BS: What kind of person would do this?

Subject: BS: What kind of person would do this?
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 05 Dec 11 - 01:02 PM

Last night on way home from Lower Stoke Winter sing we came off the M25 onto the A12 near Brentwood Essex to be met by several police cars, swerving side to side across the 3 lanes very slowly in order to slow down and stop traffic. We followed the squad car directly in front until he stopped and we noticed that some way ahead the other 2 police cars had come to a halt just before over pass and officers got out and were scanning the road.
They got back in their cars and we proceeded slowly as before until the next over pass, actions repeated as above and at the next, util we got to Ingatestone exit where we were detoured off of the A12.

This might be the reason why.
Concrete attacks: A12 in Essex closed for search

Thinking back I am remembering an incident Charlottesville, VA. I saw a flash of silver falling about 150 yards ahead onto the 4 lane road at about 4.30 am on my way into work (shelf stocking at Roses department store). I was the only car on the road. Given the hour, obviously these people were just on a lark and tossed the trolley maybe just to hear the crash, maybe in hopes a car would strike it. If they meant to drop it onto a car, they would have waited until I was closer to the overpass.

The A12, is the main east to west road in Essex and heavily travelled except in the wee hours of the morning. Even then it can see some traffic as it is the corridor from Harwich (where container ships are off loaded onto lorries) to the M25 and all points beyond. These incidents on the A12 are clearly aimed at passing traffic.

Some very sick individuals out there.

Subject: RE: BS: What kind of person would do this?
From: GUEST,Wesley S
Date: 05 Dec 11 - 01:06 PM

What type of person? Selfish of course. And probably lacking in self esteem enough to think that this type of behavior gives them power over other people.

Subject: RE: BS: What kind of person would do this?
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 05 Dec 11 - 01:06 PM

evidently the trolls are now on the bridges instead of under them

Subject: RE: BS: What kind of person would do this?
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 05 Dec 11 - 01:08 PM

Fans of Jeremy Clarkson out on a 'prank' to maim and kill cyclists and bikers just for a laugh..???

Subject: RE: BS: What kind of person would do this?
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 05 Dec 11 - 01:09 PM

Am very happy that the police were out protecting us in such force. Can't have been fun for them to keep patrolling those bridges and directing traffic late on Sunday night.

Subject: RE: BS: What kind of person would do this?
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 05 Dec 11 - 01:11 PM

No bicycles on A12 and the blocks were dropped on cars.

Subject: RE: BS: What kind of person would do this?
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 05 Dec 11 - 01:24 PM

..then maybe targeting brands and models of cars their guru Clarkson has inspired them to hate.. ???



sorry.. despite my facetiousness,
there's always an underlying core of deadly serious raw dismay & sadness in my sense of humour...

Subject: RE: BS: What kind of person would do this?
From: GUEST,PeterC
Date: 05 Dec 11 - 01:25 PM

Latest incident seems to have been at the Fryerning Lane bridge on the Ingatestone bypass section.

The frightening thing is that the incidents have been along quite a length of the A12, too far apart for kids on foot or push bikes.

Subject: RE: BS: What kind of person would do this?
From: SINSULL
Date: 05 Dec 11 - 02:09 PM

This was done with a bowling ball several ears back in Brooklyn, NY. The ball went through the windshield missing the two passengers in the front seat but killing their toddler in the back. Very sad; very stupid. I don't know if they ever caught the idiots who did it.

Subject: RE: BS: What kind of person would do this?
From: gnu
Date: 05 Dec 11 - 02:09 PM

Liquored/drugged up kids.

Subject: RE: BS: What kind of person would do this?
From: Paul Burke
Date: 05 Dec 11 - 02:12 PM

Copycat attack in Chesterfield, Derbyshire today. Ball bearings this time apparently.

I wonder what's suddenly making them attack the roads, this sort of stuff is usually reserved for the railways.

Subject: RE: BS: What kind of person would do this?
From: gnu
Date: 05 Dec 11 - 02:53 PM

Time for them there cameras to also have remote controlled guns mounted on them. And, NO, I am not suggesting fatally wounding kids. Just shooting them in the legs with small calibre weapons. If, by chance, they bleed to death, well, that's the luck of the draw... kinda like what they are doing, innit?

