Another lenient sentence for killing a cyclist 😪

What will it take to change the script here; time after time, the cycling community are treated as lower class beings.

Careless driving sounds like reversing in to a wall or knocking over a bollard. Regardless of how remorseful he is 200 hours community service and a two year ban is nothing. I normally avoid these threads due to having a very bias view.

My older brother was knocked down and killed whilst crossing a road in his thirties. Two young kids, now young adults, still carry the consequences to this day, losing their father like that. Getting the equivalent of a shrug from the legal proceedings made it hard to get closure for us all.

200 hrs community service is in lieu of a custodial sentence in England. There are few details of the case and it might not seem much, but it’s more than you might realise and the maximum non-custodial sentence. Failure to complete the sentence means a custodial sentence will follow.

The woman who almost killed me and did not stop at the scene, hid her car, denied all responsibility until the court case, received the same sentence. She showed no remorse until told by her solicitor that she might be going to prison (she’d packed for it at sentencing).

The driver in this case appears to have acted with greater probity than in my case, and made a mistake for which he has been punished. We punish for the offence not the consequences of the offence (by and large, but not always).

Careless driving sounds like reversing in to a wall or knocking over a bollard.

That is always the problem in these cases. Dangerous driving suggests something more deliberate.

Is not really thinking about it and giving a cyclist enough room careless or dangerous? Whenever I have 'waved' drivers down for what I consider dangerous passes, i.e. just before a narrow blind corner, their responses suggest there were just not thinking about it and driving carelessly rather than deliberately driving dangerously - a fine line.
I would suggest it is dangerous driving to overtake on a blind bend without knowing if a car/horse/cyclist etc,. it coming the other way as it is a deliberate move but many don't seem to see it as I do. Sometimes I pretend I am going right and put my right arm out and go to centre of road and sometimes the driver still overtakes - is that now dangerous driving?

TiRed makes a lot of sense.

I've a good friend who was flattened off his bike one night, is now unable to work due to ongoing head injury, back injury and acceleration of his (early) Parkinson's. The driver stayed for a few minutes and then left as she thought he was 'acting up'. She had just pulled out a junction quickly before traffic, not realising my friend was stationary on the line in front of her on his bike.

The police thought that there was no charge to answer and did not take any action.

The driver denied hitting him for months. Her legal team is fighting the claim, 2 and a bit years on, as they think the multiple medical professionals now helping him are excessive and suggest he could work (he used to teach high access and rigging at height stuff). They've argued that no luminous jacket and no helmet meant he was responsible. It's got to the stage where the judge is now starting to threaten the defense team with consequences unless they speed up and settle things.

So I get that we prosecute on the responsibility and actions taken. But I also think the system is utterly screwed, and my friend is facing the last decade of his working life, while fighting a compensation claim and saying the police are a waste of time.

I love it when by overtaking me rather than waiting a few seconds they put themselves in the path of an emergency vehicle running flashing blue lights.

So I get that we prosecute on the responsibility and actions taken. But I also think the system is utterly screwed, and my friend is facing the last decade of his working life, while fighting a compensation claim and saying the police are a waste of time.

That sounds awful. If the Police had taken action the insurers would have less to stall over - though I can see how assessing lost income for someone with early Parkinsons would be tricky.

TiRed speaks a lot of sense, and unless you’ve read the actual court papers you don'thave all the facts. The legal system focuses on actions and intent. Sneezing and hitting someone is a vastly different case to texting and hitting someone, even if the consequences are the same.

Any accident where you hit another vehicle/person is careless, and it probably should be the default position for one or both parties to be charged after an accident. Its the fear of being caught that is the deterrent, not the punishment.

Moab - a longer sentence for death by offences won’t help your friend who survived.  A longer sentence for serious injury by offences won’t help your friend if the police don’t or won’t prosecute.  In fact, for cases like your friend, the possibility of more serious sentences may discourage people from admitting guilt and therefore make civil cases drag on for longer (often resolution of the civil case depends on getting the criminal case concluded first).

ultimately “I didn’t look properly” is always going to be a risk.  I don’t know how a longer sentence would make people look properly - because I don’t believe most people would risk damage to their car even if there was no penalty, and they appreciated what they haven’t done.

