy here. He's lucky the train wasn't going any faster -It would have been a very different outcome.

I dont sign that route, but as it is an unbarriered crossing on a single track branch line mere yards from a station at which every passenger train calls then I doubt the line speed over the crossing is any faster than 20 mph. If it were faster then barriers would be required, but going back to the nature of the line and proximity to the station I cant see any need for it to ever be faster.

This picture is included in the article. It doesnt actually state in the article whether it is the crossing in question, or taken on the day of the incident if it is the crossing but as there are multiple other photos in the article which do say they were taken at the scene and we know the crash happened at about 18:20 in the middle of November when it would be dark then I would assume it was. There is clearly a sign stating what the rules of the road are there. For all we know the guy just tried to beat the crossing. Do the lights flash when the train is at a stand in the station? He pleaded guilty in court to dangerous driving so he admitted responsibility for the crash. He genuinely may have been mistaken, but his colour blindness was not a factor in this as far as I am concerned.

 

[whhistle]

I've known colour blind people with red and green - seen as different shades of brown.

That is what the majority of colour blindness is, simply different shades appear to be different colours when judged by that person.
For instance I would say something is clearly green, yet a colourblind person may suggest it's more a brown colour.

However if you have colourblindness so severely that you can't tell red and amber, then you shouldn't be driving.

But then the fact the guy is colourblind may not be a factor, he may have just misread the sign. People do this all the time when driving.

 

[matchmaker]

Well driving on British roads you should know that any flashing lights on a level crossing means ''don't go''. There is only one design of level crossing light in this country - when it flashes, you stop. When it doesn't flash, then you're good to go. Anyone who passed a driving test should really know that.

Not quite - any light flashing or not means stop!

 

[Mr Spock]

However if you have colourblindness so severely that you can't tell red and amber, then you shouldn't be driving.
.

That should not make any difference as I understand that red and amber traffic lights both mean stop and only green is permission to go (and only then if the road is clear).

 

[carriageline]

Sorry, but if he saw the amber light, why the hell did he still try to go? Assuming it's on a nice straight road with a long chance to see it, surely he would of seen the "amber" light on for a while. And also, surely he would know that the light on top stays solid, the two at the bottom flash?

Fishy, real fishy!

 

[jopsuk]

I have a colour visual impairment. I know if at a level crossing, whatever the colour if it's flashing stop. At normal traffic lights if the top bulb is lit then that is stop, bottom light lit up means go. I've learnt to manage it by knowing the positions and not the colours of the lights.

Quite. Whilst (especially with modern LEDS) you could have multiple colours from one lamp, the positioning means as much as the colour- thus standard traffic lights always being vertical with red and green seperated by the amber. The railway/bridge/fire station/runway lights have a similar principal- plus the (single, central) amber is steady, whilst the reds flash.

 

[andykn]

That should not make any difference as I understand that red and amber traffic lights both mean stop and only green is permission to go (and only then if the road is clear).

These were level crossing lights, no green.

 

[ralphchadkirk]

That should not make any difference as I understand that red and amber traffic lights both mean stop and only green is permission to go (and only then if the road is clear).

Amber means stop if it is safe to do so.

 

[michael769]

Amber means stop if it is safe to do so.

Alas few drivers treat amber as having that meaning (even those who know better). I regularly encounter people facing prosecution for running a red light who would have avoided being in that predicament entirely had they not treated amber as meaning "quick get through before the lights change" which seems to be the prevalent behavior of motorists.

I would also observe that it is commonplace for drivers who cause collisions or who get caught in the act, to seek to justify their behavior by blaming anything (other drivers, disability, their car, the weather) rather than accept the true reason that is typically either a failure to pay adequate attention to what is going on outside of their car, or a failure to treat the job of driving the the seriousness that being in control of a 1 ton machine (and one that kills and maims more people than any other piece of machinery) should entail.

 

[Geezertronic]

Amber means stop if it is safe to do so.

I also assume it means Warning & give way to pedestrians in the case of a flashing amber for a pedestrian crossing whilst returning from Red to Green

 

[hairyhandedfool]

Amber means stop if it is safe to do so.

Actually it means "STOP, unless it is not safe to do so or you have crossed the stop line".