Another one off the hook

[Bicycle]

Errr ........ committing murder by bashing some one with a baseball bat requires mens rea (intention) and actus rea (the act). Have you heard of these legal concepts? To commit murder a perpetrator would have to have shown both. People do not get into their cars with the intention of killing people. One would hope.

Driving on the roads is a lawful activity until it is done negligently which then makes it unlawful. The standard of driving must fall in decreasing degrees of incompetence below that of the standard of a competent and prudent hypothetical driver thus giving careless, reckless or dangerous driving.

When you understand these legal concepts then feel free to continue the debate. Until such time discussion is pointless.

Crankarm,

It was not I who introduced the topic of death by baseball bat, nor did I raise the issue of prosecution for murder.

You'll see from the post immediately above mine that I was replying to what I thought an inappropriate comparison between a death in a collision and murder or manslaughter with a baseball bat.

You make just the point I did. I was replying (inter alia) to the below quote from Glow Worm:

It seems to me if you bash someone to death with a baseball bat, you will get done for murder or manslaughter, yet if you do the same, but happen to attach the baseball bat to your car, you'll get points on your licence and a £100 fine.

I've read again my post that led you to suggest ending the debate until I gain some rudimentary grasp of law. I have little, but I mailed my quote that so offended you to my brother, a solicitor qualified in 1986.

He had no problem with my saying: If you bash someone to death with a baseball bat, the likelihood is that you have murdered them (dependent on the circumstances).
Nor did he have a problem with my saying: If someone dies in a collision and there seems to be evidence of wrongdoing, a case will need to be prepared.

The splendour of his lifestyle suggests that he is not a bad lawyer. I know little of the law, but your response to my innocent post made him chuckle and say something not unlike "See you next Tuesday". This may be a legal in-joke whose meaning is lost on me, as I am not expecting a visit from my brother next Tuesday.

As to when I might feel free to continue with this debate, your own post seems to prove that relevance and knowledge are not prerequisite.

I'm afraid I'm going to ignore your advice to stop posting. I hope you keep posting too.

 

[summerdays]

As to the motoring public, almost everyone I know falls into that category, cyclists and non-cyclists alike. None of us would drive 300 yards. None of us has tubby offspring.

This motoring public you identify may represent a minority or a majority I do not know and have rarely met.

I certainly know lots of people who drive short distances. One neighbour used to drive their child to the same school as we walked/cycled to - it's exactly 0.5 miles from my house to the middle of the playground (0.4 if you don't bother going in the gate) - but further by car as you can't take the shortcut. They weren't going on to work after either. I've seen parents who live on the school road drop their kids off as they pass the school!! And I was involved in the school travel plan so know from the data we collected how far away the parents lived and how they came to school.

I've also had another neighbour told me that due to the increase in petrol prices he was now walking to pick up the paper - that is another very short journey.

 

[Glow worm]

Errr ........ committing murder by bashing some one with a baseball bat requires mens rea (intention) and actus rea (the act). Have you heard of these legal concepts? To commit murder a perpetrator would have to have shown both.

To be fair as Bicycle has pointed out it was my rather clumsy analogy not his. Irrespective of intention, sentences for death by dangerous driving generally seem woefully inadequate in my view.

 

[gambatte]

Just not getting enough from the article to make a guess.
"riding his black mountain bike along a footpath on the A1079 and turned right on to the A614 towards Driffield at the Shiptonthorpe roundabout when he was hit."
Was he crossing an entry/exit to the RAB? Had he left the footpath to cycle round the roundabout on the road?
I'm guessing the former, but I don't know

 

[400bhp]

Ha! LoL. Avatar with a picture of a car on a race track ..................... .

Your point being?

 

[Jonno Boy]

I think we're not being told something here; impaired hearing and deteriorating eyesight is a recipe for disaster in any form.

 

[Crankarm]

To be fair as Bicycle has pointed out it was my rather clumsy analogy not his. Irrespective of intention, sentences for death by dangerous driving generally seem woefully inadequate in my view.

Messrs GlowWorm and Bicycle,

Criticism accepted. In the instant case the loss of life is such a waste and yes morally there was some one who was culpable but the machinery of justice let the victim and the wider reasonably minded of the community down again. However equating driving which is a lawful every day activity with serious violent offences or even murder is not helpful. Yes I suppose a few pyschos may deliberately knock down cyclists and pedestrians forming the requisite mens rea moments prior to ending some one's life, but the vast majority of drivers including the careless and inattentive ones do not set out to kill people. The legal system recognises this so the default offences are the motoring offences which are based upon the law of negligence ie a defendant's driving fell below, well below or was frantically diabolical compared to that of the normal prudent cautious driver. Stating that drivers use a car like a baseball bat is sensational and melodramatic, but I can see that it comes from the frustration of those who feel those injured or killed by careless or dangerous drivers feel the deceased and victims are ignored. This might well be the case. But the legal system is putting the defendant on trial and not a victim who is a witness, a very important witness nonetheless.

Many drivers do bully other road users with their cars or vehicles. I see enough of it everyday on the A14. When I commuted by bike I experienced numerous occasions where drivers drove at me and had I not bailed out I would dead many times over. Unfortunately in the absence of concrete compelling evidence the State will invariably prosecute them under the motoring offences rather than offences against the person assault, murder, etc. It is important to realise this otherwise the numbers imprisoned for murder or serious assault offences would be collossal. So it is therefore also a policy decision not to routinely charge errant drivers with assault, manslaughter, murder, etc. It is so difficult to prove, unless there is compelling evidence, that a driver of a vehicle formed the necessary intention to kill a cyclist or pedestrian with their vehicle. I have found many on cycling forums do not appreciate this and we get these ridiculous scenarios comparing driving with very serious offences against the person. In a very few cases, a tiny tiny number there will be pyshcos but the cps are reluctant to bring OAPA prosecutions and courts are even more reluctant to convict hence the specific motoring offences. Anyway they now include causing death by ............ driving and suitably long sentences although they are rarely invoked even for Denis Putz who caused the death of Catriona Patel at the Oval tube station.

RIP all those cyclists who have died on the roads.

 

[Davidc]

It's unlikely here any time soon, but a change to presumed liability, as in France, NL, Germany etc. would be a huge help to pedestrians and cyclists. It would possibly have altered the decision in this case.

All road deaths and injuries are sad, most are avoidable, around a tenth happen to cyclists. Nonetheless I have always felt safer on a bike than in a car and still do**. That's despite incidents and decisions like this. I'd be happier though if the courts would start taking decisions that made it clear that drivers' standards should be very much higher than presently are those of the bad ones.

**Perhaps part of that is that I've been injured and come close to death a considerable number of times in a car as a result of other peoples driving ineptitude, far less so on a bike, despite spending roughly the same length of time in/on the two.