Killer Cyclist gets off with fine
Discussion
Came across this in several papers, seems some guy called Jason Howard from Buckingham had some special titanium framed bike made for a bit under £5k and whilst riding on the pavement in the town came across a bunch of kids. Shouted at them to move as he was not stopping and rode into a girl.
She gets knocked over to the pavement and dies of head injuries.
He gets a £2200 fine and told to not to do it again or else.....
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/beds/bucks/hert...
Searched for it, but not found....
Apparently the guy is a "thrill seeker"
She gets knocked over to the pavement and dies of head injuries.
He gets a £2200 fine and told to not to do it again or else.....
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/beds/bucks/hert...
Searched for it, but not found....
Apparently the guy is a "thrill seeker"
but what if kid is in road and gets hit by a car doing 34mph in a 30 and killed,then its the drivers fault for speeding and the fact that the kid is in the road does not matter??.
I do agree that he should have had harder punishment for his actions but thats from what we hear from those w
rs at the press!!.
I do agree that he should have had harder punishment for his actions but thats from what we hear from those w
rs at the press!!.I listened to quite a detailed breakdown of this story on Radio 4 this morning..
The evidence didn't exactly show that this guy deliberately ran her down. In fact the evidence wasn't even clear enough to show if he was on the road or the pavement (it seems the witnesses gave differing opinions on the question).
Apparently he shouted to the group of inebriated teenagers (who were all over the road and the pavement) that he was coming through, and went for a gap in the crowd that was shut at the last moment...
You could say he was a bit of a tt for not slowing down to pass, or for not moving to the other side of the road to avoid the group completely However, my money's on him not being quite the evil murdering bd that some news articles seem to portray him as.
The evidence didn't exactly show that this guy deliberately ran her down. In fact the evidence wasn't even clear enough to show if he was on the road or the pavement (it seems the witnesses gave differing opinions on the question).
Apparently he shouted to the group of inebriated teenagers (who were all over the road and the pavement) that he was coming through, and went for a gap in the crowd that was shut at the last moment...
You could say he was a bit of a t
t for not slowing down to pass, or for not moving to the other side of the road to avoid the group completely However, my money's on him not being quite the evil murdering bd that some news articles seem to portray him as.GHW said:
I listened to quite a detailed breakdown of this story on Radio 4 this morning..
The evidence didn't exactly show that this guy deliberately ran her down. In fact the evidence wasn't even clear enough to show if he was on the road or the pavement (it seems the witnesses gave differing opinions on the question).
Apparently he shouted to the group of inebriated teenagers (who were all over the road and the pavement) that he was coming through, and went for a gap in the crowd that was shut at the last moment...
You could say he was a bit of a tt for not slowing down to pass, or for not moving to the other side of the road to avoid the group completely However, my money's on him not being quite the evil murdering bd that some news articles seem to portray him as.
I would agree - If some stupid kid does someting really idiotic and gets mowed down then it is ALWAYS the evil motorists fault. The evidence didn't exactly show that this guy deliberately ran her down. In fact the evidence wasn't even clear enough to show if he was on the road or the pavement (it seems the witnesses gave differing opinions on the question).
Apparently he shouted to the group of inebriated teenagers (who were all over the road and the pavement) that he was coming through, and went for a gap in the crowd that was shut at the last moment...
You could say he was a bit of a t
t for not slowing down to pass, or for not moving to the other side of the road to avoid the group completely However, my money's on him not being quite the evil murdering bd that some news articles seem to portray him as.Scraggles said:
he got fined and not max sentence, seeing as there is no sentence for killing kids by cycling on the pavement (against the law) and then riding into them after shouting at them to move....
Funny, I read the Telegraph article this thread was a repost of, and it was of the opinion that the maximum permissible punishment for that offence (presumably the one the CPS felt was most appropriate to the offence, and they had the best chance of getting a conviction on) was a fine of £2200. I'm certain if they felt that the evidence would have supported a charge of manslaughter, you'd have been happier with the sentence (which is a grown up word for the thing the judges do). As it was, he was an idiot, she was damnably unlucky, its all rather sad, and he has been prosecuted to the limit of the law as it stands.
Just to put a few facts in there.
The bloke is a cock and was fundamentally to blame hance being found guilty.
But. He hit the girl on the road. He shouted for her to get out of the way. He was doing 23 in a 30.
It's easy to see 2 sides, one the prat on the expensive bike who rode at her on purpose (the media whipped up story) or the man out on his pride and joy who keeps getting harassed by groups of chavs jumping out and playing chicken. What do you do? Stop every time and risk getting a kicking?
No-one knows all the facts including me, but history shows to ignore the newspapers as the only version of events they will report is the one that sells papers.
The bloke is a cock and was fundamentally to blame hance being found guilty.
But. He hit the girl on the road. He shouted for her to get out of the way. He was doing 23 in a 30.
It's easy to see 2 sides, one the prat on the expensive bike who rode at her on purpose (the media whipped up story) or the man out on his pride and joy who keeps getting harassed by groups of chavs jumping out and playing chicken. What do you do? Stop every time and risk getting a kicking?
