That SCUMMER who commited suicide on the railway track

[Lord Bracknell]

I'll be interested to hear what else this off duty policeman did in the seconds before the crash. How long did he have ? He saw the car on the tracks, and he used the phone to alert the rail authorities. But would he have had time to do something more immediate, ie haul the bloke out of the car and get it off the tracks ?

I dunno. I'm not criticising, as no-one knows all the facts yet and I'm not sure what I would have done in that situation. The "hero" would have reacted immediately and done something to get the car clear of the crossing...easy to say, quite another thing to attempt, risking your own life in the process.

Living about 50 yards from a half-barrier level crossing, where trains are travelling at about 70mph, I've naturally given some thought to this.

From time to time, the gates fail - ALWAYS in a down position. Unbelievably, when this happens, there are motorists who choose to zigzag through the gates, believing that they have good enough visibility to see for themselves whether it is "safe". If trains are travelling at their regular speed, it isn't safe, particularly in one direction.

If I'm aware of what's happening, I do two things. Firstly, I use the emergency phone to contact the signalbox about three miles away. That usually results in action that will slow trains down to about 10 mph, removing most of the danger.

The second thing is to confront any idiot motorists who can't be arsed to turn round and take an alternative route. That is a thankless task and invariably delivers me nothing but abuse. The worst recent case was a tractor driver towing a trailer piled high with straw, who squeezed through the closed gates with only inches to spare on either side.

Don't these people realise how stupid they are?

In the Berkshire case, with a vehicle stationary on the tracks and trains travelling at about 90 mph, I doubt if any action by an onlooker could have prevented a collision once the gates came down. My first priority would, however, have been to use the telephone, while shouting at the driver to get out of the vehicle. Most collisions between trains and light vehicles do not result in derailments. In this instance, the reports are that the train was not derailed by the collision, but by some sort of encounter with points further down the track.

But we shouldn't come to premature conclusions ahead of the very thorough investigation that this crash will have.

 

[Lush]

My first thought about this train crash was the ideas it might give to other people thinking about suicide missions...

 

[Starry]

Hmm?!..."Not only am I fed up with my own life, I'll end mine and take a few more with me for good measure."

I can assure you that if he was suicidal and that desperate, the last thing he would have been thinking is 'taking a few more with me for good measure'.

 

[Vicar!]

Where does the drivers family stand, if one of the victims family sued his estate?

One for the lawyers!

Vicar

 

[Wilts]

We are still to find out from his friends/colleagues/etc in Reading exactly what Mr Drysdale was about and whether it is a likely scenario. Until I hear an inquest saying that it was definitely suicide then I'll reserve judgement. As we have an eye-witness (and maybe more in due course), there may definitely be scope to find out whether it was suicide or not.

Friends managed to catch the 17:35 train to Newbury instead, thank god they didn't wait for the next one...

 

[ben andrews' girlfriend]

It's a very difficult subject to contemplate - like the others on here i have never felt like commiting suicide, but i think that the person that did on saturday would not have been thinking about the others - but is it selfish, or a cry for help?? i'm not sure. Unfortunately we'll never know what was the case of this person, but no way am i going to be angry about it, i just think its really sad that someone thinks their life is that terrible that they have to end it.

 

[caz99]

I've got to say if it was suicide, i do NOT have anger towards the guy who did it. If you are so desperate as to take your life in that way then you are obviously just really ill and I feel sorry for him.

Tragic all round.

If his grave does get desicrated then the people who do it are just not thinking. They would be destroying the grave (that his family will visit) of a man who was so ill he felt there was only one way out and as one last cry of help did it in this way (maybe hoping somone would get him and the car out of the way in time and get him some, obviously much needed, help).

He is someone's son, maybe someone's brother.
Talk about kicking them when they are down.

Don't get me wrong, the entire event is tragic and i know there were other people's family members who died on the train and I am sure people will come back on here and say 'what if your brother had been killed on the train, you'd hate the guy in the car then' but my point is what if your brother was the guy in the car. This man was NOT a fred west or ian huntley. He was probably just a desperate, ill man.


RIP i say.

this is the only decent post on this thread i cant believe what some people have written on here. i like probably every other single person on here have never contemplated suicide therefore i do not know what it is like to feel that desperate or lonely for whatever reason. his family will feel the full brunt of this whilst still trying to cope with the loss of someone they love. my dad was an alcoholic and died when i was 13 and my mum left me and my sister when i was 5. i was pretty messed up desperate child by 12. i did go through a period of depression a few years back and its not a very nice place to be.

this man obviously needed help and was crying out for help. like someone esle said the thought that he could kill others probably didnt enter his mind. they say that suicide is a selfish act because of the ones you leave behind. to call this man scum is pretty low i think. there are much worse people in the world. i am sure that where ever he is now he may very much regret involving and killing others. also from what i have read the train actually derailed after passing over track points not directly after striking the car.

 

[Faldo]

Even in death and desparation, selfish stupidity caused the deaths of innocent people.

I'm with Steve on this one.... I sympathise with the family, but the fact remains. These deaths were a direct consequence of the actions of this one idiot. Suicide or not!

 

[fatbadger]

I'm with the full harris on this. Selfishness implies some kind of rational thinking - those who commit suicide cannot be thinking straight. The poor guy, IF he did commit suicide (and we don't yet know this for sure), was very, very ill. Have a bit of humanity, people, for f***'s sake.

 

[Pavilionaire]

Surely what he did was manslaughter?

The incident has all the hallmarks of suicide, and suicide is always premeditated. If any of the 7 victims families sued his estate he'd probably escape on the grounds of diminished responsibility or something similar.

