Aston Martin driver who hit family of cyclists while driving ‘like an idiot’ spared jail

Awavey wrote:

kie7077 wrote:

How on earth does driving at 63mph on average not meet this legal definition of dangerous driving?

Quote:

'the way he/she drives falls far below what would be expected of a competent and careful driver, and it would be obvious to a competent and careful driver that driving in that way would be dangerous'

well this exactly, how does driving at double the speed limit,being involved in an accident almost certainly as a direct consequence because of stopping distances etc etc, not constitute dangerous driving. Can anyone from the CPS, judiciary,solicitors, random jury members not just explain that part to us lay folk, because it doesnt make any sense to me, you break the careful and considerate driver part as soon as you go beyond the speed limit, you travel at double the speed limit and cause a crash, thats dangerous driving, I mean what on earth do these people think dangerous driving is, some kind of Mad Max Fury Road style approach to driving !?!?

I don't know anything about this case other than what I read in the news but I note that he was charged, according to the Echo, with causing serious injury by dangerous driving.  Correct charge: doing 70 in a 40 and causing that crash is plainly dangerous.

His defence was that he had indeed been going very fast but that he had then slowed down to 40 before the crash.  If the jury find that this might be true (innocent until PROVEN guilty being reasonable doubt) then it is right he be acquitted because the injuries were not caused by dangerous driving if he'd stopped driving dangerously beforehand.  It sounds like a nonsense defence to me, but sometimes that's juries for you.

Dan S wrote:

Awavey wrote:

kie7077 wrote:

How on earth does driving at 63mph on average not meet this legal definition of dangerous driving?

Quote:

'the way he/she drives falls far below what would be expected of a competent and careful driver, and it would be obvious to a competent and careful driver that driving in that way would be dangerous'

well this exactly, how does driving at double the speed limit,being involved in an accident almost certainly as a direct consequence because of stopping distances etc etc, not constitute dangerous driving. Can anyone from the CPS, judiciary,solicitors, random jury members not just explain that part to us lay folk, because it doesnt make any sense to me, you break the careful and considerate driver part as soon as you go beyond the speed limit, you travel at double the speed limit and cause a crash, thats dangerous driving, I mean what on earth do these people think dangerous driving is, some kind of Mad Max Fury Road style approach to driving !?!?

I don't know anything about this case other than what I read in the news but I note that he was charged, according to the Echo, with causing serious injury by dangerous driving.  Correct charge: doing 70 in a 40 and causing that crash is plainly dangerous.

 

His defence was that he had indeed been going very fast but that he had then slowed down to 40 before the crash.  If the jury find that this might be true (innocent until PROVEN guilty being reasonable doubt) then it is right he be acquitted because the injuries were not caused by dangerous driving if he'd stopped driving dangerously beforehand.  It sounds like a nonsense defence to me, but sometimes that's juries for you.

There seems to be clear conflict between that statement and the drivers further statement that when he saw them he tried to go round them as there wasn't time to stop.

wycombewheeler wrote:

Dan S wrote:

Awavey wrote:

kie7077 wrote:

How on earth does driving at 63mph on average not meet this legal definition of dangerous driving?

Quote:

'the way he/she drives falls far below what would be expected of a competent and careful driver, and it would be obvious to a competent and careful driver that driving in that way would be dangerous'

well this exactly, how does driving at double the speed limit,being involved in an accident almost certainly as a direct consequence because of stopping distances etc etc, not constitute dangerous driving. Can anyone from the CPS, judiciary,solicitors, random jury members not just explain that part to us lay folk, because it doesnt make any sense to me, you break the careful and considerate driver part as soon as you go beyond the speed limit, you travel at double the speed limit and cause a crash, thats dangerous driving, I mean what on earth do these people think dangerous driving is, some kind of Mad Max Fury Road style approach to driving !?!?

I don't know anything about this case other than what I read in the news but I note that he was charged, according to the Echo, with causing serious injury by dangerous driving.  Correct charge: doing 70 in a 40 and causing that crash is plainly dangerous.

