Marginal flaps? Ganna’s baggy skinsuit and stacked team car under scrutiny; I’m Gonna Bee (500 Miles): Andy Burnham says miserly active travel figures “wrong”; Lack of bike storage hinders commute; ITV on Highway Code changes + more on the live blog

Justice around people with cognitive impairments (and indeed their victims - recall the Janner case although that was also "priveledge") is tricky.  Currently the options of "what can be done" are very different once you go down this route (law here - basically secure hospital, "guardianship", supervision and treatment order or discharge).  The law acknowledges that the usual round of punishments would not be proper - if you can't sensibly participate it's not justice.  Limiting "freedoms" (e.g. transport) for such people may also have a disproportionate effect on them.

However it looks like a major failure to join the dots here on driver licencing.  We all know that so I'm sure the DVLA side of it will be in the forthcoming road safety review...

As for the "but essential transport" the sooner our streets look like this the less this will be a problem.

Hmm... on the one hand letting her drive drunk - that seems open and shut.  Is it currently a crime though?  Don't think you can be done for e.g. obstruction of justice unless you're been identified as a witness?  It's into "conspiracy" charges where people are getting held accountable for the behaviour of others.  Potentially a very dangerous area ("you knew - but you didn't tell = you did it yourself!" in the limit; has been applied in several places). 

Also they certainly have some responsibility (ignoring the drinking) if she doesn't have full capacity.  But then the state - rightly or probably wrongly - licenced her to drive...

Again the underlying issues is "joining the dots" and "ensuring drivers are still fit to drive".  We test just once.  Also people generally have to "hand in their own licence" - making it seem more like a "right" that they're voluntarily renouncing.

hirsute wrote:

What the actual https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/i-d... Ms Edmond’s suffered from a number of injuries including frontal brain damage. She had to have her full face rebuilt during a gruelling nine hour craniotomy surgery and has been left with a scar from ‘ear to ear’. She also suffered from a broken femur, a broken wrist, damage to one of her kidneys and she was left with 10 percent vision in her right eye. , as McVicar’s GP concluded that she falls under the Disability Act, she was given an absolute discharge from court without any time in jail. Instead, her driving licence will be sent to the Secretary of State to decide whether she will be disqualified. How is anyone going to be protected against this callous woman?

That's obscene. How can she be considered unfit to attend a court hearing and yet fit to drive?

Also, leaving the scene of the collision should be an immediate prison sentence and lifetime driving ban in my opinion.

Absolutely staggering. What on earth does a claimed disability have to do with being convicted?

Along with her statement that she had 'a' Bacardi and coke. Given her measured BaC some considerable time later it must have been served to her in a bucket.

From the article she was deemed unfit to stand trial. At that point you cannot be convicted as such - as you cannot mount a defence, be cross examined etc.  

hence the absolute discharge. 
ehat it does mean is there should be no way the dvla don't revoke her licence permanently.  It also means that a civil claim against her is almost a certain win 

Quote:

her driving licence will be sent to the Secretary of State to decide whether she will be disqualified.

Erm - I would hope they don't have to think very hard before lobbing it into the shredder... 

Surely as long as she says she believed implicitly that her driving was fine, it will be returned to her directly?

Quote:

McVicar went on to make a number of unsolicited comments including: “I didn’t think I was over the limit. I hate cyclists, I can’t stand them. Some of them are stupid, aren’t they. I’ll sign anything, I admit I’ve done it, I just want to go home.”

O.  M.  F.  G. 

(I cannot bring myself to read BTL on that story, because I know what I'll see...)

BTL is universally critical of driver, judicial system and mysterious disability. And goodwill to now disabled victim. No anti cycling comments. I realise this is unprecedented!

M20MAMIL wrote:

BTL is universally critical of driver, judicial system and mysterious disability. And goodwill to now disabled victim. No anti cycling comments. I realise this is unprecedented!

