While the driver running a red is at fault, I do wonder if the cyclist did a check to see if it was safe to cross or even if that was possible to do so (I'm drilling into my kids all the time -when the light says green to cross at a pedestrian crossing, all it means is a green light -not that they cross without looking first!). Of course I'm not saying the cyclist carries the blame, just that it's obviously important that you look. A red light is no magical physical stopping device -I really like Zoiders post about this.
Another thing: I'm not going to claim I know the answers -in fact I'd be lying if I didn't say I'm completely confused about what "justice" means, or how you achieve it. E.g. some of the questions I think about-
Did the driver make one horrendous mistake? Should he be imprisoned for a longer period? Does that change things for the better? If he was jailed for substantially longer, is it an effective or productive deterrent? Having done it, is it enough punishment for him? (e.g. some people punish themselves far more effectively than any justice system can) in fact, what do we wish a sentence to achieve?
However, it's easy to ask those questions -but what if the cyclist were my child? My wife? I'm certainly not sure I'd answer those aforementioned questions in the same way. And then there's the approach of an extremely harsh punitive reaction, e.g. this was a very big news story in the States in the 1990's:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_P._Fay It's safe to say I'm not a fan of caning someone for vandalism (seems a bit harsh to me), BUT I did catch myself asking myself the question "If I were Michael Fay, would I vandalize cars in Singapore again?" The answer, to be brutally honest, is a resounding no. So for all my wishy washy liberal ways, am I saying to myself that a harsh punitive approach works? In a similar vein, let's say, for example, all red light jumpers were imprisoned for life and all their financial assets seized, would this reduce the number of red light jumpers? Again, in all brutal honesty, I do believe this would be true -so does this mean that kind of extreme punishment works?
Again, I don't know the answers -but I do know I think it's rarely a case of clearly defined black and white (though who knows, in this case it might be). Just some thoughts.