 

His defence was that he had indeed been going very fast but that he had then slowed down to 40 before the crash.  If the jury find that this might be true (innocent until PROVEN guilty being reasonable doubt) then it is right he be acquitted because the injuries were not caused by dangerous driving if he'd stopped driving dangerously beforehand.  It sounds like a nonsense defence to me, but sometimes that's juries for you.

There seems to be clear conflict between that statement and the drivers further statement that when he saw them he tried to go round them as there wasn't time to stop.

At 40mph the reacting distance is approximately 40ft.  That's how far he would travel before he could realistically hit the brake or turn the wheel.  Thereafter the braking distance is about another 80ft.  Swerving generally takes less distance than braking.  

Dan S wrote:

wycombewheeler wrote:

Dan S wrote:

Awavey wrote:

kie7077 wrote:

How on earth does driving at 63mph on average not meet this legal definition of dangerous driving?

Quote:

'the way he/she drives falls far below what would be expected of a competent and careful driver, and it would be obvious to a competent and careful driver that driving in that way would be dangerous'

well this exactly, how does driving at double the speed limit,being involved in an accident almost certainly as a direct consequence because of stopping distances etc etc, not constitute dangerous driving. Can anyone from the CPS, judiciary,solicitors, random jury members not just explain that part to us lay folk, because it doesnt make any sense to me, you break the careful and considerate driver part as soon as you go beyond the speed limit, you travel at double the speed limit and cause a crash, thats dangerous driving, I mean what on earth do these people think dangerous driving is, some kind of Mad Max Fury Road style approach to driving !?!?

I don't know anything about this case other than what I read in the news but I note that he was charged, according to the Echo, with causing serious injury by dangerous driving.  Correct charge: doing 70 in a 40 and causing that crash is plainly dangerous.

 

His defence was that he had indeed been going very fast but that he had then slowed down to 40 before the crash.  If the jury find that this might be true (innocent until PROVEN guilty being reasonable doubt) then it is right he be acquitted because the injuries were not caused by dangerous driving if he'd stopped driving dangerously beforehand.  It sounds like a nonsense defence to me, but sometimes that's juries for you.

There seems to be clear conflict between that statement and the drivers further statement that when he saw them he tried to go round them as there wasn't time to stop.

 

At 40mph the reacting distance is approximately 40ft.  That's how far he would travel before he could realistically hit the brake or turn the wheel.  Thereafter the braking distance is about another 80ft.  Swerving generally takes less distance than braking.  

If you drive round a corner so fast that you cannot react to something blocking the road, that is dangerous.

wycombewheeler wrote:

Dan S wrote:

wycombewheeler wrote:

Dan S wrote:

Awavey wrote:

kie7077 wrote:

How on earth does driving at 63mph on average not meet this legal definition of dangerous driving?

Quote:

'the way he/she drives falls far below what would be expected of a competent and careful driver, and it would be obvious to a competent and careful driver that driving in that way would be dangerous'

well this exactly, how does driving at double the speed limit,being involved in an accident almost certainly as a direct consequence because of stopping distances etc etc, not constitute dangerous driving. Can anyone from the CPS, judiciary,solicitors, random jury members not just explain that part to us lay folk, because it doesnt make any sense to me, you break the careful and considerate driver part as soon as you go beyond the speed limit, you travel at double the speed limit and cause a crash, thats dangerous driving, I mean what on earth do these people think dangerous driving is, some kind of Mad Max Fury Road style approach to driving !?!?

I don't know anything about this case other than what I read in the news but I note that he was charged, according to the Echo, with causing serious injury by dangerous driving.  Correct charge: doing 70 in a 40 and causing that crash is plainly dangerous.

 

His defence was that he had indeed been going very fast but that he had then slowed down to 40 before the crash.  If the jury find that this might be true (innocent until PROVEN guilty being reasonable doubt) then it is right he be acquitted because the injuries were not caused by dangerous driving if he'd stopped driving dangerously beforehand.  It sounds like a nonsense defence to me, but sometimes that's juries for you.

