stewartpratt wrote:......The legal process, by design and by implementation, continually legitimises driving which simply does not give cyclists, pedestrians, car passengers, other drivers, or even the driver themselves, a chance. People are dying through conscious acts that are avoidable, and the law says that is ok.
That's the problem. And that's what has to change. I don't massively care that Measures isn't facing punishment per se; I care that more people will be injured and killed.
Spot on! I've just comeback from a great ride,a great ride that is until a complete idiot in a Range Rover complete with fancy pants personal reg plates(always a bad sign IMO)who decided to overtake me on a blind bend on a railway bridge giving me less than 300mm(1ft) between his nearside and my right hand,I slapped the side of his car and he stopped wound down the window and said "I'm so sorry I didn't realise I was so close to you",to say I lost it would be an understatement. the point is:- a)why are such people allowed to drive something they can't control? b)why isn't the law doing something to stop it? c)what does it take to get things changed? IMO we live in a country where such behaviour as this incident and the incident that the thread is all about,are common place,because it's the norm.The norm needs changing the law needs changing. I wouldn't count on the CTC or any other cycling club/group/charity,etc,that I'm aware of,to attempt it on cyclists behalf,it therefore needs a new national group of all vulnerable road users to do it for ourselves. Can someone point me to such a group or does anyone wish to start such a group?
The only thing that surprised me there is he apologised. I expected to read that he got out of the car an assaulted you for touching his car.
The more you read about about this incident and similar ones like it,the more you realise how sick we are as a society we have become and how sick the judicial system is in this country. My family has suffered in similar circumstances and the total incompetence of the "system"* and immoral way such injustices are handled has lead me to have no confidence whatsoever in the justice system in this country,much less the police which are simply a joke. It is all simply a game to feather the nests of fat stupidly dressed lawyers and equally stupidly dressed judges to play,whilst people's lives lie in ruin before them. It's quite simply disgusting and abhorrent and makes me ashamed to be British.As I type this I feel physically sick to the stomach.
*Police,lawyers and whole judicial rabble.
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"All we are not stares back at what we are"
W H Auden
reohn2 - I echo your (most recent, see above) thoughts entirely, but -and this is no consolation whatsoever- I have lived in several other parts of the "developed world" and it is no better there. Singapore = knocked off deliberately twice, with witnesses and registration plates taken by witnesses: police did nothing (on one occasion they complained because I bled all over their counter). Knocked off 7 times in total in 5 years. USA (Houston)= endless near misses, once knocked off deliberately (8 of us) by pickup stopping suddenly and reversing into us. Plates taken, no independent witnesses, police did nothing but arrest a friend for calling them lazy and incompetent. I was once threatened with jail when I was stopped by police for riding on a road "I should not be" (which was not the case, and I was merely seeking to make that point). Germany = strict liability laws seem to be working, was knocked off last year, but by another cyclist. But Germans being Germans, if you do not use the (often inadequate) cycle paths they have no problem taking risks with you life by driving too close to make that point. Friend knocked off deliberately this year, and as he lay in the road the motorist got out and shouted at him for not riding on the (dreadful) cycle path next to the road. On this busy street other cyclists and motorists just passed by looking the other way.........
Happens all the time doesn't it. Out with the local club on Sunday going along a dual carraigeway, car came past laying on the horn then cut back infront of us and braked before accelerating off. What's wrong with people?
The jury shouldn't need to know anything about what the defendant does for a living or what their 'character' is. That should be reserved for sentencing.
Indeed, in fact human nature is very sensitive to making judgements about someones actions and words based not upon an objective analysis of the evidence but upon who is giving the message. Much of the time this can be useful, but often, as in this case, it can lead to strange outcomes.
The account from the parents was rather different than what was published in the papers. Even if the truth was somewhere in between the two, this seems to have been a miscarriage of justice.
“In some ways, it is easier to be a dissident, for then one is without responsibility.” ― Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
The jury shouldn't need to know anything about what the defendant does for a living or what their 'character' is. That should be reserved for sentencing.
Her defence seems to have been based on her assertion that she was driving safely despite overtaking, on a blind bend, in the face of oncoming traffic that she failed to see. So her credibility as a witness and her powers of judgement are rather essential to the defence. It worked too, as the jury took her word and cleared her despite those facts and her hitting and killing the cyclist.
kwackers wrote:The jury shouldn't need to know anything about what the defendant does for a living or what their 'character' is. That should be reserved for sentencing.
Her defence seems to have been based on her assertion that she was driving safely despite overtaking, on a blind bend, in the face of oncoming traffic that she failed to see. So her credibility as a witness and her powers of judgement are rather essential to the defence.
I don't see that her credibility comes into it. She "failed to see", doesn't matter how good a witness you are from that point on.
It's not like she's saying they parachuted in and someone else is saying they didn't. They were on the road, she should have seen them and didn't. At that point any credibility she has as a witness is destroyed.
Yes but she decided after seeing them that is was still safe to carry on with the overtake and it is possible to imagine such a situation. Now the subsequent collision and death would call such an assertion into doubt. So she had to prove her credibility as a competent witness. In the face of the facts against her that was a lot to achieve and her proven intelligence could be considered relevant.
Those of us who see a decent safety space as a requirement would convict her just for having the collision as a safety space would have prevented it. Unfortunately a safety space is not seen as a requirement, nowadays. So if she can convince them she would have got through if the cyclist hadnt fallen, she was free. She did, she was. A Jury would not have found the same words credible from the mouth of a teenage boy in a Saxo.
meic wrote:A Jury would not have found the same words credible from the mouth of a teenage boy in a Saxo.
That's the entire point of why what she was and her credibility should have been left out. I'd actually argue that a teenager in a Saxo would have been more likely to see the problem and more likely to respond faster than a middle aged woman.
