Officers from Derbyshire Roads Policing Unit have shared a harrowing account of how two of their officers nearly lost their lives whilst responding to an emergency call.
The officers, a PC and a PS who had been on the unit only two days were responding to an emergency call in their unmarked with their blue lights and sirens activated.
As the highly-trained response and pursuit drivers overtook a lorry, the ‘drugged up’ driver of the lorry pulled out in front of their path, causing their vehicle to slide down the road for over 100 metres.
When the lorry driver pulled over, rather than rushing to help the officers, he instead phoned up his boss and asked him what he should do.
Talking about the incident, a spokesperson for the unit said:
‘It’s not often we will post photographs of our unmarked cars with the number plates on show, but unfortunately for us, this was our lovely Audi’s last blue light run back on 16th November last year. It was very nearly two of our officers last blue light run too when a drugged up lorry driver pulled out on us on the A38 near Mickleover.
‘Responding to a 999 call at about 9pm that night, one of our PCs and Sgts were happily making progress along the A38 Northbound. Conditions were perfect…save for habitual drug user Simon Storey, driving a lorry having smoked cannabis earlier in the day – which later in interview he admitted to smoking every day before driving.
‘As we commenced overtaking Mr Storey in his lorry, rather than checking his mirrors and noticing us lit up like a Christmas tree with the siren wailing, he pulled straight out as we went to pass and a collision was unavoidable. Our forensic collision investigators calculated we were in view in his mirrors for around 15 seconds from at least 557 metres away. That’s of no concern to drug drivers though, they have an agenda – themselves and no one else.
‘As we went sliding down the road on our side for over 100 metres, the interior of our car getting smaller and smaller, Mr Storey carried on, parked up out of view, called his boss and asked what to do. Coming back to help us out of the wreck you’d just caused might have been a good start Mr Storey. Luckily, some other decent drivers stopped and helped – including one driver who had our nearside wheel land on his bonnet.
‘Our driver was pulled out through the windscreen by brilliant members of the public suffering relatively minor visible injuries. The passenger, a Sergeant who had only been on RPU for two days had to be cut out by Derbyshire Fire and Rescue Service – his injuries were worse, suffering a broken elbow, broken ribs and muscle damage.
‘On 23rd March 2022 at Southern Derbyshire Magistrates Court, Simon Storey, 41 of Tees Crescent, Stanley, Durham was found guilty of driving whilst over the specified limit for a specified drug and driving without due care and attention. He was sentenced to 12 weeks imprisonment suspended for 12 months, a 12 month driving ban and a curfew of 7pm to 7am for 6 weeks, £85 victim surcharge and £128 costs. Needless to say, a civil claim for the written off car and injuries remains in progress.
‘There’s a choice to made – be a drug user OR a driver. The two do not mix.’
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As a habitual and regular drug user, Storey is clearly not a fit and proper person to hold any sort of driving licence and should have had it permanently revoked. Sadly, such a sanction does not exist and it’s introduction is long overdue.
I am also surprised that he was charged with due care rather than dangerous. To do that to a car by inattention, all the more so given it had strobes flashing at night which really catch the eye, caused by illegal drugs is downright dangerous. We need a much tougher judiciary, proper, meaningful minimum sentences and a CPS keen to prosecute. None currently exist and are also long overdue.
To give a convicted person a prison sentence which is not immediately custodial is letting the person off his crime. He wasn’t even fined and only given a 12 month ban. Why wasn’t he charged with causing crimimnal damage and assaulting Emergency Workers in the execution of their work?
Some idiot magistrates need to get their priorities right before dishing out lightweight sentences. Prison is the only punishment for causing this mayhem surely.