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news
Statue of Justice, Old Bailey (licensed CC BY 2.0 on Flickr by Ronnie Macdonald).jpg“You should hang your head in shame,” judge tells 82-year-old driver who ran over cyclist
An 82-year-old motorist who left a cyclist with life-changing injuries after running him over, and then applied to renew his driving licence days later, has been told by a judge, “You should hang your head in shame."
Derby Crown Court was told that in May 2016, motorist Gilroy Tennant "failed to give way" to cyclist Austin Finley, who was turning right from Derby Road, Sandiacre, into Brooke Street.
The Derby Telegraph reports that the cyclist was unable to avoid the collision and was thrown onto the bonnet of Tennant’s car before landing on the road, said Sarah Allen, prosecuting.
"He then watched in horror as the defendant's car continued to drive very slowly towards him at about 3mph,” she said.
“The defendant proceeded to drive over him, his front wheels went up onto his torso and he was terrified that he would drive over him with the rear wheels too.
She added: "The defendant did eventually stop and came to a rest with Mr Finley's head just under the driver's door with the weight of the car on him."
It took the emergency services 20 minutes to free the cyclist, whose injuries included a broken collarbone, 11 broken ribs and a collapsed lung as well as internal bleeding.
In a victim impact statement, he said: "As I lay in the road I watched as the car approached me very slowly. He must've seen me – I was on the bonnet moments before.
"What happened next was the most harrowing experience I've ever witnessed. I was left trapped under the vehicle with the weight of it crushing my chest for 20 minutes – it was extremely traumatic.”
He continued: "I didn't know whether I was going to die or not and if it wasn't for the excellence of the emergency services it could have been fatal.
"This has caused severe and long-lasting anguish for me and my family. My wife was brought to hospital not knowing whether I was alive or not and my son travelled back from university in Wales not knowing whether he would see his dad alive.
“My mum was very ill and passed away soon after the incident.
"The driver of the car showed no remorse,” Mr Finley added. “He could've stopped his car. The fact that I was not killed at the scene was down to pure luck. If the car was another inch higher it would have crushed my neck, and six inches higher my head.
"How can any human being be so callous to reapply for a driving licence?"
Pleading guilty to causing serious injury by dangerous driving, Tennant was sentenced to eight months’ imprisonment, suspended for 12 months, and an eight-year ban from driving.
Sentencing Tennant, Judge Peter Cooke described the incident as an "astonishing manifestation of poor reactions.”
He said: “It came as close to fatal as this could have been. You were interviewed by police about the accident and you accepted no responsibility whatsoever. You blamed the crash on the cyclist and you actually applied for a fresh driving licence.
“That is shocking. You should hang your head in shame.”
The case raises the issue of whether older drivers should be required to undergo mandatory retesting in order to retain their licences, something the charity Cycling UK has called for.
> Do we need mandatory retesting for older drivers?
Last year, motorist George Barrett was convicted of causing the death through dangerous driving in 2014 of cyclist Ian Jobson. The driver was aged 78 and had defective vision at the time of the fatal incident, but was not wearing glasses.
After Barrett was banned from driving for live and given a suspended prison sentence, the charity Cycling UK said that it recognises that sentencing elderly and otherwise law-abiding citizens for driving offences, when they have a long and largely unblemished driving record, is an unenviable task for judges more accustomed to punishing offenders they perceive the prisons were designed for.”
However, it added that the case in question “raises the increasingly important issue of how, with an ageing population where people want to maintain independence and continue driving as long as possible, the DVLA regulates and tests the fitness to drive of those whose reactions, sight and road confidence are declining.”
In 2013, legislation known as ‘Cassie’s Law’ was introduced after the death of an 11-year-old girl hit by a car driven by 87-year-old Colin Horsfall, who had failed a police eyesight test days earlier.
Cycling UK added: “Should some of these drivers still be on the roads, should we be looking again at driver re-testing, and how do we ensure that medical fitness to drive involves more than self-certification?”
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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48 comments
Some of the laws surrounding medical conditions seem a joke. I work with a narcoleptic...who can still drive. Yep that's right, he can still drive. He falls asleep at his desk but he's passed whatever test he needs to for the next 3 years, so can drive until he either admits he's getting worse or crashes. He stops at least once on his 30mile trip to have a quick kip.