There seems to be clear conflict between that statement and the drivers further statement that when he saw them he tried to go round them as there wasn't time to stop.

 

At 40mph the reacting distance is approximately 40ft.  That's how far he would travel before he could realistically hit the brake or turn the wheel.  Thereafter the braking distance is about another 80ft.  Swerving generally takes less distance than braking.  

 

If you drive round a corner so fast that you cannot react to something blocking the road, that is dangerous.

Ah, sorry, I misunderstood your point.  I thought you were saying that there's a conflict between "going at 40" and "trying to go round because there wasn't time to stop".

The problem is that, in true legal fashion, the test for "dangerous driving" isn't "was it dangerous"!  It's "does the standard fall far below that of a reasonable, careful and competent driver?".  Note, not a perfect driver, just a reasonable one.  The only difference between careless and dangerous is the word "far" in that test.  

As an aside, it often informally comes down to careless being inadvertent ("mistakes" and "errors of judgment") and dangerous being deliberate "grossly excessive speed, aggressive overtaking, road rage, driving the wrong way down dual carriageways etc (and that's just one case from last week...).

Driving around a corner at a speed that means you can't react to something blocking the road certainly could be found to be far below but it might equally (and here plainly was) found to be merely "below" that standard.  Misjudging your speed can happen to anybody, even on roads you know pretty well.  And, at least in my experience, whether you're driving or on a bike (for myself, I've also misjudged speed, cornering and stopping on horseback and in a kayak, but that's perhaps less relevant).  

It's impossible to judge it without seeing and hearing all of the evidence.  That's why it is generally silly to state as fact opinions formed on the basis of short reports in the papers or on forums.  Court reporting is sometimes good, sometimes bad and sometimes plain awful (bit like driving, really).  The judge and jury heard the evidence and we didn't.  It isn't good enough simply to go from a few third hand paragraphs to alleging that juries got it wrong.

kie7077 wrote:

Juries need to be barred from cases involving cyclists being injured or killed.

One solution is to simply define what constitutes dangerous driving such as, texting at speed limit, speeding 60% over speed limit in residential areas, not concentrating on the road for xx number of seconds etc etc. Take the decision out of juries hands - let the evidence decide.

Shall we apply a moment's thought to that suggestion?  I'll skip over my incredulity at the suggestion that injuring a cyclist is somehow to be tested more seriously than rape and murder and just ask a few questions.

1. No jury if a cyclist is killed or injured.  Is that a blanket ban?  Does the cyclist get any say?  Does being injured while cycling deprive me of my right to have the guy tried by a jury?  Or is it my choice?  Does riding a bike allow me to decide whether or not the last thousand years or so of criminal justice should be disapplied?

2. Define cyclist.  In this case they had dismounted and were walking with their bikes.  Are they cyclists?  What if they'd left their bikes on one side of the road and were crossing to the coffee shop?  What if a driver hits a car and knocks it into a cyclist?  He gets a jury for injuring the car driver but not for the cyclist?  And what if one person says the victim was cycling and one says he wasn't - jury or not?  

3.For that matter, are we just talking about drivers?  What if it's a collision between two cyclists?  What if it's a cyclist racing along the pavement and hitting a child?  Cyclist falls off and injures himself - jury in his trial?  Does the child's dad get a jury if he pulls the cyclist off his bike for inuring the child?

4. Define inured.  If I scrape my knee is there a jury?  If there's no contact but I fall because I swerve?  What if I say I was inured and the other guy says I wasn't - who decides whether he gets a jury?

3. Moving past the procedural points, let's look at "take the decision out of juries hands - let the evidence decide".  I don't want to get too technical here but who decides what the evidence says?  Let's say that texting is dangerous.  One witness says that the driver was texting, one says he wasn't.  Let's let the evidence decide that.  Was he texting or not?  