Subject: RE: BS: What kind of person would do this?
From: Gurney
Date: 05 Dec 11 - 03:10 PM

Some kids did it to me on an English motorway many years ago. I stopped quickly and got what may have appeared to be a gun-case out of the car.
It was actually a fishing-rod case, but they didn't wait to find out.
They missed me, by the way.

A 'blackleg miner' was killed by a striker that way during the big 70s strike. They threw the book at him, I remember.

Subject: RE: BS: What kind of person would do this?
From: frogprince
Date: 05 Dec 11 - 04:36 PM

We had an instance a few years back in our area in which a concrete block dropped from an overpass went through a windshield. The driver was a young school teacher. She went through at least a couple of years of surgery, in the effort to rebuild a face she could live with. Final outcome: she got an infection after one surgery that was fatal.

Subject: RE: BS: What kind of person would do this?
From: Bobert
Date: 05 Dec 11 - 04:53 PM

What kind of people do these kinds of things??? Mad people... Stark raving mad...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: What kind of person would do this?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 05 Dec 11 - 05:26 PM

What kind of person? A person who is lost. And who is angry about life. People who are happy and loving don't throw stones.

It's similar to the case of someone who bullies other kids at school...only it's been taken to a far more dangerous level.

Subject: RE: BS: What kind of person would do this?
From: Rapparee
Date: 05 Dec 11 - 05:42 PM

The same sort who don't care WHO they hurt as long as THEY aren't the ones hurt. I hope, when they're caught, that the courts will NOT exercise leniency -- especially if someone is killed or hurt.

Subject: RE: BS: What kind of person would do this?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 05 Dec 11 - 06:22 PM

Funny how stories about attacks on cars (in which nobody has been seriously hurt) make the national news, while attacks by car drivers on pedestrians vanish after only making the local press for a day.

this happened a mile from me at the weekend

The kid is so badly smashed up that if he doesn't die he will spend the rest of his life wishing he had.

(I go past that spot several times every week. The driver had no excuse whatever, no matter what the child did - if you turn at a blind corner in a residential area, you slow down enough to stop instantly).

Subject: RE: BS: What kind of person would do this?
From: gnu
Date: 05 Dec 11 - 08:35 PM

Attacks on pedestrians by car drivers?... the kid ran out in front of the car according to your link. An accident. WTF are you on about?

Subject: RE: BS: What kind of person would do this?
From: kendall
Date: 05 Dec 11 - 08:38 PM

Jacqui and I had this happen in East London a few years ago. No way to get at the bastards.

Subject: RE: BS: What kind of person would do this?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 05 Dec 11 - 08:55 PM

Car drivers ALWAYS blame the victim and the law almost always lets them get away with it.

This is a street with tenement housing on both sides, and the killing was a few yards from a bus stop. The driver came uphill round a blind corner at homicidal speed.

The commonest category of road death in the UK (and probably all countries) is a working-class child mown down by a middle-class male driver. Who gets away with it.

Subject: RE: BS: What kind of person would do this?
From: Janie
Date: 05 Dec 11 - 09:42 PM

I don't know, VT. Although it has been a little while, we have had a number of similar incidents here in North Carolina - always teenagers on the occasions they get caught.

I think the sad answer is the kind of person who would do this belongs to a not-nearly rare enough subset of homo sapiens.

Subject: RE: BS: What kind of person would do this?
From: Bert
Date: 05 Dec 11 - 09:45 PM

...a not-nearly rare enough subset of homo sapiens....

Janie, you could also have said...

a not-nearly rare enough set of sub-homo sapiens.

Subject: RE: BS: What kind of person would do this?
From: Taconicus
Date: 05 Dec 11 - 10:30 PM

This sort of thing recently made the news in New York. It was a big a story here. CLICK HERE.

Subject: RE: BS: What kind of person would do this?
From: Manitas_at_home
Date: 06 Dec 11 - 01:25 AM

Jack where do you get all that from that news item. Do you think middle class drivers are targeting working class kids?

Subject: RE: BS: What kind of person would do this?
From: Silas
Date: 06 Dec 11 - 03:02 AM

Was rather wondering that m'self?

Subject: RE: BS: What kind of person would do this?
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 06 Dec 11 - 03:22 AM

I remember a spate of concrete being thrown from bridges in the 70s. At the time rightly so it was acknowledged that this was a despicable cowardly act of vandalism. There is no excuse for this and whoever is found doing something like this should be locked up for a very long time. The police now should do more and patrol all motorway bridges to prevent anything like this happens again.

