56% of drivers convicted of killing cyclists avoid prison

[Mave]

Speedy11 said:

If you were on a single track road was less than 3.4 meters wide you would have to.

No you wouldn't. You could not pass.

[SK425]

will_ said:

Indeed - but within that range (of action, ignoring consequence) how would you, for example, punish a missed mirror check? A slap on the wrist of a few years in prison?

Difficult question. Punishing a missed mirror check with a few years in prison feels counter-intuitive and punishing a minor error that ends up killing someone with a slap on the wrist feels counter-intuitive. But neither feels to me as counter-intuitive as giving two people who make the same error very different punishments. At least when the punishment is based on the actions and intent rather than the outcome it is possible to reason against the counter-intuitive nature of the conclusion you reach. Doing it the other way, the conclusion is no less counter-intuitive but there is not the dispassionate reasoning to offset that.

will_ said:

It's not about you being a "worse person" - it's about (in part) the penalty reflecting the consequence of what you did. We could be equally good people, who make the same mistake, the consequences of each are hugely different. The penalties should reflect that.

Why should they reflect that? To what end? Why is punishment not about how bad a person we each are?

will_ said:

Outcomes should influence sentencing - but not by way of mitigating them to say "the victim was a cyclist, he is easier to kill than a motorist, so the defendant shouldn't be held responsible for that death".

I think that misrepresents the nature of the mitigation. It is not "was the victim a cyclist?". It is "how far along the carelessness scale were the drivers actions?". The distribution of punishments given to people who kill cyclists might end up different to the distribution of punishments given to people who kill motorists but if it does, that is simply incidental. It is in no way a comment on the value of cyclists' lives or their entitlement to be on the road.

will_ said:

Killing a cyclist is a reasonably foreseeable consequence of a minor driving error. Drivers need to remember that they are responsible for a lethal weapon and a minor error may have a major consequence. That needs to be reflected in the sentence.

If so, then it needs to be reflected in the sentence for all minor errors. Otherwise you are saying to drivers that minor errors are fine as long as you happen to get away with them (which we almost always do).

will_ said:

SK425 said:

There is a danger here of blurring two issues which I think it is very important to keep separate. The first, and what I'm discussing, is a relative question: on what basis should one offence be deemed more or less severe than another? The question that should be kept separate is an absolute one: how severe should the sentence be for a certain severity of offence?

Saying that if you make a basic error that kills someone you should receive a severe penalty (the implication being that someone who makes a comparable error and doesn't kill someone should be allowed a less severe penalty), seems in effect to be trying to drive the answer to the first question by what you want to see for the answer to the second. That's a muddling of the two questions that I am not at all comfortable with.

Why keep them separate? They both go into the matrix of determining penalty.

Error+consequence+/-aggravation/mitigation=sentence

I think you've missed my point slightly. You need to keep the questions separate in your mind simply because they are different (and orthogonal) questions. Question 1 is "what determines the severity of an offence?". I say "actions", you say "actions plus consequences". Question 2 is "what range of sentences should be used?", to which an answer might be something like "a slap on the wrist to a few years in prison". So in considering a particular case, first you use the answer to question 1 to work out how severe this particular offence is, and then that tells you what sentence is due - simply put, if the severity of the offence is 8 out of 10, the sentence that's 8 out of 10 on the range should be used. My point about muddling the questions is that it opens the door to addressing the questions in the wrong order: choosing the sentence you want first and letting that define the severity retrospectively.

will_ said:

A colossal error with no consequence is, in my view, less serious than a minor error that kills someone.

Really? I find the idea of luck playing so major a part extremely unsettling.

[OTBC]

Snowboy said:

That sort of personal attack is unnecessary and reflects poorly on you.
I was quoting a comment made in the court case, not voicing an opinion on overtaking.

You're so eager to look for ways to object your not actually reading what's been written.

You agree the comment is dangerous nonsense? It looked like it was offered in mitigation, like the police officer who wasn't there who said the cyclist was invisible, despite witnesses at the scene saying they could clearly see the cyclist in hi vis. You have a habit of quoting extremely dubious quotes in order to excuse the killer driver.

[singlecoil]

OTBC said:

Snowboy said:

That sort of personal attack is unnecessary and reflects poorly on you.
I was quoting a comment made in the court case, not voicing an opinion on overtaking.

You're so eager to look for ways to object your not actually reading what's been written.

You agree the comment is dangerous nonsense? It looked like it was offered in mitigation, like the police officer who wasn't there who said the cyclist was invisible, despite witnesses at the scene saying they could clearly see the cyclist in hi vis. You have a habit of quoting extremely dubious quotes in order to excuse the killer driver.

To be absolutely fair (and I'm sure that that is what you want) none of the witnesses were in the position that the driver was at the time of the incident. Sunlight can dazzle one person and not be a problem for others who are not in the same position.

I daresay the policeman was making an intelligent and sensible comment based on years of experience, whereas the witnesses were saying what they saw from the position they were in at the time.

[MrTrilby]

Snowboy said:

You are making the massive assumption that he could see the cyclist on his approach.
On a busy dual carriageway it's easy enough for cyclists to be hidden from viewby other traffic.
In this case the driver was not aware of the cyclist at all.

You seem determined to make apologies for bad driving rather than admit it for what it is. On a busy dual carriageway, a cyclist is revealed by the slow queue of traffic waiting to pull out into lane 2 to overtake them. On a less busy dual carriageway, the cyclist is revealed by the line of cars indicating and pulling out to overtake the cyclist. An empty dual carriageway is the dangerous place for a cyclist, not a busy one.

[heebeegeetee]

singlecoil said:

1. To be absolutely fair (and I'm sure that that is what you want) none of the witnesses were in the position that the driver was at the time of the incident. Sunlight can dazzle one person and not be a problem for others who are not in the same position.

2. I daresay the policeman was making an intelligent and sensible comment based on years of experience, whereas the witnesses were saying what they saw from the position they were in at the time.

1. He was in traffic, so other people had passed the same spot seconds before. Nobody who was at the scene said visibility was bad.

2. Do you know who the officer was.

[singlecoil]

heebeegeetee said:

singlecoil said:

1. To be absolutely fair (and I'm sure that that is what you want) none of the witnesses were in the position that the driver was at the time of the incident. Sunlight can dazzle one person and not be a problem for others who are not in the same position.

2. I daresay the policeman was making an intelligent and sensible comment based on years of experience, whereas the witnesses were saying what they saw from the position they were in at the time.

1. He was in traffic, so other people had passed the same spot seconds before. Nobody who was at the scene said visibility was bad.

2. Do you know who the officer was.

1. Did the other drivers give evidence, and was the cyclist at the same place when they passed him as he was when he was struck?

2. No. Do you? He was obviously thought competent to give evidence though, and AIUI, the driver was not found guilty.

[Phatboy317]

will_ said:

The punishment reflects not only the action, but also the consequence of that action. That's a fairly established basic principle. Otherwise would you punish every minor error on the basis that someone died (which could happen) or on the basis nothing bad actually resulted from that error? Or do you, in fact, taken account of the: error+consequence+/-aggravation/mitigation= penalty?

The purpose of prison is largely threefold - protection, retribution (rebalancing the scales) and deterrence.

Whether dangerous or careless driving which results in no harm should be punished more to reflect the fact that it could is another debate entirely.

What I was getting at is the difference between a deliberate, criminal act, with either the intention of doing harm or blatant disregard for the likely consequences on the one hand, and a simple error/misjudgement on the other.

Edited by Phatboy317 on Saturday 26th July 12:29