Jury clears ‘hungover’ Porsche driver of killing cyclist by dangerous driving

Awavey wrote:

. . . . . and had speeding convictions . . . . . post this incident.

I wonder if they will punish him properly next time he kills a cyclist?

The previous story in the same publication. Man jailed for 5 years for punching someone who died later.

https://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/23069291.benjamin-calvert-jailed-killin...

srchar wrote:

Quote:

When interviewed by police, Bryan insisted that Mr Jackson “came out of nowhere”

This phrase is used a lot in connection with cyclists. I know it's a complete cop-out, but it's too common for there not to be some cognitive reason that people perceive cyclists to appear from nowhere. Is it simple lack of attention? They see nothing until they hear the impact, therefore the brain reasons that the object simply materialised from nothing?

It's simply that the drivers aren't paying sufficient attention to the road in front of them and/or just looking for large car shaped objects. It absolutely should not be allowed as anything other than an admission of carelessness as you would surely fail a driving test if you failed to see a potential hazard.

Just this.

I don't see this fact changing while there's mass motoring.  Attention / "arousal" is a limited resource in humans.  How most people drive daily and "how to pass your test" are quite different; practice makes habit.  Also there are relatively few encounters with cyclists.  That means that people are not continually primed to be looking out for them and (even if trained) that habit lapses fast.  (Hence the reason for those "think bike" motorbike signs etc.)

Fixing - better training might help but I bet we'd soon hit a point of diminishing returns.  "Remove the bad drivers" doesn't stop this happening as everyone is careless at some point.  If there were more cyclists that might cue drivers to look out for them.  However we need to activate the virtuous circle - to get those extra cyclists AND to control interactions to make them safer we need help from engineering e.g. best practice infrastructure.   (That has very little in common with most current UK "cycle infra").

chrisonatrike wrote:

Just this.

I don't see this fact changing while there's mass motoring.  Attention / "arousal" is a limited resource in humans.  How most people drive daily and "how to pass your test" are quite different; practice makes habit.  Also there are relatively few encounters with cyclists.  That means that people are not continually primed to be looking out for them and (even if trained) that habit lapses fast.  (Hence the reason for those "think bike" motorbike signs etc.)

Fixing - better training might help but I bet we'd soon hit a point of diminishing returns.  "Remove the bad drivers" doesn't stop this happening as everyone is careless at some point.  If there were more cyclists that might cue drivers to look out for them.  However we need to activate the virtuous circle - to get those extra cyclists AND to control interactions to make them safer we need help from engineering e.g. best practice infrastructure.   (That has very little in common with most current UK "cycle infra").

I was close passed last week, by some twunt with a "Think bike" sticker in his back window

hawkinspeter wrote:

.. than an admission of carelessness ..

Driver did plead guilty to death by careless driving, but the fact they were hungover and on the phone shoudl have escalated it to dangerous.

Although here we have another cyclist, who by all eyewitness acounts, was there to be seen, yet still "came out of nowhere" and the police refused to prosecute, and a private prosecution failed as a jury of drivers accepted not seeing a cyclist directly in front of the drivers position was reasonable for a careful and competant driver.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-39516607

srchar wrote:

Quote:

When interviewed by police, Bryan insisted that Mr Jackson “came out of nowhere”

This phrase is used a lot in connection with cyclists. I know it's a complete cop-out, but it's too common for there not to be some cognitive reason that people perceive cyclists to appear from nowhere. Is it simple lack of attention? They see nothing until they hear the impact, therefore the brain reasons that the object simply materialised from nothing?

I can understand the phrase in situations where the person has only a partial view of the way ahead and proceeds on the assumption that if another vehicle were present then they would see at least part of it, ignoring the possibility of pedestrians or cyclists being completely concealed. Their brain pastes in the gaps in their view with empty space, so when a cyclist then appears it is as if from nowhere. Similarly with constant angle junctions.

However in this case it was a straight road, possibly with no other cars (lockdown, eh?) Was he only glancing ahead intermittently whilst absorbed in his phone screen, satisfying himself that the way ahead was clear as far as the eye can see (too far to notice a cyclist) before returning attention to his phone screen?

Good point.  Phone / device use (of any kind) while driving increases risk.  Being so common it might be that this is now one of the biggest contributors to extra risk overall - does anyone have numbers?  Might even have surpassed drink / drug driving?

