Lord Heseltine gets five points?

[661-Pete]

..and is fined £5000 after knocking down and seriously injuring a cyclist:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... agistrates
Is this a just penalty, bearing in mind that the politician showed considerable remorse for his action?
Or would a driving ban have been more appropriate?

[squeaker]

..and is fined £5000 after knocking down and seriously injuring a cyclist:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... agistrates

If he was driving with that blanket on the windscreen no wonder he didn't see the cyclist
Bearing in mind his age, I would have thought that a compulsory re-test should have been included in the sentencing package.

[mercalia]

..and is fined £5000 after knocking down and seriously injuring a cyclist:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... agistrates
Is this a just penalty, bearing in mind that the politician showed considerable remorse for his action?
Or would a driving ban have been more appropriate?

and does the cyclist get the £5000? should do

[PH]

Can't win with the Tories, Tebbit tells you to get on your bike, Heseltine knocks you off.

[mercalia]

Can't win with the Tories, Tebbit tells you to get on your bike, Heseltine knocks you off.

what do you expect from 2 faced tories?

[kwackers]

He had estimated the rider’s speed coming down the hill to have been nearly 30mph, but accepted in any case that he should have factored in the obstructed view when pulling out.

Wow. Nearly 30mph! Pure recklessness! That's what, half the speed limit*? How does he cope with motorcyclists?

(*Just guessing because it looks like most of the road is national speed limit)

[pwa]

It's a bit of a non-story for me. Heseltine made the kind of mistake that any of us could have made. A miscalculation. He accepts responsibility and regrets the injuries to the cyclist. He has made his apologies. Presumably his insurance providers will be dealing with a compensation claim. The law has punished him.

For me the punishment is adequate. It is for a moment of incompetent driving rather than deliberately law breaking, reckless driving. All drivers make mistakes. You, me, everyone. Even the best drivers make errors and regret them. That's what this looks like to me.

If we choose to look back to the dim and distant past, I'm sure Heseltine was once prosecuted for driving much too fast on a motorway. That was the sort of deliberate offence that I'd be less forgiving of.

[bikepacker]

It's a bit of a non-story for me. Heseltine made the kind of mistake that any of us could have made. A miscalculation. He accepts responsibility and regrets the injuries to the cyclist. He has made his apologies. Presumably his insurance providers will be dealing with a compensation claim. The law has punished him.

For me the punishment is adequate. It is for a moment of incompetent driving rather than deliberately law breaking, reckless driving. All drivers make mistakes. You, me, everyone. Even the best drivers make errors and regret them. That's what this looks like to me.

I fully agree with you, however you point of view will never get any support from the bigoted left wingers on this forum.

[kwackers]

I fully agree with you, however you point of view will never get any support from the bigoted left wingers on this forum.

Left wing / right wing - what's that got to do with the price of bread?
The standard 'right wing' view on crime is to string them high - so perhaps you meant "right wing"?

FWIW my only issue is why mention how fast the bike was going unless you were trying to wiggle out of some of the blame (plus it's a guess at best). On that point I'm far more concerned that perhaps along with helmets and hi-vis we'll now be penalised for travelling too fast despite being well within the speed limit...
(Oh - and I *always* make allowances for restricted view... )

[Barks]

While anyone can make a mistake, misjudgement is different from a lack of proper attention. The mere fact that Heseltine attempts to place some element of causation away from himself smacks of thoughtkessness rather than misjudgement. If overgrown verges obstructed his view he should have nudged out slowly until he could properly see - in him doing this the cyclist would have almost certainly have seen the long bonnet of a Jaguar and started to brake with control and would have had a good chance of being able to manouvre away from any potential collision. What we really need is the Cyclists testimony; that never seems to get reported and I suspect that the true cause of this accident is a driver who just pulls out into the road with a cursory look leaving the cyclist with little or no chance to take any form of evasive action. In my view that amounts to Dangerous driving and as such there is a high degree of probability (in my view I accept) that Haeseltine has in fact got off lightly.

[661-Pete]

I think the suggestion of a re-test is the most relevant. If I'm still around when I'm 83 (a few years to go yet!) and if I'm still driving, and if I cause a serious accident, I think I'd fully accept the need to have my ability to drive re-assessed. If only to reduce the risk to myself and others.

The fact that Heseltine is a retired politician, of whatever flavour, has nothing to do with it (maybe I shouldn't have used the word "politician" in my earlier post). But - seeing as he's hardly short of a penny or two - he could easily give up driving and pay others to ferry him around.

But if, on the other hand, he's found to be a perfectly competent driver who just had a dreadful lapse - well, let him drive on....

[Elizabethsdad]

I find it interesting that he pleaded to guilty to a charge of dangerous driving when I am sure I have read of other worse cases which were 'only' careless driving. I hope the rider is well recovered from their injuries.

[pwa]

While anyone can make a mistake, misjudgement is different from a lack of proper attention. The mere fact that Heseltine attempts to place some element of causation away from himself smacks of thoughtkessness rather than misjudgement. If overgrown verges obstructed his view he should have nudged out slowly until he could properly see - in him doing this the cyclist would have almost certainly have seen the long bonnet of a Jaguar and started to brake with control and would have had a good chance of being able to manouvre away from any potential collision. What we really need is the Cyclists testimony; that never seems to get reported and I suspect that the true cause of this accident is a driver who just pulls out into the road with a cursory look leaving the cyclist with little or no chance to take any form of evasive action. In my view that amounts to Dangerous driving and as such there is a high degree of probability (in my view I accept) that Haeseltine has in fact got off lightly.

As I expect you will agree, Dangerous Driving is a daft category of offence because any substandard driving is substandard because it creates danger. From what I can see, Heseltine's offence, whilst obviously dangerous in its effect, was a result of a small miscalculation rather than gross misconduct. He should have done better, and he seems to have acknowledged that.

Was the estimated 30mph of the cyclist too fast? No idea. Impossible to say.

Heseltine too old and decrepit to drive? Again, no idea.

[thirdcrank]

I'm not very well-informed about sentencing: apart from anything else I've never had to sentence anybody. It is a complicated subject which they keep changing. The matter of disqualification until a test has been passed has been raised. AFAIK, this was originally introduced to deal with people who had got their driving licence before tests were introduced. In my days as an occasional prosecutor, pre-CPS, there was an increasing number of crashes where an ageing driver was in this position and I think it ended a lot of older people's right to drive.

Here are the current guidelines which seem to suggest that His Lordship should have been disqualified until he had passed a test.

Where an offender is convicted of dangerous driving, the court must order disqualification until an extended driving test is passed.

https://www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/ex ... is-passed/

The sources for some of this bit seem vague. It quotes s 36 of the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988 which in turn quotes s 34 of the same Act but I can't see (at a quick glance) anything in either saying disqualification is obligatory for dangerous driving.
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/53/section/36
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/53/section/34

This seems to offer a clear summary, but again, it doesn't point to the actual bit of the law that says obligatory ban for dangerous driving.

http://www.inbrief.co.uk/motoring-law/d ... m-driving/

=========================================================
PS All the other media I've checked except The Grauniad say the charge was careless driving. I suppose the simplest explanation was always the most likely: Hold the front page: Guardian sloppy with accuracy story emerges.

[661-Pete]

IIRC, the definition of Dangerous Driving goes something like "falls far below what would be expected of a competent and careful driver", whereas the definition of Careless Driving* is "falls below the standard expected of a competent and careful driver" (my bold). Just one highly subjective word makes all the difference! No wonder the Press sometimes get it mixed up. And the difference in penalty is huge.

*more accurately, "Driving Without Due Care and Attention".