Subject: RE: BS: What kind of person would do this?
From: Silas
Date: 06 Dec 11 - 03:49 AM

Patsy - have you any idea how many motorway bridges there are?

Subject: RE: BS: What kind of person would do this?
From: GUEST,Bluesman
Date: 06 Dec 11 - 05:06 AM

Bet they came from broken homes and their mothers took in washing and the odd milkman too. Never tasted steak until they were 20.

If they are caught they need not fear, social workers are always on hand to fight their case and blame society for failing the little bastards.

Subject: RE: BS: What kind of person would do this?
From: GUEST,I Don't Know
Date: 06 Dec 11 - 05:19 AM

Glad you were alright Virginia Tam. News reports say it is being treated as attempted murder. Doubt they will catch anyone, seems to have been well organised.

Subject: RE: BS: What kind of person would do this?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 06 Dec 11 - 05:30 AM

Indeed, very glad you were OK Virginia Tam.

Subject: RE: BS: What kind of person would do this?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 06 Dec 11 - 06:39 AM

Jack where do you get all that from that news item.

You didn't get to see that news item yourself, did you?

The kid was far more seriously injured than anybody has been in this series of concrete attacks on cars, and it was deemed not to be news. It never is.

A couple of years ago a bunch of kids went through our village in the middle of the night scratching cars and smashing their lights - that made the national British news, though there was no chance whatever of anybody being hurt at all. If somebody with a car is a victim it's like Jeremy Clarkson was running the news desk.


Do you think middle class drivers are targeting working class kids?

Yes. They know they can get away with killing them so they don't bother taking OBVIOUS precautions. They don't give a shit.

Subject: RE: BS: What kind of person would do this?
From: GUEST,Shining Wit
Date: 06 Dec 11 - 06:56 AM

The people who do this are killers, plain and simple. They do it in the full knowledge they could kill someone.

Subject: RE: BS: What kind of person would do this?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 06 Dec 11 - 07:02 AM

Essex police fear 30 incidents of rocks being thrown from A12 bridges

There's no reason to make any assumptions about age or the class of those responsible. They could be middle aged fat cats for all we know.

Subject: RE: BS: What kind of person would do this?
From: GUEST,John from Kemsing
Date: 06 Dec 11 - 07:14 AM

WHAT KIND OF PEOPLE WOULD DO THIS? They come from the same sad stable as those burglars, reported today in "The Daily Telegraph", who "cooked" a kitten to death in a micro-wave during the course of their criminal goings on.

Subject: RE: BS: What kind of person would do this?
From: GUEST,I Don't Know
Date: 06 Dec 11 - 07:20 AM

Just seen a £3000 reward has been offered for information, anyone likely to tell on friends. I still doubt it.

Subject: RE: BS: What kind of person would do this?
From: Manitas_at_home
Date: 06 Dec 11 - 07:45 AM

"You didn't get to see that news item yourself, did you?"

I followed your link. I was knocked off my bike the other week. The driver was a young Asian male. That must mean young Asian males are targeting middle age white cyclists by your logic.

Subject: RE: BS: What kind of person would do this?
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 06 Dec 11 - 08:59 AM

What kind of person would do this?

Subject: RE: BS: What kind of person would do this?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 06 Dec 11 - 10:16 AM

Whoa- some of you seem to be jumping off of those bridges to some pretty bizarre conclusions. Sourpuss Bluesman anticipating the malady of social workers freeing hooligans, someone else bringing microwave kitten - sheesh. The oddest thing about the first article was that they photographed the rock, commented it was probably from someone's garden - like a photo of a lost dog, wondering if the owner will recognize it and come forward?

There are sociopaths everywhere, and every so often communities go through spates of this stuff. "Kids" who do this kind of thing know they shouldn't be doing it, so age is no excuse. Probably 15 years ago now someone on the west side of my town killed and injured several people by dropping rocks from freeway over pass bridges. There probably was a copy-cat component to it. This is in contrast to freeway shooters who set up in a blind near a road and take out drivers at will. Then the activity that may have the entertainment value of seeing a destructive collision (concrete on glass) escalates from the targets being the cars to the targets being the drivers. Ohio had one of those a few years back.