The numbers would be difficult to ascertain, addicts will always deny use, requires forensic analysis.

And in both this case and the 30 second one a bit ago, there was apparently no phone use in relation to the crash. (Though of course there was)

To be honest, I'm seeing a little less blatent screening by motorists in traffic. Still some, how can they not! But not the multiples in a row.

Brains are part of the problem, they have not evolved to do the job that is being asked of them, they don't multi-task, they don't process data accurately, they don't alert you to error situations, they hide those. Which means that when doing tasks, you have to learn how to manage the limitations of the hardware.

Instead, we have people who would rather believe that they can achieve the impossible, partly because their own brain hides from them the amount of times it fails.

I've become increasingly conscious of how small distractions decrease the quality of my driving, yet normally I am amazed at the sheer quantity of data you can gather when you are paying attention, useless stuff like the cars around you where you recognise a boring silver car passing you that you overtook without incident 50 miles before.

Fundamentally, these crimes are judged against the low expectations of a typical driver rather than those of a reasonable, competent driver.

Another thing I've said before, the driving test is not really the minimum standard we need for driving. The advanced driving standard should be the criteria that everyone is judged by. It is not advanced, it is careful driving, observation, techniques for judging appropriate speed, how to overtake safely, setting safety above progress, etc. I'm struggling to think of anything in the Roadcraft manual that would be inappropriate or undesirable for any driver.

So careless driving could include driving that would not see a test failure, effectively the minor on a test, a dangerous criteria would be a major, for starters. So for example, why should going through a red light in a car be a minor offence, why shouldn't it be an instant charge of dangerous driving?

IanMSpencer wrote:

Brains are part of the problem [...]  Fundamentally, these crimes are judged against the low expectations of a typical driver rather than those of a reasonable, competent driver. Another thing I've said before, the driving test is not really the minimum standard we need for driving. The advanced driving standard should be the criteria that everyone is judged by. [...]

With you here.  I fail to understand many of these court decisions (or even the police simply not bothering the courts).

However in some senses the juries are simply relecting the reality of driving - they're just siding with the "winners" and the status quo.  We'd need to stop a *lot* of drivers driving immediately if we enforced careful competent driving at the level of the advanced driver.  We have lots of "average" (poor) drivers - or driving - with people habituated to cut corners and bend rules, frequently driving while tired or in states of "low arousal" or distracted.  There's no routine monitoring of their standard - or even their basic health.  Phone use seems pretty normal.  Vehicles are sold with built in distractions and "blind spots".  All happening on our current infra which is not effective at managing drivers' speeds and lacks some basic safety considerations.  Oh, and is in no way is suitable for most people to cycle on with those drivers.

I doubt any one change (e.g. to law) could do much in isolation.  Although some journeys could "evaporate" requiring a better standard would mean we need to provide alternatives for the large proportion of people who wouldn't meet this.  On the plus side - reducing motor vehicle journeys by them helps everyone else!

BalladOfStruth wrote:

Maybe this is due to most of my assumptions about the legal process being based on what I see on TV, but I was under the impression that your're under oath when giving evidence in court in the UK. Can someone explain to me why Mr Bryan and Ms Dower aren't now facing a seperate trial for perjury?

Lawyers are not under oath and cannot be charged with perjury for presenting the facts as reported to them by their client, even if the client is ultimately shown to be lying. The only way a lawyer can get in trouble in this situation is if it can be shown that they absolutely knew the client was lying (e.g., if the client said to them, what I'm going to say in court isn't true, I did actually do it). 

In terms of Bryan, the bar for perjury is pretty high, it has to be proved that the defendant absolutely knew that what he was saying was untrue; he can argue that in his recollection he pulled out to overtake and it would be the job of a prosecutor to prove that he was deliberately lying, rather than misremembering.

Additionally, it's very rare for a defendant to be prosecuted for perjury following a guilty verdict (which there is here, albeit not for the dangerous driving charge); it's generally accepted that the sentence is sufficient punishment. It simply wouldn't be practical to charge every defendant who doesn't tell the truth with perjury, by definition virtually anyone who pleads not guilty to an offence and is then found guilty must have lied in some way about what happened, if every guilty person had to face new charges of perjury the court system would grind to a halt almost immediately.

