How should we punish reckless, dangerous behaviour?

[spindrift]

This is only the second incident of a cyclist killing a pedestrian on the pavement since 1999, compared with the 80 pedestrians who are killed each year by motorists on the pavement.

[mj.scuba]

This man deliberately got on his bike, and intended to peddle! Yet gets a suspended sentance for murdering somebody.

 

And it was wanton and furious cycling. He deliberately killed that person.

[spindrift]

The accused, who suffers from learning difficulties, said he was cycling fast at the time because he was “desperately emotional” after an argument with a family member.

 

The event has been widely covered by broadsheets such as The Guardian and the Times, as well as the tabloid papers Mirror, Daily Mail, Sun who referred to the cyclist as the “killer biker” and “killer cyclist”.

 

This is only the second incident of a cyclist killing a pedestrian on the pavement since 1999, compared with the 80 pedestrians who are killed each year by motorists.

[mj.scuba]

This is only the second incident of a cyclist killing a pedestrian on the pavement since 1999, compared with the 80 pedestrians who are killed each year by motorists on the pavement.

 

Your point being, other than that cars can kill too?

[spindrift]

Your point being, other than that cars can kill too?

 

Read the first post and see if you can decipher the point, if not, I can't help you.

 

Would you accept as an excuse from a cyclist hitting and killing a pedetrian in the road "I didn't see them!"?

[retep]

Are cyclists a bigger threat to pedestrians than motor vehicles?

 

The big difference of course is that motor vehicles tend to be a little bigger and travelling a little faster than the average cyclist. When you look at the relationship between deaths and serious injuries you see that for every ten serious injures caused by motor vehicles there is one death whereas for every 19 serious injuries caused by cyclists there is one death.

 

http://adrianfitch.wordpress.com/2009/02/03/are-cyclists-a-bigger-threat-to-pedestrians-than-motor-vehicles/

[mj.scuba]

Read the first post and see if you can decipher the point, if not, I can't help you.

 

Would you accept as an excuse from a cyclist hitting and killing a pedetrian in the road "I didn't see them!"?

 

No, it sounds careless.

[mj.scuba]

The accused, who suffers from learning difficulties, said he was cycling fast at the time because he was “desperately emotional” after an argument with a family member.

 

The event has been widely covered by broadsheets such as The Guardian and the Times, as well as the tabloid papers Mirror, Daily Mail, Sun who referred to the cyclist as the “killer biker” and “killer cyclist”.

 

This is only the second incident of a cyclist killing a pedestrian on the pavement since 1999, compared with the 80 pedestrians who are killed each year by motorists.

 

Are you saying he did not deliberately get on his bike and ride it? He knew what he was doing the moment he put his feet on the pedals.

[spindrift]

No, it sounds careless.

 

Then how come that exact excuse is accpted from drivers?

 

http://www.readingcyclingclub.com/node/373

 

Why we are here today: Anthony Maynard, killed at Bix, 2008.

 

We are members of Reading Cycling Club, gathered here this afternoon in a quiet protest or short vigil in memory of our fellow cyclist Anthony Maynard, who was killed by a van driver exactly a year ago on the A4130 north of Henley.

 

We make our protest at the Thames Valley offices of the Crown Prosecution Service, whose officers last year inappropriately, remissly, and to our minds unforgivably decided that the van driver who struck Anthony (and his companion) from behind would not face charges. We did not, and do not hold Anthony’s life so cheap.

 

Our protest is on behalf of all cyclists. Almost uniquely in Europe, motorists involved in fatal accidents do not, in the UK, even in the face of the prime evidence against them of a dead body, have to prove their innocence. Here in this country, the C.P.S. decides whether charges can successfully be brought against the motorist, and can decide to drop a case entirely. In this instance, the van driver’s excuse that he simply didn't see the cyclists was accepted by the C.P.S. as an adequate accounting for the death of a highly principled and well-loved citizen in the prime of his life.

 

In a time when the nation as a whole is encouraged to exercise, and use forms of transport other than the car, cyclists need to feel that they have the full and equal protection of the law when on the public roads, and not a law apparently interpreted (or simply set aside) to the maximum advantage of the driver, no matter how culpably careless. The C.P.S. was in dereliction of its duty last year. We fervently hope that it will adopt a different perspective. Allowing drivers to kill with complete impunity just will not do, and does not meet the nation’s needs and priorities.

 

We append a quotation from Christopher G. Thompson, ‘District Crown Prosecutor, Oxford Rural’, in a letter sent by him to one of the Reading CC committee who had written deploring this failure to prosecute (dated 16 March 2009): “the fact that no prosecution has followed in this case does not in any way mean or suggest that drivers may drive carelessly around cyclists or that cyclists will not be afforded the protection of the law where appropriate.”

 

In what must have been a considered letter, that phrasing about ‘affording’ cyclists “the protection of the law where appropriate” is chilling: NO, Mr Thompson, NO! The protection of the law. Full stop.

[mj.scuba]

All cases have to have enough evidence to convict, regardless of that being a careless driver or careless cyclist. That's how it works in this country.