I think that's one of the portends of the end-times along with cats and dogs living together

hawkinspeter wrote:

I think that's one of the portends of the end-times along with cats and dogs living together

hawkinspeter wrote:

M20MAMIL wrote:

BTL is universally critical of driver, judicial system and mysterious disability. And goodwill to now disabled victim. No anti cycling comments. I realise this is unprecedented!

I think that's one of the portends of the end-times along with cats and dogs living together

Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling!

Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes...

The dead rising from the grave!

Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... MASS HYSTERIA!

I suppose it is because one of the people is being seen as a benefit cheat with the mysterious disability compared to middle class lady not causing cars any bother as she is on the pavement. 

Of course if said cyclist had hit somebody on the pavement.......

Referring to another part of this article 'who rules Britain's roads', it certainly doesn't seem to be the CPS or legal system!

How can someone be deemed unfit to appear in court....... yet there remains a possibility that she could still be deemed fit to be in charge of a motor vehicle.  

A Bacardi and Coke puts you twice over the legal limit?  Nope it's more likely to be about 8 or 9 units of alcohol, so around 1/3 of a bottle of Bacardi.... unless she is drinking Bacardi by the pint.... she was lying

Add in the aggrevating factors of the fact that she did a hit and run and the fact that she "hates cyclists" I just cannot understand how she could have avoided jail time even with her alleged disability.

TriTaxMan wrote:

Add in the aggrevating factors of the fact that she did a hit and run and the fact that she "hates cyclists" I just cannot understand how she could have avoided jail time even with her alleged disability.

That was one bit of it that I didn't understand.

Imagine any other situation where you could openly admit that you hated the group of which your victim was a member, and where that wouldn't be counted against you as making it aggravated whatever-the-crime-was.

brooksby wrote:

That was one bit of it that I didn't understand.

Imagine any other situation where you could openly admit that you hated the group of which your victim was a member, and where that wouldn't be counted against you as making it aggravated whatever-the-crime-was.

Nope I can't.  If it was any other situation it would be grounds for the judge moving towards the upper limit of the sentencing guidelines to start with.  Could you imagine in a homophobic assault case the defendent saying "I hate gays" and the judge simply ignoring it?  There would be outrage, and quite rightly so.  Same if it was race related, religion related etc etc.

TriTaxMan wrote:

Nope I can't.  If it was any other situation it would be grounds for the judge moving towards the upper limit of the sentencing guidelines to start with.  Could you imagine in a homophobic assault case the defendent saying "I hate gays" and the judge simply ignoring it?  There would be outrage, and quite rightly so.  Same if it was race related, religion related etc etc.

Until road danger is correctly addressed, I think we need cycling to become a protected characteristic. Though we suffer far less than other groups on a daily basis, I'd guess that more cyclists are unlawfully killed in the UK than any other protected group.

Yes - normally... but once the "mental incapacity" card's in play all bets are off.

We don't know the details here but e.g. had they already been assessed under the mental capacity act before court.  If not then know this is not easy to initiate unless the person can be persuaded to consent.  Otherwise it's (rightly) hard to compel this. However that can certainly lead to difficult situations.

Again the issue's the "licence ... but really a 'right', so we don't want to stop too many people".  Someone reminded me of the percentage of adult drivers - it's most.  And we're only testing once per lifetime.  There should be a conversation about connecting some major health issues with notifying the DVLA.  See guidance for doctors but it seems to be very much in favour of "only tell the patient that they must tell the DVLA".  And it's not obvious that this person would necessarily need to interact with the medics anyway.

TriTaxMan wrote:

brooksby wrote:

That was one bit of it that I didn't understand.

Imagine any other situation where you could openly admit that you hated the group of which your victim was a member, and where that wouldn't be counted against you as making it aggravated whatever-the-crime-was.

Nope I can't.  If it was any other situation it would be grounds for the judge moving towards the upper limit of the sentencing guidelines to start with.  Could you imagine in a homophobic assault case the defendent saying "I hate gays" and the judge simply ignoring it?  There would be outrage, and quite rightly so.  Same if it was race related, religion related etc etc.

