{"id":8271,"date":"2023-02-08T23:09:04","date_gmt":"2023-02-08T23:09:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/?p=8271"},"modified":"2023-03-04T13:12:59","modified_gmt":"2023-03-04T13:12:59","slug":"misc-b1101-crash-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/?p=8271","title":{"rendered":"MiSC: B1101 Crash Update – First Fatality"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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I spoke to Mark Raftery, pictured, at the scene. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A few days ago I was driving on the B1101, and I passed the site of the awful crash I witnessed on Dec\u2019 8th, \u201822. I noticed a floral tribute on the side of the road where the crash occurred. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Rather tragic and depressing.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A bit of \u2018Googling\u2019 and I found this<\/a>, which reveals that the driver of the dark grey VW Golf has died, about three weeks after the actual collision (Dec\u2019 28th). The man\u2019s name, Mark Raftery, of Elm, Wisbech. Various articles online give his age as either 48 or 49. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I spoke to all three of the victims at the scene. Mark\u2019s cries of pain and anguish were the most harrowing thing about the experience. He even said \u2018I\u2019m gonna die\u2019. Which, it now turns out, was prophetic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apparently a silver Audi had sped past a van that was heading towards Wisbech, and Mr Raftery attempted to do the same, only to collide head on with a lady who, although she has serious – possibly life changing – injuries has said (via a local Facebook page) that she\u2019s ok. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What was the role of the silver Audi in this appalling crash, and Raftery\u2019s subsequent death? From what little I saw and heard – I only saw the impact itself from a distance; more detail came from the driver of the van, who was so nearly caught up in the collision – it seems that it was Mr Raftery\u2019s overtaking manoeuvre that caused the crash. Was he racing or chasing the mysterious silver Audi?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Raftery\u2019s passenger (30, but unnamed) has also been left with serious \u2018life changing\u2019 injuries. And what about the gaffer-taped number plates on the car Raftery was driving? That was weird\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A little bit of online digging revealed this<\/a>. It seems Mark Raftery has previous for dangerous driving, causing the death of his brother Kevin, in 2008. As a result of which, in 2010, Mark was sentenced to five years in prison. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It must be awful for all involved. Perhaps especially for the Raftery family, who have now lost two brothers. Hopefully all who know about this tragedy will learn to take care whilst driving. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some time later<\/strong>\u2026 Whilst not wishing to speak ill of the dead, as the saying goes, during my ongoing searches for more info\u2019 on this accident online, I first discovered that Mark had killed his brother in the aforementioned 2008 crash, and then read this<\/a>, which includes the following:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018The court heard that Raftery had 19 previous convictions for 41 offences. At the time of the crash he was driving at around 90mph whilst around three times over the drink drive limit.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026 sheeit! I just hope the other two victims of this event survive and are ok. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few days ago I was driving on the B1101, and I passed the site of the awful crash I witnessed on Dec\u2019 8th, \u201822. I noticed a floral tribute on the side of the road where the crash occurred. A bit of \u2018Googling\u2019 and I found this, which reveals that the driver of the … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “MiSC: B1101 Crash Update – First Fatality”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[85,73,148,210,146,81,77,22,113,86,125,111],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paGwUa-29p","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8271"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8271"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8271\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8396,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8271\/revisions\/8396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}