There's another in the building that falls asleep at his desk. The difference is he knows it'll mean at least some trouble with driving, so hasn't been to the doctor, so officially he's got nothing.
Shocking what's driving about. Give me a fully awake speeder over some under the limit guy that could fall asleep.
Don't understand why government has jumped on to retesting. Brilliant! We all get revision and new traffic laws every five years. Brush up on skills, they can charge enough to make a profit and it generates loads more jobs. What's not to like, retest can include motorway too.
as for this particular case the callous nature of his running the guy over - how can that not be a jail sentence?
this man should be incarcerated.
Regular re-testing always appears positive as though it would make better drivers, I am not convinced by this. I am however a supporter of driving awareness courses, as feedback from family and friends who have attended them has been positive.
In my employment I am subject to continued professional development which seems entirely appropriate. In my capacity as an accredited sports coach I am also subject to regular development.
I think this would be a better way forward. All drivers to undertake similar training and assessments, in order to keep the licence. I would start with so called professional drivers(PSV , taxi, HGV) and let it be self certified with a caveat...anyone involved in an accident, who has not completed their assessments to have their licence automatically revoked and need to retake their test.
Personally speaking, I'd say we should have retesting every 10 years. All drivers, age is an irrelevance, a red herring.
Don't we have to renew our dirving licence every 10 years anyway?
The real issue as I see it is people driving on our roads when they are not fit to do so. And whilst failing health will be one factor that causes this, it is by noi means the only, or the most significant.
As I understand it, driving test examiners work to KPI's just like many of us. They have to pass a certain minimum and maximum percentage of drivers taking tests each month.
This is to ensure that a tester is not too stringent / lenient, however the truth is, like any KPI an employee will work to the KPI and not the ultimate result.
So what I am sure we get is very incompetent drivers passing a test when really they shouldn't have, simply because a tester has a KPI to hit.
Now, to be fair, the above is based on information that is a fair few years old now, so may no longer be the case, but if it is, it needs to change.
Or... we simply retest every 10 years. If someone fails a retest, they are off the road until they pass it again.
Worst case scenario, good drivers get a refresh and recalibrated every 10 years. Best case, we get incompetent drivers off the road and back into training where tey belong.
it would be paid for by drivers, as part of their commitment to safe driving. £85 every 10 years is hardly breaking the bank.
Another advantage of retests is that changes to the law can be highlighted along with other areas of concern. Like safe passing distances.
Self certification doesn't work - very few would voluntarily give up their independence. I had to wheel lock my fathers car because he continued to drive after a stroke.
It's ridiculous that you can pass a test at 17 and retain it for life. No wonder there are so many bad drivers. Many elderly drivers were never even required to pass a test.
Everyone should be retested every 5/10 years. Retesting does cost but it also stimulates the economy with more employment, taxes and makes the roads safer.
If you can't pass a retest you shouldn't be driving.
I just saw a news report about three elderly sisters this morning. One of them is upset because she's just given up driving, and "feels like she's lost her legs" as a consequence. All three ladies clearly compos mentis, but very shaky, very slow talking, etc. Their ages? 98, 100, and 102. And it was the 102-year old who's just given up driving.
Throwing something else in to all this talk of stats... I am a 999 worker, and BY FAR the highest incidence of RTC incidents we attend involve the elderly. Forget the stats that say young men are most at risk. It is made worse by the fact that a lot of the time the elderly driver has a medical condition which hasnt been caught by the system, and which should mean they have their license withdrawn.
Interesting... I did see something that said they're more likely to die or be injured when involved in a collision - of course that's likely because of their age/conditions.
Still suspect they're nowhere near as risk-free as the very lazy 'they have 10% of the licenses but are only involved in 6% of the collisions' picture paints.
Your anecdotal evidence is interesting JT, but hardly borne out by the facts. If you want to know the reality of traffic accidents then follow the money and ask the insurers. They, after all, are the people who pay for the damage and the compensation.
If you look at the number of younger drivers ( 17-25 ) they actually have about double the accidents you might predict. If you look at older drivers ( 65+ ) then they are involved in about half the accidents their numbers would suggest. And young drivers' accidents are way, way more expensive as they tend to happen at higher speeds.
