Double Jeopardy

[BritinBritain]

On my last operational station one of our chaps was involved in a road traffic accident, he thought he was on a dual carriageway when in fact he was on a single carriageway, he pulled out to overtake and hit another vehicle head on. I attended the scene with the O/ic and found that the police were already in attendance taking measurements and measuring skid marks. Our chap was in shock but unhurt apart from a few bruises, the other driver was taken away by ambulance but again not seriously hurt.

Not only did the RAF charge and fine our man and put him on on jankers, and even though the magistrate at the civilian court agreed with our chap that it as a simple mistake due to the nature of the road, he was fined quite heavily.

I always thought that it was unfair that he was nailed twice for the one offence.

 

[The Highway Man]

I was involved in a high speed milpolacc when I crashed my patrol car into a civilian vehicle on the wrong side of the road. I was attending a bomb call and had blue lights going. A car pulled straight out in front of me, I pulled out to avoid the car and hit another head on. Because of the nature of the RTC, it was dealt with at civilian court, I received a minimum fine and small amount of points, and because I'd been dealt with, all that happened was it went on my military record but received no further action from the army.

 

[BritinBritain]

The RAF were extremely strict regarding RTA's, speeding or other offences in RAF vehicles.

I was driving a RAF 39 seater bus with a load of erks and our CO to the cinema in Orchard Road Singapore to watch the Battle of Britain which had only just been released, as I pulled into the cinema I failed to notice a post sticking up as it was quite dark doing very minor damage to the bus.

To cut a long story short I was on a 252 and the officer taking the charge was the CO who was on the bus. He asked if I had anything to say, "I replied "Well you were there sir." He smiled and said "Charge dismissed. March him out Warrant."