No-one knows all the facts including me, but history shows to ignore the newspapers as the only version of events they will report is the one that sells papers.
Indeed. The (admittedly sparse) evidence that was given in court on both sides (which has been reported) implies that the accident likely happened in the road not the pavement and involved a group of half-cut teenagers (who can't seem to agree on what happened between them) walking into the road in front of the cyclist.
He's been found guilty simply because he could easily have avoided the accident all together had he made a different decision on how to pass the group.
Christ, almost every morning some muppet steps off the pavement right in front of me just as I'm getting to work. There's a narrow pavement with lots of foot traffic in both directions and pedestrians walking with their back to the road traffic often just step out into the road to pass somebody coming the other way without looking. The situation is made worse because at that exact point on the road there are 2 extremely narrow lanes squeezed in to roadspace that simply can't accommodate them and 1/3 of the inside lane is marked as a cycle lane. There's not really room for 2 cars to drive side-by-side, let alone 2 cars and a bicycle but that doesn't stop the cars pushing past the bikes with zero gap. If you're in this situation and a pedestrian just steps out in front of you there is literally nowhere to go. I'm constantly surprised that there aren't more collisions with pedestrians just there.
He's been found guilty simply because he could easily have avoided the accident all together had he made a different decision on how to pass the group.
Christ, almost every morning some muppet steps off the pavement right in front of me just as I'm getting to work. There's a narrow pavement with lots of foot traffic in both directions and pedestrians walking with their back to the road traffic often just step out into the road to pass somebody coming the other way without looking. The situation is made worse because at that exact point on the road there are 2 extremely narrow lanes squeezed in to roadspace that simply can't accommodate them and 1/3 of the inside lane is marked as a cycle lane. There's not really room for 2 cars to drive side-by-side, let alone 2 cars and a bicycle but that doesn't stop the cars pushing past the bikes with zero gap. If you're in this situation and a pedestrian just steps out in front of you there is literally nowhere to go. I'm constantly surprised that there aren't more collisions with pedestrians just there.
Edited by pdV6 on Thursday 10th July 11:57
I always find in infuriating how the media report this type of story, if you don't make an effort to find out the true facts all you hear is that a guy on a bike knocked down and killed a girl and didn't get sent to jail. Nothing about the circumstances, wether he was on the road/pavement, why the girl was in a position to be knocked down.
If he was on the road, had given the girl warning, or as it seems a group of kids and at the time he made the decsion to carry on there was space then it is fair that he didn't get charged with manslaughter. if the circumstances were different then maybe he should have recieved a harsher punishment. If he was on the pavement then he certainly deserves a harsher sentance.
As a cyclist, it is amazing how many pedestrians will wilfully step out in front of you and just expect you to move for them, I don't think the majority of the public realise the speed a bike could be travelling at.
If town planners continue to make shared pedestrian and cycle lanes then the laws aournd potential incidents like this need to be very clear, and some responsibility should be placed with the pedestrians. If you go to Holland the bikes certainly don't give way to you if you stray into a cycle lane without looking!
If he was on the road, had given the girl warning, or as it seems a group of kids and at the time he made the decsion to carry on there was space then it is fair that he didn't get charged with manslaughter. if the circumstances were different then maybe he should have recieved a harsher punishment. If he was on the pavement then he certainly deserves a harsher sentance.
As a cyclist, it is amazing how many pedestrians will wilfully step out in front of you and just expect you to move for them, I don't think the majority of the public realise the speed a bike could be travelling at.
If town planners continue to make shared pedestrian and cycle lanes then the laws aournd potential incidents like this need to be very clear, and some responsibility should be placed with the pedestrians. If you go to Holland the bikes certainly don't give way to you if you stray into a cycle lane without looking!
grumbledoak said:
He had the time and the opportunity to avoid a collision that would reasonably be expected to result in serious harm. He chose not to.
Not quite. Trying to remain objective, the way I see it is that he chose one of several options for avoiding a collision. Unfortunately the actions of the pedestrian show that, with hindsight, the option he chose was not the best of those available.Surely a shouted warning was better than nothing? Again, trying to be impartial on this, would using a bell have helped - unlikely to have any more affect than shouting. It's clear that his decision to go through a gap turned out to be the wrong one, and ended up causing the death of a young girl, by accident. Even if (as we've been led to believe by some of the reports) he deliberately chose to ride into/clip a pedestrian, do you really think anyone would take that risk if they thought they might kill someone? Going beyond the actions that caused the initial collision, surely the fact that the girl banged her head so badly on the ground was on of those rare and highly improbable outcomes to the course of events, and therefore an 'accident' is actually the only outcome that could be applied?
grumbledoak said:
edward1 said:
had given the girl warning,
So, if you shout "get out of the way" you're in the clear? Nice attitude. He had the time and the opportunity to avoid a collision that would reasonably be expected to result in serious harm. He chose not to.
wildoliver said:
grumbledoak said:
edward1 said:
had given the girl warning,
So, if you shout "get out of the way" you're in the clear? Nice attitude. He had the time and the opportunity to avoid a collision that would reasonably be expected to result in serious harm. He chose not to.
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