At the moment we get 12 people together, show them the evidence and they swear to return a true verdict according to the evidence.  We call them a jury.  How would your system work where there is some contradiction in evidence (as there is in basically every case ever)?

Dan S wrote:

kie7077 wrote:

Juries need to be barred from cases involving cyclists being injured or killed.

One solution is to simply define what constitutes dangerous driving such as, texting at speed limit, speeding 60% over speed limit in residential areas, not concentrating on the road for xx number of seconds etc etc. Take the decision out of juries hands - let the evidence decide.

Shall we apply a moment's thought to that suggestion?  I'll skip over my incredulity at the suggestion that injuring a cyclist is somehow to be tested more seriously than rape and murder and just ask a few questions.

1. No jury if a cyclist is killed or injured.  Is that a blanket ban?  Does the cyclist get any say?  Does being injured while cycling deprive me of my right to have the guy tried by a jury?  Or is it my choice?  Does riding a bike allow me to decide whether or not the last thousand years or so of criminal justice should be disapplied?

2. Define cyclist.  In this case they had dismounted and were walking with their bikes.  Are they cyclists?  What if they'd left their bikes on one side of the road and were crossing to the coffee shop?  What if a driver hits a car and knocks it into a cyclist?  He gets a jury for injuring the car driver but not for the cyclist?  And what if one person says the victim was cycling and one says he wasn't - jury or not?  

3.For that matter, are we just talking about drivers?  What if it's a collision between two cyclists?  What if it's a cyclist racing along the pavement and hitting a child?  Cyclist falls off and injures himself - jury in his trial?  Does the child's dad get a jury if he pulls the cyclist off his bike for inuring the child?

4. Define inured.  If I scrape my knee is there a jury?  If there's no contact but I fall because I swerve?  What if I say I was inured and the other guy says I wasn't - who decides whether he gets a jury?

3. Moving past the procedural points, let's look at "take the decision out of juries hands - let the evidence decide".  I don't want to get too technical here but who decides what the evidence says?  Let's say that texting is dangerous.  One witness says that the driver was texting, one says he wasn't.  Let's let the evidence decide that.  Was he texting or not?  

At the moment we get 12 people together, show them the evidence and they swear to return a true verdict according to the evidence.  We call them a jury.  How would your system work where there is some contradiction in evidence (as there is in basically every case ever)?

 

In your eagerness to defend the jury system, and explain how unfair it would be to privilege cyclists, I think you miss the point. It's not about privileging  cyclists, it's about ending the default that you can drive a powerful, dangerous, vehicle, within any real thought for consequences. 

It should not be about punishment, it should simply be that if you show, in particular by injuring or killing a vulnerable road user, that you are not fit to drive safely in the current road system, your licence should be revoked. No argument, no juries. Because as the one with the power, you should also bear the responsibility.

In a half-sensible world, we would also expect frequent retesting, including physical and psychiatric evaluation. Maybe then people would finally take driving as the serious, scary privilege it really is. Maybe some of them would stop.

oldstrath wrote:

In your eagerness to defend the jury system, and explain how unfair it would be to privilege cyclists, I think you miss the point. It's not about privileging  cyclists, it's about ending the default that you can drive a powerful, dangerous, vehicle, within any real thought for consequences. 

It should not be about punishment, it should simply be that if you show, in particular by injuring or killing a vulnerable road user, that you are not fit to drive safely in the current road system, your licence should be revoked. No argument, no juries. Because as the one with the power, you should also bear the responsibility.

In a half-sensible world, we would also expect frequent retesting, including physical and psychiatric evaluation. Maybe then people would finally take driving as the serious, scary privilege it really is. Maybe some of them would stop.

Speaking of missing the point, one of the main things I was saying in my reply was that you cannot say "if you show..." while also removing the people who decide whether you show something.  

If you show WHOM that you are not fit to drive safely?  If there's no jury, who decides whether you injured somebody? Who decides whether you drove safely?  Cyclist says the driver left hooked him, driver says cyclist swerved in front of him.  Who is telling the truth?  Are you going to revoke a licence every time somebody alleges bad driving, without actually testing that allegation?

