An interesting (saddening) read about the process of investigating a cyclist being hit from behind by a car.
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Cycling News
Legal system futility in Englandshire
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Posted 8 years ago #
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Indeed, an excellent blog post.
Posted 8 years ago # -
Certainly a depressing blog post.
The irony of course if he'd driven into the back of a car there would have been no case. Likely no one would have died and insurance automatically faults the driver behind.
Posted 8 years ago # -
interesting that thsi came up in the comments
" failing to drive a vehicle competently" or "failing to operate a vehicle safely"Or perhaps "failing to operate a vehicle within the constraints of the environment" Namely to avoid people being able to blame the low sun/refraction off some nearby heifers.
MAybe that'd be too open to interpretation though.
Posted 8 years ago # -
In my opinion Baz is probably the best bike blogger out there.
A lot of things in the article chimed so so true.
"I’m not anti-driver (I drive a lot, for a start), I’m just in favour of people not driving objects into other people and killing or seriously injuring them. It’s like arguing against people getting stabbed with knives and then being accused of being anti-cooking."
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"For the most stark illustration of this, look no further than the way the trial investigates whether the victim is an experienced rider and whether the defendant is an “advanced driver”. It would seem that in the case of the former, lack of aptitude implies greater blame; whilst in the case of the latter, lack of aptitude implies lower expectations. An astonishing reversal of attitude."
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"But instead we construct unnecessarily complex and hopelessly vague statute that basically asks jurors: “This thing that happened here, is it quite significantly worse than however you drive yourself?”"
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"Instead of simply deciding that driving into the back of someone is not acceptable, excuse after excuse is available and we will pick and choose when and to whom the Highway Code applies. If you’re not fully compliant with the Highway Code when you’re killed, you’ll be used as an excuse. If you can’t be used as an excuse yourself, we’ll claim the Highway Code didn’t matter anyway."
Posted 8 years ago # -
"But instead we construct unnecessarily complex and hopelessly vague statute that basically asks jurors: “This thing that happened here, is it quite significantly worse than however you drive yourself?”"
Spot on.
Posted 8 years ago #
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