A good or bad sentence\punishment

[deptfordmarmoset]

Removing the driver from the scenario is instructive. Removing the driver from the road is constructive, regardless of whether he had an attack of conscience or an attack of consequences. Once the damage is done, we have to make sure it's not going to happen again. 7 months is not enough to assure other cyclists that the offence has been equitably dealt with or to ensure that he doesn't do the same thing again.

 

[2Loose]

To paraphrase Bicycle, I think that sentencing is getting better than it was.

Someone was put it in hospital but is ok-ish, the person that did it can't drive for a year, pays out 800quid (at 25years old, gotta hurt) and has to do community service for his 'error'.

Now compare that to some of the extremely lenient sentences handed out for taking a life and this would appear to be a fair one, but only in comparison.

Things are getting better, but with the reduced number of police on the roads, this message about taking care on the road is not going to spread far at all.

 

[deckertim]

No cyclist involved...driver was FIVE times overlimit and hit a ten year old boy, injuring him. His punishment: banned for 3 years and jailed for 14 months

http://www.thisiskent.co.uk/where/m...14-months/article-3389232-detail/article.html

There always seems to be inonsistent sentencing, but I think this is more like what I would expect for such a crime.

 

[benborp]

The drivers defence stated in mitigation "We are not dealing with someone who was on the road illegally."

Two years ago my mother in law was nearly killed by a driver that shouldn't have been on the road. They were driving on a provisional licence, unaccompanied and without L plates. Witnesses claimed that the driver was travelling at 50-60mph in a 30mph limit. Weather conditions were appalling. Seeing a pedestrian in the road the driver sounded their horn but did not brake.
After the impact the driver continued and did not return to the scene until after they had arranged to pick up a passenger in order to assert that they were driving while accompanied. My mother in law meanwhile was lying in the road unable to breathe and without a pulse after having suffered a critical, serious brain injury. She only survived as she fortunately landed next to a car that was being driven by a doctor.

The driver received a £66 fine and 'some' points on her licence.

I think the driver in the OP received a sentence proportionate to his actions.

 

[guitarpete247]

"Not dealing with someone who was on the road illegally". We are now. Or for the next year at least. As someone else has said, he should now be cycling to work to see what it's like on the recieving end of the 'knob heads' out there a lot of you come across.

I don't commute by bike so don't witness it first hand as a cyclist. But even driving to work I come across the arrogant and the unthinking actions of other road users far too often.

 

[downfader]

OK lets ask another question: do we need a scale of accountability?

Set in stone that if you do this you get a harder sentence than if you do something that results in only a scratch to a car. If you kill or seriously injure then it puts you within the very top of that scale. I know judges already have guidelines, but do they use them effectively, and are they understanding them right? Is more guidence needed?

 

[Arch]

The drivers defence stated in mitigation "We are not dealing with someone who was on the road illegally."

How the hell is that mitigation? If anything, it ought to make it worse: here's someone who has passed their test and is therefore assumed to be capable of driving to an acceptable standard.

(My 'how the hell' isn't aimed at benborp, but at the very fact that it is meant to be mitigation)

 

[cyberknight]

How the hell is that mitigation? If anything, it ought to make it worse: here's someone who has passed their test and is therefore assumed to be capable of driving to an acceptable standard.

I think that if the driver is driving illegally then the sentence for that should be added to the original sentence for the particular offense in question as it has no bearing on whether or not they performed the offense.

Yes the judges do need more guidance on sentencing and they sentence should take " i was only driving my car guv" out of the equation and pass judgement on what happened so causing death would have the same sentence as manslaughter.