CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Cycling News
cyclist charged with "by wanton or furious driving"
(140 posts)-
Posted 6 years ago #
-
"Cyclist's 'frightening' attack on girls"
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-41269520What next ? - "Cyclist, Kim Jong Un, threatens world with nuclear war..."
Posted 6 years ago # -
Crikey, seems like a terrible attack. Articles often give a description of the offender to try and help catch them. Hope they catch this guy!
Man wearing blue jeans and red top, and ran away on foot.
Man got into a red ford fiesta and made his getaway.
Cyclist attacks girls, and gets away on bike.All seem like reasonable descriptive terms to me. I don't think as a cyclist (or any of the other demographics) that the article is claiming all cyclists are likely to engage in such behavior.
The article also suggested he was muscular, should bodybuilders feel aggrieved?
Posted 6 years ago # -
Man got into a red ford fiesta and made his getaway.
Man attacks girls, and gets away on bike.
versus
Driver got into a red ford fiesta and made his getaway.
Cyclist attacks girls, and gets away on bike.If the media can get a pejorative cycling reference out there, they do.
Posted 6 years ago # -
This is a really disgraceful description of the unpleasant incident. Just substitute for "cyclist" any racial or religious adjective and you'll see how wrong it is. I strongly suspect the wording would have come from a police press release. They need training, but shame on the BBC for reporting it in this way.
Posted 6 years ago # -
@Baldcyclist I'll bite.
Of course they are trying to make a thing out of the attacker being a cyclist. The title of the article is "Police hunt cyclist after 'frightening' attack on schoolgirls". Instead of cyclist they could have used man, older man, fat man, man with blue jacket, bodybuilder, bald man...but no, they chose cyclist.
Posted 6 years ago # -
This cyclist should be easy to identify because he has 'muscular shoulders and arm', although they don't specify which one.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Really, you actually think people are saying, "those b*st*rd cyclists, pavement cycling, red light running, girl attacking barstwards" Really?
It may be bad use of language on the part of the writer, but to be honest I think the only people that think people are thinking the above, are well humans who sit on bikes and propel them along with their legs; who don't want to be called 'cyclists' because they somehow associate that as a negative term.
I'm a cyclist, and happy to be referred to as one in the same vane that I'm happy to be refered to as a driver when carrying out those respective tasks.
Posted 6 years ago # -
"Really, you actually think people are saying, "those b*st*rd cyclists, pavement cycling, red light running, girl attacking barstwards" Really?"
Yep. Some of them write comments in such a vein on an internet - the "porty people" group on the FaceBox is a good start. Some people speak thus IRL, including some of the tabard people at the Leith Street conflict zone, whose conversation I overheard on my slow and careful way past. Not yet citing those three particular things all at the same time, but give it a couple of weeks and another couple of high-profile internet newspaper stories about cyclist-pedestrian collisions and "pedestrian-injuring" will start to creep in, alongside a selection of the existing "RLJ-ing, non-helmet-wearing, pavement-mounting, elastane-mix-clothing-wearing" stuff.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Posted 6 years ago #
-
You chose to ride at a speed and on a bike which you could not stop, your attitude being that everyone else would just have to get out of your way
god bless the court of public opinion
Posted 6 years ago # -
The judge has heard all the evidence & seen the defendent: Have you?
Posted 6 years ago # -
am satisfied in some part it was this so-called thrill that motivated you to ride without a front brake shouting and swearing at pedestrians to get out of the way.
I would absolutely hope the Judge has a firm basis to go on, as otherwise such an emotionally charged statement as that would be the foundation of an appeal.
I would also imagine Martin Porter will publish a blog (his piece on the expert witness testimony is already illuminating) about the sentencing of this case which will fill in a lot more of the details.
Posted 6 years ago # -
18 months for a life. I think what we can take from the sentence is that killing someone on a road, no matter what you are piloting, results in a lenient sentence.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Not as lenient as this killer's
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/may/03/motorist-kills-second-cyclist-edinburghPosted 6 years ago # -
The judge has heard all the evidence & seen the defendent: Have you?
I know the boy was going 18 mph, and was 6 metres away when the victim stepped out onto the road. He tried to swerve behind her walking trajectory to avoid an immediate collision. Unfortunately the victim then backtracked into the cyclists path.