And what if the cyclist says he had to swerve to avoid a car drifting in and thus hit the kerb and fell?  Driver says he didn't drift, cyclist just wobbled and fell.  Who decides which is true?  And who decides whether that counts as not being safe to drive?

I agree that driving offences are under-sentenced.  And unlike most people on this forum, I actually know what I'm talking about, because I see it first hand rather than just reading short summaries on the internet.  I agree that drivers should have regular retests.  But you cannot have a justice system that doesn't have a body responsible for determining who's telling the truth.  That is the purpose of a jury.

brooksby wrote:

"He said ... he had no time to brake " - well of course not, if he was travelling at nearly twice the speed limit!!!

L.Willo wrote:

Dreadful clickbait reporting. He hasnt been 'spared jail'. He has been acquitted by a jury of all of the charges that could possibly carry a jail sentence. Those blaming the judge or the CPS, what more do you want? The CPS pressed serious charges and presented strong evidence. Once again a jury acquits. You think a judge should overrule and jail him anyway? Place the blame fair and square where it belongs. The toxic politicisation of cycling culture had led to a them and us situation and unfortunately there are more of them than us. We have become so despised by the general public that you can now run down a decent family obeying the rules of the road and a jury will side with you. So depressing.

I think there's more to it than that.

Cyclists are a minority of the population  so the vast majority of jurors are not cyclists but are motorists. And they sit there wondering if they've ever done something that might be dangerous if that happened or if that was different.

And so they acquit, because they realise that they have, and that they therefore have to give the accused the benefit of the doubt. Because if they didn't, they'd have to admit that there but for the grace of God &c &c... 

brooksby wrote:

L.Willo wrote:

Dreadful clickbait reporting. He hasnt been 'spared jail'. He has been acquitted by a jury of all of the charges that could possibly carry a jail sentence. Those blaming the judge or the CPS, what more do you want? The CPS pressed serious charges and presented strong evidence. Once again a jury acquits. You think a judge should overrule and jail him anyway? Place the blame fair and square where it belongs. The toxic politicisation of cycling culture had led to a them and us situation and unfortunately there are more of them than us. We have become so despised by the general public that you can now run down a decent family obeying the rules of the road and a jury will side with you. So depressing.

I think there's more to it than that.

Cyclists are a minority of the population  so the vast majority of jurors are not cyclists but are motorists. And they sit there wondering if they've ever done something that might be dangerous if that happened or if that was different.

And so they acquit, because they realise that they have, and that they therefore have to give the accused the benefit of the doubt. Because if they didn't, they'd have to admit that there but for the grace of God &c &c... 

The majority of the jurors will also be members of families and can imagine themselves on holiday trying to cross a road with their kids and being run over by a speeding lunatic. They still acquitted.

Cannot be proved one way or the other but my gut feeling is that the family would have got justice if they were not associated with cycling. It has become such a toxic issue, especially in the last year or two.

[/quote]

The majority of the jurors will also be members of families and can imagine themselves on holiday trying to cross a road with their kids and being run over by a speeding lunatic. They still acquitted.

Cannot be proved one way or the other but my gut feeling is that the family would have got justice if they were not associated with cycling. It has become such a toxic issue, especially in the last year or two.

[/quote]

I would agree....essentially if you're a cyclist you're in the way, you're holding me up, you're a nuisance.  I truly believe the outcome would have been viewed differently without the bikes, by association it appears to lower the sentence/view of the jury.

I get that the judge is now unable to hand down a custodial sentence but given the apparent disregard for law, the injuries sustained and the availability of an 'unlimited fine' I would be setting the minimum penalty as the cost of a new Aston for starters...plus some for being a dickhead

brooksby wrote:

L.Willo wrote:

Dreadful clickbait reporting. He hasnt been 'spared jail'. He has been acquitted by a jury of all of the charges that could possibly carry a jail sentence. Those blaming the judge or the CPS, what more do you want? The CPS pressed serious charges and presented strong evidence. Once again a jury acquits. You think a judge should overrule and jail him anyway? Place the blame fair and square where it belongs. The toxic politicisation of cycling culture had led to a them and us situation and unfortunately there are more of them than us. We have become so despised by the general public that you can now run down a decent family obeying the rules of the road and a jury will side with you. So depressing.

