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[i]The jury was told in an agreed statement that Mr Don had not been wearing a helmet and was not wearing any high visibility clothing. He was wearing a black jacket and blue jeans.
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It would be dependant for me on time of day/ prevailing light and weather conditions as to how much risk the deceased should have been attributed to have taken along with lighting/ reflectors on his bike. His choice of no helmet and clothing doesn't reduce the fact a professional driver did not see a cyclist on the road upon which he was driving.
Barristers earning their money I'm afraid!
Happened at 17:00 at the end of December. Whether he had lights on might be relevant. Having a helmet on when being hit by a coach perhaps a bit less so.
Definitely lights required on a major road at that time in December. But that should be enough. And I assume he had them, otherwise it would've been mentioned in the article.
It's my understanding that bright colours are more beneficial during the day. I wonder if the black jacket had any high vis reflectives? All irrelevant though, they're not a requirement and never should be.
Was the coach driver wearing high viz and a helmet?
It's about as relevant.
Not in Scotland they weren't!!! But actually it was an agreed statement which is about reducing the amount of time Solicitors/Advocates, the Court, Witnesses etc spend on matters which aren't in dispute. Just because something is agreed, doesn't mean it's relevant. The agreed statements are usually read at the start of a case.Barristers earning their money I'm afraid!
or it may simply be a matter that is not agreed and requires witness testimony. e.g. perhaps there were lights but the defence says they weren't on. You'd expect the fiscal to have agreed the presence of lights and reflectors if they were not disputed.Definitely lights required on a major road at that time in December. But that should be enough. And I assume he had them, otherwise it would've been mentioned in the article.
even if there were lights how good were they ? I see loads of bikes with a token rear light that is just about providing a pin-pricks worth of dull light.
I think the point here is a lot of emphasis is being put on 2 things for which there is no legal requirement.
We need to get away from this should have been enough mentality, yes you should be able to ride down the road without being hit by a vehicle, but continuing to do so until you're killed by a nob head in a bus/car/lorry whatever isn't going to change anything.
Stay safe out there people, regardless of whether you think you should have to.
Driver should have seen him/not hit him so 100% at fault. People cycle with no lights where I live but I manage to see them, horses wander around with no lights and I see them too (other don't!)
However, I have no problem is helping drivers see me by wearing very bright jerseys rather than the trend to be wearing all black. I know how crap a lot of drivers are and no point moaning how they should have seen me from my grave.
Hi-viz, bright clothing, lights - all worthy of discussion and relevant to visibility, whether legally required or not.
Helmet - utterly irrelevant and subtle victim blaming, shouldn't be mentioned at all
Just agreed facts
As others have said, complying with the legal requirements for lights and reflectors is the relevant part to any mitigation by the defence.
I guess these are the agreed facts and the prosecution cannot argue about the fact that the victim had dark clothes and no helmet. Fair enough, but if I was involved with prosecution I'd want a bunch of other stuff listed too, the driver's favourite colour, preferred type of music, choice of underwear for the day in question, what and when he had last eaten. Well if the defence is going to bring up superfluous crap we may aswell do it too. Plus my facts are actually relevant, maybe the driver despises dark colours, maybe a song the driver hated had just come on the radio and distracted him, bunched underwear - that's a distraction from driving, hadn't eaten recently hunger causes loss of concentration, just eaten a big meal causes sleepiness, or if he's eaten something gassy, again driver distractions.
Stop pointing out helmet use and dark clothes unless it's law, [s]hi viz[/s] clothing that contrasts with the current light conditions doesn't help when drivers don't look and I doubt a helmet is very effective against a coach ffs.
No one on here is excusing the driver. We are trying to explain/understand the legal process.
God forbid any driver should ever go to court for killing me, but I'd like to think that if it happened, public time and money would not be wasted arguing about basic provable facts, and I'd hope he'd get a fair trial where all the evidence is heard.
Before he got a proper fair sentence if found guilty.
Driver drives into something he failed to properly observe. Happens all the time shunting into cars, road furniture, etc. Unfortunately this time it was a cyclist 🙁
Victim blaming, is that not just part of the job for a defence team?
The reality is though that things that are not high-contrast or preferably lit well are not as 'noticable' as they could be - people make mistakes, peoples eyes get tired after a day at work, people drive with less than perfect vision, people get distracted by GPSes, phones, radio programs, pasengers, more and more people drive under the influence of drugs, people drive on medication, etc.
Facing these realities the smart thing to do is to light yourself up, even during the day.
Survival of the fitest, and all that.
Or you could just say that you should have been noticed, as your dying breath possibly.
Turnerguy no one is arguing against making yourself visible, its about how "the system" handles incidents afterwards and victim blaming seems increasingly common.
Drivers aren't supposed to drive into things on the road, quite a few of those things don't have lights or hi viz.
Turn it around, if a driver piles into a fallen tree or a deer is their dying breath going to be "but it should have had lights.... or hi viz..."