Front brake or no front brake, its possible that many cyclists would have attempted a similar manoeuvre, especially if there was any following traffic immediately behind.
The court of public opinion does not cycle regularly, and is not likely to have much understanding of the dynamics of the situation and certainly very limited sympathy, as can be ascertained by the judge's comments.
Posted 6 years ago # -
In fact, if you're minded to kill someone with your car, or more likely do not care whether you do or not, take out a cyclist. You'll be spared jail.
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/40-cyclists-killed-4-drivers-jailed-exclusive-investigation-reveals-only-one-in-10-drivers-are-9034187.htmlPosted 6 years ago # -
He was 6m away when he started to swerve. The victim actually stepped into the road 3.8 seconds before the crash. He had much more time to avoid the collision than you seem to believe.
EDIT: FWIW Even his own mother thinks he got an appropriate sentencePosted 6 years ago # -
The boy managed to navigate an entire box junction shouting twice before he even attempted stopping. Much further than 6m, there was more than the brakes at issue.
Comparing this sentence with that sentence isn't particularly helpful. They are all responsible for killing, and all too leinient.
Posted 6 years ago # -
The victim actually stepped into the road 3.8 seconds before the crash
i'm not sure how much more time that actually is.
lets say two seconds to make the decision to swerve behind the pedestrian's trajectory, and then another 1.8 seconds elapse before the collision ?
undoubtedly, he made the wrong decision, not anticipating that the pedestrian might panic and backtrack.
yet i see little difference between this and the motorists who routinely get away without being punished for causing road death by citing that the sun was in their eyes, momentarily.
after all, by continuing to drive regardless, everyone else would just have to get out of their way, right?
but the court of public opinion isn't at all likely to say that they drove at a speed, and with an attitude, that was inappropriate for the conditions in which they could not deal with other road users in front of them.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Always looked like a custodial as he showed little or no remorse, tweeting he was sorry but it was the woman's fault, IIRC. Whereas the double cyclist killer continuously expressed remorse and was given 300 hours.
The husband points out that just because something is rare or unlikely to happen does not mean there should be no remedy.
One major issue for us of course is that there is a remedy for drivers who kill but it doesn't happen.
All tricky moral dilemmas and needs careful thought and consideration not knee jerk reactions.
That is my 2p
Posted 6 years ago # -
i'm not sure how much more time that actually is.
18mph = 8 metres per second.
I would say do the maths, but he had slowed to between 10 & 14mph when he smacked into her which complicates the issue.
Still plenty of time, even if you ignore that as a cyclist you should be pretty good at anticipating when someone is about to step out into the road, so saying that he only had 3.8 seconds to do something is possibly being generous.Posted 6 years ago # -
i'm not sure how much more time that actually is.
18mph is 8m/s. So:3.8s at 18mph is 30m.
6m at 18mph is 0.75s.Posted 6 years ago # -
"the prosecution case was that Alliston was 6.53 metres away when Mrs Briggs stepped out"
only sounds like a couple of seconds max
Posted 6 years ago # -
Martin Porter, like some others I could mention, has allowed emotion to get in the way of accuracy.
Posted 6 years ago # -
au contraire, its the court that makes emotional decisions.
take for example, that in an adjacent courtroom on the same day/time as the Alliston trial:
22 year old Wells was riding her motorbike at 44 mph in a 30 mph area "weaving in and out of traffic", overtaking a lorry and undertaking a learner driver moments before hitting and killing 80 year-old Ian Rose as he got off a bus. Ms Wells had noticed a speed camera and checked her dashboard in a way which distracted her at the moment of collision.
Wells was given a suspended sentence, with the judge pointing out that she had shown remorse, was aware that she taken a life ("a fact you will have to live with for the rest of your life") and that it was "clear that you are a sympathetic and compassionate young woman".
Posted 6 years ago # -
Like every other bit of whatabouterry on the internet, that has no bearing on whether the sentnence in Charlie's case is appropriate.
Posted 6 years ago # -
straw man argument, stiltskin.
what i did was criticise the words of the judge, by declaring it to be the voice of public opinion.
you leapt on that.
Posted 6 years ago # -
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-41337440
"The government is launching a review into whether a new law is needed to tackle dangerous cycling."
Posted 6 years ago #
Reply »
You must log in to post.
posts