But if Bryan did see the cyclist then he would have moved to overtake him, giving as much clearance as if he were overtaking a car, precisely to allow for any unforseen deviation by the cyclist? So this has nothing to do with the cyclist "veering" (or not), and everything to do with Bryan driving dangerously.

Sriracha wrote:

But if Bryan did see the cyclist then he would have moved to overtake him, giving as much clearance as if he were overtaking a car, precisely to allow for any unforseen deviation by the cyclist? So this has nothing to do with the cyclist "veering" (or not), and everything to do with Bryan driving dangerously.

I don't disagree with any of that, it's pretty self evident that Bryan didn't make any adjustment for the cyclist and that he is very likely lying about it, I'm just pointing out how difficult it is to actually establish such facts in a court of law. My personal view is that if the courts had any sense he wouldn't even be charged with death by dangerous driving but with involuntary manslaughter ("an individual who has committed an unlawful killing without an intention to cause grievous bodily harm or kill the victim, causing the death by recklessness or gross negligence instead. In this case, recklessness is defined as committing an unlawful or dangerous act whilst showing disregard to the potential consequences") but sadly we have this ridiculous system whereby acts committed whilst behind the wheel of a car are somehow exempt from the laws governing every other area of life.

I think the facts were established by the expert witness, who would have been cross-examined to prove the veracity of his explanation. The jury would have probably given very little weight to the excuses of a cocaine user breaking lock-down and making up implausible explanations. From the few times I've been to court, the barristers are quite good at teasing out facts in a way that it is obvious where the truth lies. Unfortunately, in court reporting, the excuses get publicised with very little of the nuances, and give the impression that the case for or against reported part way through are accepted facts of a case.

I don't know what the answer is. When 90% of the population see no issue with these sort of driving "transgressions" (distraction, phone use, being a little hung over, speeding, ect), you're not going to get a jury to agree to throw the book at someone for doing what they do every day.

I don't think it will be a case of believing his version of events. Jurors are given direction, and also they have defence lawyers muddying the water. Given the definition of dangerous driving created by case law being almost entirely unrelated to driving dangerously, the jury may have felt he was as guity as sin, but not guilty of dangerous driving as explained to them by the judge, especially knowing that the fallback of careless was available. It is not clear whether the jury found him guilty of careless driving or the defence submitted a plea of accepting careless driving but the prosecution went ahead with the case.

Don't forget it's beyond reasonable doubt too, not on the balance of probabilities.

IanMSpencer wrote:

It is not clear whether the jury found him guilty of careless driving or the defence submitted a plea of accepting careless driving

In the linked article it states the accused had already pleaded guilty to careless driving. The jury were directed to consider a single issue; could it be proved beyond reasonable doubt that he was using his phone at the moment of the collision. Apparently, that would be the crucial test as to whether his driving was dangerous.

This to me seems ridiculous. The fact he was using his phone to send messages whilst driving prior to the collision, which was not contested, clearly showed his driving was dangerous. The stretch of road where the collision occurred has such good visibility that it is impossible for a cyclist to 'come out of nowhere'. Those two facts should have seen a guilty verdict in my view.

"However, he had already admitted causing death by careless driving and will be sentenced for that offence in October."

From the linked article, it would very much seem to be a case of believing the driver (Mr Bryan's) version of events (or at least not excluding his version of events beyond reasonable doubt).

From the details given, it sounds like the jury were essentially instructed to decide between two versions of events:

One (the driver's) in which the driver was watching the road ahead, went to overtake the cyclist, and as he did so the cyclist swerved out in front of him.

Or two, the driver ploughed straight into the back of the cyclist (who was cycling in a normal manner at the side of the road) having entirely failed to see the cyclist due to being distracted looking at his phone.

Forensic analysis of Mr Bryan’s phone showed that it was unlocked in the moments before the crash and the Instagram and Facebook apps were open.

An accident investigator who carried out a reconstruction of the accident said the bike was not in the middle of the road, but on the edge of the carriageway, near a grass verge, and that Mr Bryan had not tried to move around the bicycle.

The Jury believed version one (or at least had "reasonable doubt" over version two). 

If his parents were vulnerable then that was an exception to collect groceries for them.