All these statistics are freely available online.
Those stats should be taken seriously, but I'm not convinced such broad categories show the full picture.
Are there stats for smaller age-groups (70+,75+, 85+, etc)? 65 isn't that old, and it may be that driving deteriorates at an accelerating rate with increasing age.
And my impression is that older drivers are a self-selected group, in that a proportion of older people who have real health issues (or who just never felt confident about driving) consciously choose to hang up their driving gloves. But cases like this suggest maybe there is an irresponsible minority who continue to drive when they are no longer up to it - and I'm wondering if that minority is responsible for a disproportionate share of the accidents that age group have.
Retesting older drivers might have a big effect if it could filter out that minority.
Sorry - I really don't want others to do my Googling, but I'm failing to find these stats (I'm being bad at Googling here, not being a smart arse or facetious) - I see that drivers aged 70+ represent 10% of the licenses but 6% of the collisions. But, as I've already said, that isn't the same as being less risky because they might represent a much smaller % of the actual driving. It seems like you've seen the stats I'm failing to find.
Any chance of a link, old bean?
(I think you answered a point that jterrier didn't make. They didn't claim old people cause more collisions. They claimed old people are more likely to die/be seriously injured. This is true, as far as I can tell.
I'm also skeptical about whether 'following the money' conclusively identifies risk accurately here. It's culturally acceptable to charge young lads 2 grand for car insurance. It would be completely unacceptable to ramp premiums up to 2 grand for 80 year-olds - and really bad for business for the first insurance firm that decided to do it, whether it backed it up with evidence or not. )
Perhaps I am in the minority here, but I am finding differential penalties because of age difficult to accept. We are told that part of the sentencing is to act as a deterrent, what is the deterrent to an older driver, keep driving until you have serious enough accident and then loose your licence?
You can't call them differential penalties if the 80 year old has 50 years of flawless driving to mitigate their later misdeed.
A 25 year old cannot demonstrate the same good behaviour history. If they both have the same accident there is much more point in deterring the young driver who might already have had one accident in his first two years driving and has 50 more years ahead of him.
Once you get to 80 years old there is not much the judicial system can do to you. Even a life sentence is perhaps not as long as a relatively short sentence for the 20 year old.
I disagree, your stance is flawed as it is based upon the presumption that older drivers have a good driving history. We all know older drivers who seldom drive, but when they do scare other road users. There are also people who have obtained their licenses later in life, like my late mother who passed her test only weeks before me.
We need to send a message that drivers unfit to drive will be prosecuted, irrespective of age.
Your older drivers tend to have accidents through things like carelessness and poor judgement.
With younger drivers accidents result more from deliberate acts of irresponsibility. In other words, driving like mad-head's with little regard for other road users. Excessive speed is often a factor, and this is not the case with older-driver accidents.
Raising the driving age would save a lot more lives than taking licences off the old. Or in an ideal world you would let young women drive but make young men wait an extra two or three years - or better still a decade - before being allowed a driving licence.
I get your logic, and certainly young men, when you look at the proportion of licenses they hold, are disproportionately represented in collisions.
But to understand whether they're at (or cause) greater risk than older drivers we need to see time on the road. Does anybody know if such stats exist (I can find something for the US, but not UK)? Mileage by age...?
Based on the logic I've seen so far, along the lines of 'young men have 10% of all licenses but are involved in 20% of accidents' it is a leap to say that young men are the riskiest group. It could be a similar leap to say that older drivers are safer if they only drive a few miles. Insurance actuaries will be crunching more meaningful numbers than I've got, but where from...?
It doesn't help that I smell vested interests - insurance companies selling inflated premiums that oldies just wouldn't pay, driving schools selling courses for new/young drivers...
Young and older drivers alike can hold their licences as long as they want, as long as they are safe and fit to drive. Waiting for and only taking action after incidents with sentences differing dependent on age is wrong. My father stopped driving following heart surgery 25 years ago because he realised he wasn't fit to drive. Yet he could drive a car today if he choose and would face minimal prosecution because of his age and heart condition; indeed he would probably be deemed unfit to stand trial; yet my son who has had no incidents despite driving for just 3 years would be.