I think there's more to it than that.

Cyclists are a minority of the population  so the vast majority of jurors are not cyclists but are motorists. And they sit there wondering if they've ever done something that might be dangerous if that happened or if that was different.

Substitute Cyclist with Jewish/Black/disabled (any other minority group) and then consider the sentence handed down by the biased jury... The system would be radically overhauled to prevent bias and discrimination. 

L.Willo wrote:

Place the blame fair and square where it belongs. The toxic politicisation of cycling culture had led to a them and us situation and unfortunately there are more of them than us

I don't think I entirely disagree with you... Except you haven't said where the blame belongs.

Who or what exactly is to blame for this toxic politicisation? Boardman, Gilligan, reason and evidence? Trollumnists and mouth-breather commenters who will always consider the car as the primary mode of transport anyway? Clarkson? London cab lobbyists?

There is a them and us - quite right, but not all parties are to blame for that.

davel wrote:

L.Willo wrote:

Place the blame fair and square where it belongs. The toxic politicisation of cycling culture had led to a them and us situation and unfortunately there are more of them than us

I don't think I entirely disagree with you... Except you haven't said where the blame belongs. Who or what exactly is to blame for this toxic politicisation? Boardman, Gilligan, reason and evidence? Trollumnists and mouth-breather commenters who will always consider the car as the primary mode of transport anyway? Clarkson? London cab lobbyists? There is a them and us - quite right, but not all parties are to blame for that.

The cause is of academic interest (it will literally take a few government committees to address) and the cause needs to be addressed long term. However, the short term fix is very easy. It's already being done in Europe and other parts of the world. Change the liability system such that the vulnerable riad user is protected! If this had happened in Germany (where I lived and drove) the driver would need to explain what the pedestrians/cyclists had done wrong in order to prevent the book from being thrown at him. Given the circumstances of this case there would be no wiggle room for the jury. The consequence of that legal starting point is that as a driver you are aware that your actions have consequences - you need to not only be able to show that you passively did nothing wrong but that you were actively driving with care and able to react to small but predictable  mistakes by vulnerable road users. Rather like the change in societal views on drink driving, the fix is both a quick legal change which leaves no wiggle room for juries and a longer term societal education plan. The change in the legal system re-enforces the societal attitude change: people don't want to be stigmatised with a criminal record. 

L.Willo wrote:

We have become so despised by the general public that you can now run down a decent family obeying the rules of the road and a jury will side with you.

So depressing.

Hear hear. I blame the cyclists for making themselves despised. They should have stayed in the bike lane where they belong instead of outraging motoring juries on the public highway.

zanf wrote:

There will come a time when some people will get so pissed off with the continued leniency handed out to reckless and dangerous drivers, that they will gather up their pitchforks and have themselves a lynching.

Whether those lynched will be the judges, CPS or the drivers themselves remains to be seen.

Where he lives (or at least the address he gave to the court) is a short road with no secure parking. I would imagine he won't be parking his expensive cock replacement device anywhere nearby.

For every Hillsborough jury there are twenty like this one. I'm surprised he's even been convicted as most of the evidence will have been circumstantial.

zanf wrote:

There will come a time when some people will get so pissed off with the continued leniency handed out to reckless and dangerous drivers, that they will gather up their pitchforks and have themselves a lynching.

Whether those lynched will be the judges, CPS or the drivers themselves remains to be seen.

What would be better is if someone organised a die-in at the court on May 6th when the driver returns for sentencing. Would be good to coincide with his arrival and/or judgement and to get the event covered by the local/national press.

I'd consider heading down for the day to participate.