Rogering the News

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Sutcliffe (AKA The Yorkshire Ripper) is seeking to have a limit placed on his life sentence for murdering at least 13 women so that he can get back into society. And of course at the Tax Payers expense and supported by Blair’s Human Rights legislation.

There’s even a school of thought that Sutcliffe’s conviction for murder may be wrong, and that he should have been detained on the basis that he was mentally ill at the time of his conviction so reducing the charges to manslaughter at most if at all.

Sutcliffe, an HGV driver, targeted prostitutes in his campaign against a thing he found offensive and subsequently claimed he was on a mission from God. But in my opinion probably only when he saw such a claim as a ticket to ‘soft time’ in Broadmoor ‘hospital’ for the criminally insane rather than in jail where he was subject to summery justice from decent honest criminals.

When I read the news item it reminded me of the fairly recent case of another serial killer from Ipswich who had a downer on ‘Brass’. Another HGV driver though at the time of his (known) killing spree employed as a fork lift truck driver. Investigations into other killings he may have been involved in continue —.

And not just the UK, In the US a truck driver name of Mendenhall, was arrested in Nashville at the same interstate truck stop where 25-year-old Sara Hulbert had been found fatally shot and then admitted to murdering an additional five people.

Closer to home HGV driver Volker Eckert was arrested in Cologne 2006 after an alleged six-year killing spree across the continent. This time the number of victims is at least five — and counting.

And those are just some of many where job and ‘oddness’ go hand in hand.

Remember Jeremy Clarkson with his infamous quip about HGV driving ‘You’ve got to change gear, change gear, change gear, check mirror… murder a prostitute. Change gear, change gear. That’s a lot of effort in a day.’ ?

Maybe he inadvertently identified a worrying connectivity between HGV driving and mental instability, because even a casual tranche of the ‘net comes up with what looks like a cluster of statistics linking HGV driving with odd behaviour to say the least.

Could it be the hours of constant vibration from the road and engine being conducted through the seat to the brain thus causing brain damage? Could it be the sense of superiority that so many seem to develop maybe from driving a large vehicle amongst much smaller ones? That is possible even though in reality driving an HGV requires little more than being semi skilled rather than skilled or professional in the real meaning of the word. Or that stress and fatigue play a role?

Whatever,

Whether some people seem to think that because they are semi skilled sufficiently to drive a wagon, the size of the thing relative to other road users makes up for their deficiencies in other dimensions, and behave accordingly in the same way a ‘yob’ thinks his Pit Bull makes him a man.

Or the possibility that hours ‘in the saddle’ does cause brain damage as a result of RSI conducted through the spine, there does seem to be a correlation between HGV driving and abnormal behaviour and human relationships.

From bullying on and off the road to becoming pure unadulterated psychopaths there does seem to be more than a coincidental association between the job and the people who do it. Not an absolute one to one correspondence perhaps, but certainly indications of a correlation.

Some research has been conducted including that by the University of Queensland in Australia which shows a correlation between HGV driving and mental health (should that be ill health) but the findings are inconclusive as to the precise cause of such ill health and the form it takes, just that there is a correlation.

Sutcliffe? If he IS ‘cured’ then send him back to ‘proper’ prison and throw away the key say I.

Rog

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010 at 11:15 am and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.