Hiya,

Judging by some drivers in Portishead it is a competition on how close that you can drive past.
It honestly seems to be getting worse, here. Definitely more aggressive attitudes by drivers towards cyclists. Personally I think unless the punishments get more in keeping with the crime people will continue to use their vehicles as a vent for their own frustrations.

JeZ

Fwiw, I've had two friends separately mention this week how good the Police have been dealing with videos submitted to the report a driver portal, both Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire.

A couple of driver awareness courses and lots of advisory letters been sent.

Nowhere near as effective as officers on the roads pulling people over, but resources, as ever.

My step cousin has secured over a hundred actions from the police for video evidence of poor driving. They do take it seriously and good evidence makes the job easy.

I didn’t say, but in my case I didn’t want the driver to go to prison. I was satisfied with the 200 hour’s community service. Her five year old didn’t need the punishment of incarceration

I love it when by overtaking me rather than waiting a few seconds they put themselves in the path of an emergency vehicle running flashing blue lights.

Missed this earlier, but I've also had it happen.

Also impressive when they go for the overtake and are confronted by a funeral cortege.

@MoreCashThanDash I've often wondered if anyone here actually seen a proper head on collision in these circumstances, you get terrible overtakes like this all the time and I've seen quite a few close calls where there has been traffic coming the other way, but the fact I've never seen an actual collision and people keep doing it does make me wonder how risky it actually is? Maybe their risk assessment is actually better than it looks. And although it looks stupidly dangerous, the chances of an actual accident are really incredibly low. Obviously not wanting to get into the whole risk reward bit of gaining 2 seconds in exchange for a 1 in a million chance you might die bit, as we know people are terrible at those kind of calls....

Can anyone on here honestly say they have never made a mistake whilst driving? I certainly have.

I'm not justifying it, I'm saying there's more to crime and punishment than simply locking people up.

I’ve often wondered if anyone here actually seen a proper head on collision in these circumstances,

Not an actual collision, but I was overtaken by a car a few months ago as I was heading around a sharp l/h bend with cars parked on the right. Predictably, a car came towards us around the bend and the overtaking car had to do an emergency stop in front of me, making me slam my brakes on, and the oncoming car had to slam on as well. I regularly get overtaken by drivers on tis corner, despite the fact that 100m after it there is a mini-roundabout and traffic lights so they gain absolutely nothing by doing it.

The problem with the lenient sentence in the OP is that the details of that particular case are unknown, well certainly unknown to me.

There appears to be no information concerning how the collision occured, did the cyclist violently swerve to miss a pothole? Did they jump red lights? Did they undertake a van clearly indicating left? Did the van driver actually take evasive action even if it wasn't sufficient?

In all those cases the van driver could have been found guilty of careless driving because they have a responsibility to react quickly and avoid collisions wherever possible, whatever the careless behaviour of other road users or pedestrians.

I am not saying that the cyclist who tragically died contributed in any way at all with the collision, what I am saying is that I have no idea what the circumstances were behind this particular collision, other than apparently the driver wasn't speeding and has expressed remorse.

Obviously the person who passed sentence will have known all the available facts, but I can't have an opinion on whether the sentence was appropriate.

Can anyone on here honestly say they have never made a mistake whilst driving? I certainly have.

A mistake so severe that somebody ended up in hospital, or dead? I have a feeling that most drivers have never done that, never mind driving into a cyclist or pedestrian.

I agree with your next statement though.

A mistake so severe that somebody ended up in hospital, or dead? I have a feeling that most drivers have never done that, never mind driving into a cyclist or pedestrian.

I presume you are correct very few people here will have caused a collision in which a person was injured.  However, I'm pretty sure that a lot of people here (in fact probably every one of us who drives regularly) has made a stupid mistake so severe that it COULD have injured someone.  The reality is that 99% of the time for our mistakes another driver is able to compensate or there was nobody there to hit.  I'm more worried about the drivers who don't think they make mistakes than the ones that do!