It is an incredibly selfish way to top yourself. I have no sympathy for him, other than for the families of the 7 victims whose loved ones died needlessly.

Unless, that is, he had a heart attack / epileptic fit / blacked out / changing a CD at the wheel, in which case it's a tragedy...

 

[fatbadger]

Unless, that is, he ... [was] changing a CD at the wheel, in which case it's a tragedy...

At which point I realised that your posting was a piss-take. Not up to Easy's standards, I'm afraid. Still made me chuckle, though.

 

[fatboy]

Is suicide still illegal in this country?

 

[Dick Knights Mumm]

Is suicide still illegal in this country?

the prisons are full of people who have successfully committed suicide.

 

[Easy 10]

Sorry, but I have difficulty feeling sympathy if this guy decided to commit suicide in this way. He obviously wouldn't have delibrately meant to have taken innocent lives along with his own. But if this this WAS suicide, the bottom line is that he was so wrapped up in his own personal woes, that did not consider for a second the lives of the other people he ended up killing.

If he was mentally capable of driving a car and stopping it in the middle of a level crossing, then you'd think that surely to God he would be capable of realising the carnage that would follow. If this simply did not occur to him though, I still think that what he did is unforgivable.

A drunk driver doesn't get behind the wheel with the intent of killing someone, but it doesn't make them any less culpable or responsible if it happens.

 

[fatboy]

the prisons are full of people who have successfully committed suicide.

It was a serious question.

It used to be illegal, punishable by death. Clearly we do not still have the death penalty though.


I was doing some reading into Dignitas, the Zurich company that trades in suicide (Website is in German.)

It is illegal in Switzerland to charge for assisting suicide but to get around this they charge a 16 Euro membership fee and accept donations.

Why on earth do people decide to jump in front of trains, park their cars on train lines etc when there are services like this available? You may argue this man wasn't thinking rationally, but he was clearly capable of researching when and where a 100mph train would be.

I would quite happily of given 10 Euros of my ever extending overdraft and paid for a one way ticket to Switzerland if it meant people didn't have to die like that in the train crash.

 

[caz99]

It was a serious question.

It used to be illegal, punishable by death. Clearly we do not still have the death penalty though.


I was doing some reading into Dignitas, the Zurich company that trades in suicide (Website is in German.)

It is illegal in Switzerland to charge for assisting suicide but to get around this they charge a 16 Euro membership fee and accept donations.

Why on earth do people decide to jump in front of trains, park their cars on train lines etc when there are services like this available? You may argue this man wasn't thinking rationally, but he was clearly capable of researching when and where a 100mph train would be.

I would quite happily of given 10 Euros of my ever extending overdraft and paid for a one way ticket to Switzerland if it meant people didn't have to die like that in the train crash.

is that a piss take of a post

when people are suicidal i dont think they manage to pick up a yellow pages and find the nearest clinic for gods sake. i dont thin he had to research very hard to find the nearest railway line did he

 

[magoo]

Did i hear that he was naked in the car? What's that all about?

 

[Wilts]

Just to make things worse for us all already over here in Berkshire...

http://www.royals.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8957

Leslie Charles Matthews, known as Charlie, was due to celebrate his 73rd birthday on 21st November 2004. He was on his way back to Wiltshire after watching Reading beat Stoke City at the Madejski Stadium. Charlie was a lifelong supporter of Reading FC. As a season ticket holder this was a journey he made for all home matches.

Charlie was born in Reading in 1931. His childhood homes were close to the town centre. He married Jean Wilson in 1953 and their family lived in Tilehurst and later, Spencers Wood, near Reading.

After leaving Reading Grammar School, Charlie worked for the Legal and General Assurance Company. He worked at branches in Reading and Farnham before moving to Cornwall to finish his career at the Truro branch.

Charlie and Jean retired to Warminster, in Wiltshire, in 1986, making it possible for him to resume active support for Reading FC.

Anyone who knew Charlie will remember his sense of humour and his friendly, sociable personality. At the time of the accident he was travelling to a family firework party and was awaited by Jean and the families of their two children, including his four grandchildren.

Charlie died on Sunday afternoon in the Royal Berkshire Hospital. Jean and his two children were at his side. The family want to thank the staff at the RBH, for the sensitive manner in which they cared for Charlie and gave support at this difficult time.

- We are hoping that a minute's silence will be granted for the Cardiff City game on Saturday to mark the lives of all killed in the nearby train crash, and for RFC fan Charlie. RIP.

 

[Meade's Ball]

I find this very difficult.
To feel so low that you want to take your own life is an awful sickness. To not care about anyone else's life in the process is unthinkable.
I've lingered in desperation at times and wanted each to be my last breath, but, if the reports are true, to hate the world that much verges on the unimaginable.

 

[fatbadger]

It was a serious question.

It used to be illegal, punishable by death. Clearly we do not still have the death penalty though.


I was doing some reading into Dignitas, the Zurich company that trades in suicide (Website is in German.)

It is illegal in Switzerland to charge for assisting suicide but to get around this they charge a 16 Euro membership fee and accept donations.

Why on earth do people decide to jump in front of trains, park their cars on train lines etc when there are services like this available? You may argue this man wasn't thinking rationally, but he was clearly capable of researching when and where a 100mph train would be.

I would quite happily of given 10 Euros of my ever extending overdraft and paid for a one way ticket to Switzerland if it meant people didn't have to die like that in the train crash.

What an idiotic posting. Dignitas do not 'trade in suicide', they aid those with terminal illnesses whose pain is so bad, or who feel that their dignity is so compromised, that they wish to die in peace at a time of their choosing. It is NOT a service for the depressed.