I'm glad you got home safe, Virginia.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: What kind of person would do this?
From: catspaw49
Date: 06 Dec 11 - 12:03 PM

Yeah we did.........right here around Columbus too.   We had somebody shooting at cars all over town, I guess this type of sociopath eventually gets around to the Washington DC type of a few years ago. We live in a society filled with nutjobs and there ain't one helluva' lot we can do about preventing it.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: What kind of person would do this?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 06 Dec 11 - 12:13 PM

You didn't get to see that news item yourself, did you?
I followed your link.

Only because I provided it. The news media you normally follow didn't. They told you that a motorist destroying a child's life doesn't matter.

Subject: RE: BS: What kind of person would do this?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 06 Dec 11 - 12:28 PM

This is interesting reading:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16030644

A live feed of road accidents around London. Most of them pedestrians and cyclists assaulted by people with cars. Think any of those incidents are going to make the national news? Another injury much worse than anything inflicted by the guys with concrete blocks:

London Ambulance tweets: Staff are taking the boy involved in an RTC in Enfield straight to the major trauma centre in Tower Hamlets with head injury #crash24

Subject: RE: BS: What kind of person would do this?
From: Penny S.
Date: 06 Dec 11 - 12:31 PM

There was a case on, I think, the M23, in which a lorry driver was killed, I think almost instantly. I can't remember if the crash also caused injury. I remember appeals for information.

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: What kind of person would do this?
From: The Sandman
Date: 06 Dec 11 - 12:34 PM

jack the sailor, someone who is pissed off with having rocks thrown at their car.
I cant say I approve, however it will probably to be prove an effective deterrent.people who throw rocks at cars should be put n the stocks and have shit thrown at them

Subject: RE: BS: What kind of person would do this?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 06 Dec 11 - 12:43 PM

Jack ~ Sorry, but you are right out to lunch. You equate unfortunate motorists who have the misfortune to be involved in accidents, which NO motorist seeks or gets involved in deliberately, if only because of the effect it would have on his insurance, and the possibility of prosecution if the police think any dangerous or careless driving involved ~

even if, in your fevered imagination, as a bourgeois brute he wouldn't mind killing a prole brat or two ~~

with the deliberate attempts of definitely criminal and antisocial people to cause wanton damage to vehicles and injury to their occupants by purposely aiming missiles.

Idiotic!

~Michael~

Subject: RE: BS: What kind of person would do this?
From: Paul Burke
Date: 06 Dec 11 - 01:43 PM

Most "accidents" are caused by carelessness, stupidity, recklessness and overweening confidence, not misfortune. Driving recklessly, especially while ratrunning through residential areas, is quite as criminal as dropping a concrete block from a bridge. The only difference is that one criminal hopes to cause damage, and the other hopes he/ she will not cause damage (especially to their own vehicle), but takes no care to justify that hope.

But as I pointed out earlier, attacks of this nature on trains are a very frequent occurrence. it's only the underlying intrinsic safety of the railways that makes them survivable.

Subject: RE: BS: What kind of person would do this?
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 06 Dec 11 - 02:01 PM

I think the perpetrators are psychopaths, not sociopaths. They act without any care for their victims. Little Hawk's comment was a good one. These are what I used in my teaching days to call The Unloved. Strangers to love, attention, care and affection, abused and neglected, they have no concept of others' needs or suffering. They are indeed angry and extremely dangerous. I am not favouring any particular form of punishment or treatment (even if one could identify and catch them) But loved and cared-for humans do not do these things.

Subject: RE: BS: What kind of person would do this?
From: The Sandman
Date: 06 Dec 11 - 02:12 PM

I am not favouring any particular form of punishment or treatment (even if one could identify and catch them)
but i am put them in the stocks and throw sht at them. I am sure that this little idiot will not do it again after having a cross bolt in his belly

Subject: RE: BS: What kind of person would do this?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 06 Dec 11 - 02:14 PM

Never had a prang in all your years of driving, Paul? My, what a fortunate fellow!

Subject: RE: BS: What kind of person would do this?
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 06 Dec 11 - 02:19 PM

Yes, one could of course exterminate them with a death sentence. One could imprison them for a long time to protect the public. One could attempt to treat them in a psychiatric institution etc etc. But the question was "What kind of person would do this?" not, "What would you do with them if they were caught?" I maintain there are many of these people around, manifesting their sickness in different and equally dangerous ways.