You are right, though I'm not sure which I find more infuriating - selfish young boy-racers whizzing around with no consideration for anyone else's safety, or stupid old duffers like the one in the story injuring others because of their arrogant refusal to acknowledge they aren't up to it any more.
In an ideal world, I'd do both - make young men wait significantly longer for a licence, and impose regular retests (with medical reports) on older drivers of both sexes.
I'm not attacking the old, i'm saying that the new drivers need to pass something that is more enhanced/advanced than now, that ALL should have to be medically fit and be able to prove that they are capable of driving safely and as per advanced driving be able to vocalise/describe why they do x for any given situation. Not necessarily all the time as we do in an advanced examination situation but get you to think about what you do and why you do it with proper hazard perception not the lame ass BS that we currently have.
I agree that focussing on the 'older' driver is a mistake, they don't tend to do as many miles nor drive as fast and that is oft down to slowing of reactions and having learnt to drive in times when people didn't drive as fast not were pushed to reach a limit/see it as a target.
ATEOTD if we want better safety for cycling then addressing how people are allowed to drive in the first place and what standard they are at is massively the biggest factor.
Without micturate poor driving/poor attitudes we would rarely have to have seperated infra, we would have more people cycling, there'd be no need for folk to think they need h-vis/helmets (for all the good it does), there would be a much greater onus on those presenting the greater harm and that accepted responsibility/way of thinking means victims are less likely to blamed and poor driving becomes anti-social and from that the attitude in courts, in police stations and elsewhere, media and so on change in the right direction that means we all benefit.
This is why i believe whilst humans are in charge we just have to change drastically how we allow people on the roads in charge of killing machines.
wouldn't it simply be easier, safer, and cleaner to limit horsepower for everyone?
It will be interesting to see what cars look like when they are self driving. I have a feeling that when the owner is not actually driving they will be far less interested in the power/specifications of the car.
Many of the problems discussed here will be obsolete. I am 58 I would bet that I will not to have to give up 'driving' in my lifetime.
Change the driving test NOW, right now, devise a test that actually is pertinent to safety on the road and a psyche test so the next generation actually start driving to a standard that is required and introduce retesting for ALL every 3-5 years.
To suggest there are too many to retest is nonsense, here's a chance for change, employ examiners/testers who aren't just the type that see passing a test as the be all and end all, maybe some older/senior/high grade instructors and retired police to start with.
A thorough retest for existing license holders, not just some turn the wheel/change the gears nonsense and then progress with compulsary retraining/classes for those that are not up to spec.
There will be plenty of jobs, not just in the first few years but going forward so long as humans are in charge of motorised vehicles and this should be seen as a cost that motorists MUST bear for the sake of a safer society. If done right it will save lives and reduce the misery for families, not just people who cycle but everyone using the road.
I disagree, because...
I would rather share the road with a bunch of octagenarians with poor eyesight driving hillman imps, than with a bunch of wannabe lewis hamiltons in mercedes sls's...
of course the worst possible scenario would be a a bunch of octagenarians with poor eyesight driving mercedes sls's!
There is such a hell. Harrogate. Affluent and full of coffin dodgers in top end jags and mercs.
On a serious note driving simulator centres could be way forward. Do a commercial version of Forza Horizon or maybe GTA to see how many people they run over.
Careful what you wish for: isn't there a proposal to make the test more relevant to the real world by getting rid of all that parallel parking and reversing around a corner and three point turning, and replacing them with following satnav instructions...?
Re-testing every ten years would, at a stroke, solve the pollution and gridlock issues in our cities, because, if the driving I see every day is anything to go by, only half of those tested would pass.
It wouldn't even have to be a full driving test. Just re-do the theory part, then a simple sight and reactions test, followed by hazard perception.
I'm all for it.
Except you'd need road police to enforce the law when it comes to driving without a licence, and they're clearly not interested in doing so.
If not a full retest every ten years then at least something similar to the speed awareness course I just had to attend (after nearly 20 years without any incidents or points). It was a good reminder of a lot of things I had forgotten....
Really simple to require re-passing the theory test before the 10 year picture licence is renewed.
That already have a video hazard perception. It was just a few extra questions a little while back.
Would catch all over time. (I still have a paper licence). And would make a few more people read the Highway Code after they first passed their test.
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