The MEN story isn't the clearest reporting. She was (rightly or wrongly) found unfit to stand trial, which means a normal criminal trial cannot take place, and instead a Trial of the Facts was carried out.

A Trial of the Facts cannot lead to a jail sentence as the accused is not convicted of a crime; it is only established that they did carry out certain acts. As the person is not convicted of a crime, they cannot be punished - the powers of the court are only options "designed to treat, rehabilitate and support while, in the most serious cases, providing protection for the public." [source]. These can include supervision orders or hospital orders, but only when deemed necessary for the above purposes. Otherwise the result is an absolute discharge. 

I note the MEN states she was found unfit to stand because she is considered disabled under "the Disability Act" which is bollocks because there is no such act - the most commonly cited act regarding disability would be the Equality Act but that is largely irrelevant here (if everyone who qualified as disabled under the Equality Act was unfit to stand trial there would be anarchy!) What I assume they meant is that she was found be "under a disability such as to constitute a bar to [her] being tried" (that phrase is from the Criminal Procedure (Insanity) Act 1964 but the actual determination of what constitutes a bar to being tried is only set out in common law, not statute). 

As she has already caused the death serious injury of a person and doesn't seem overly concerned about that, it seems a major mistake to not constrict her movements (e.g. hospital) to protect the public or at least other cyclists.

It's quite staggering that a person that is unfit to stand trial is allowed full control of 2 tonnes of speeding metal on the public roads.

I agree its pretty staggering - as far as I can tell the problem is the two areas of legislation (driving and criminal proceedings) don't really intersect. So being mentally unfit to stand trial is not (in itself) sufficient to mean someone cannot get or keep a driving licence; and the Court has no power to remove the driving licence following a Trial of the Facts.

There are various mental conditions which you are meant to inform the DVLA if you suffer from them, but it's largely dependent on self-reporting, and even then you might be allowed to keep your licence.

(and she didn't kill the cyclist, just caused life changing injuries...)

Yeah - I must have got confused between this case and other ones.

I think we need to switch around the law around driving licences after serious incidents. Rather than it being up to a court to deny/restrict the licence, it should be down to the driver to prove that they are still fit to drive i.e. automatically revoke the licence after the incident and re-instate it as or when there's evidence that the driver wasn't at fault. That way, being unable to attend a court hearing would automatically involve being de-licenced. (It'd make sense to allow the ex-driver to attend via video as they wouldn't be able to drive to the court).

not surprising - if you have ever seen a seal underwater, those things are as fast and graceful when swimming as they are slow and undignified on land.

Wingguy wrote:

Ganna's bagginess is not arm warmers. With that picture of him on the turbo he's clearly already changed into a jersey and shorts, it has absolutely nothing to do with the long sleeve skinsuit he raced in. 

Not sure.  It does look like he's changed, as you say.  But looking at the picture on the course, it does look to me as if the skin suit is short sleeved, with arm warmers.  Look how smooth the material above the rainbow bands on his arms, and then ruffled immediately below.

No. You can see the ruffles bleeding into the rainbow stripes and gradually smoothing out. This is simply because the material on the upper arm is tighter (though I'd imagine there's also a seam where the bands are with a different material above and below). No way are they using separate armwarmers that are going to accidentally slip during a race - that's insanity.

The answer to the elbow bags is the first and most obvious one offered - it's precisely tailored to the elbow bend of that specific rider while in the TT position and nothing else.

I agree that on the turbo he has changed into a jersey and shorts (you can see the bibs underneath the jersey), but that doesn't preclude him having raced in a short sleeve skin suit with arm warmers; the racers were split yesterday between short sleeve and long sleeve suits, I would guess that Ganna was going to race in a short sleeve suit and then decided to add the arm warmers at the last minute.

Except that would be crazy and he obviously didn't.