CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » General Edinburgh

Another pedestrian death in Edinburgh (8/12/2012)

(24 posts)

  1. Focus
    Member

    And I knew him from my badminton-playing days as a kid. Gavin Fulton was knocked down by a vehicle as he walked along the pavement in Dundas Street around 1:20 on Saturday morning after being at a Christmas night out.

    Family's tribute to man killed in Dundas Street in Edinburgh,

    Man charged over death of pedestrian in New Town

    Given the time and the fact Gavin was walking on the pavement, drink-driving is looking likely, especially as the driver has been charged. I didn't know Gavin's wife or kids but I feel so sorry for them.

    Posted 12 years ago #
  2. le_soigneur
    Member

    Already posted on OT Pedestrian Death/Walk/cycle on pavements unsafe?
    Admin pls merge?

    I know the deceased and his family and they are devastated in the run up to Xmas.

    Posted 12 years ago #
  3. Focus
    Member

    Sorry, missed that. I hadn't seen Gavin since we were around school age but it's no less shocking to find out.

    Posted 12 years ago #
  4. le_soigneur
    Member

    ‏@edinburghpaper 40m
    Drunk driver Keith McCardle pleads guilty over death of Gavin Fulton: http://bit.ly/ITSLVB

    Posted 11 years ago #
  5. Dave
    Member

    Must be a relief for the family that there's to be no trial, it must be the worst thing to have to relive it all.

    (Although to be fair, juries don't seem as sympathetic to drink drivers as they are to the sober ones who take lives - a good lesson in the effectiveness of making at least some types of bad driving socially unacceptable).

    Posted 11 years ago #
  6. Cyclingmollie
    Member

    BBC website describes him as driving a Land Rover Freeloader.

    Posted 11 years ago #
  7. Focus
    Member

    Terrible that it's taken a full year for Gavin's killer to plead guilty but hopefully there is some sense of justice though it remains to be seen what the sentence is (and how much of it is served).

    Posted 11 years ago #
  8. shuggiet
    Member

    Powerful statements from the family in the Herald today. The pain to families like this, is not worth the benefits society perceive for motorized convenience.

    Posted 11 years ago #
  9. le_soigneur
    Member

    The 3 preliminary hearings that the defendant put the family through before admitting guilt show contempt. He's successfully avoided being sentenced before Xmas, unlike the sentence he gave his victim.
    Plus there is nothing about him allegedly shrugging his shoulders over the body, driving off leaving the scene or having to be breathalysed 3 hours later when he was still steamin'! The 2 women that got in the car with him are just as bad.
    Hopefully he gets a ban and a custodial on Jan 10, if only to stop him endangering anyone else.

    Posted 11 years ago #
  10. chdot
    Admin

  11. twq
    Member

    I still fail to understand the short driving ban. It's not like he accidentally drank then got behind the wheel.

    Posted 11 years ago #
  12. Have to agree. Good to see a proper jail sentence handed down. But 8 years driving ban for someone who deliberately got into a car when drunk and killed someone - that really is one of those situations where a life ban wouldn't be out of proportion.

    Posted 11 years ago #
  13. Dave
    Member

    I've come to the conclusion that the best way not to go insane over our daft judiciary is to compare everything in relative terms.

    Kill a cyclist, often just a few points and a wee fine (I don't have the stomach to list examples, Google will provide plenty to those who are interested).

    In comparison this offender has received a brutal sentence.

    The key is not to compare it to other offences (especially tax/property) in case you realise the very low monetary value our system places on lives.

    Posted 11 years ago #
  14. fimm
    Member

    What does it say about the situation that when I saw the sentance was 8 years, I thought "that's quite a lot" (I mean compared to others I'm seen, not in absolute terms)?

    Posted 11 years ago #
  15. Dave, that only really works if it's the same driving circumstances (e.g. in this case being drink driving).

    Posted 11 years ago #
  16. DaveC
    Member

    I can't see him having a driving ban for more than 3 years! He'll be out in half his sentence if he's a good boy. Thats 2.5 years. Then all he has to do is appeal his ban on grounds that he can't work/aged mother requires ferrying round, and a sherrif will hand him back his licence.

    Posted 11 years ago #
  17. le_soigneur
    Member

    Strange that the case/sentence never took into account that he allegedly left the scene.

    Posted 11 years ago #
  18. It possibly did, just not reported on the site. Wonder if the judgment is online yet....

    Posted 11 years ago #
  19. le_soigneur
    Member

  20. Dangerous
    Member

    Couple of points from reading the above article.

    When does his Eight Years driving ban start ? Does it start when he is released from prison or from now ?

    Quoting from the article "He was more than one and a half times OVER the legal drink driving limit"

    This to me is much softer than saying he was more than 2.5 times the legal limit. Anyone else agree ?

    Posted 11 years ago #
  21. Cyclingmollie
    Member

    "you had only three previous convictions" You're not meant to have convictions. I've been driving since 1985 and have none. No points ever. That's the normal as far as I'm concerned.

    @Dangerous Yes, 2.5 times the legal limit does sound more.

    When did driving get so crap? Last night I was tailgated for two miles until I just drew to a halt to see what would happen. Nothing of course. Drove on and the other car turned next right. And everyone sits at stops with the foot brake on. Lucky modern brakes don't suffer from brake-fade. Still dazzling for the driver behind though.

    Posted 11 years ago #
  22. Murun Buchstansangur
    Member

    "This to me is much softer than saying he was more than 2.5 times the legal limit. Anyone else agree ?"

    His reading was 63mg of alcohol per 100ml of breath. The legal limit is 35mg, so 1.8 times the limit. Of course his alleged disappearance from the scene would have consequently delayed the breath test and reduced the reading.

    Speaking more generally, culpable drivers failing to stop when a person is injured or worse should be punished heavily - it seems to be at epidemic proportions. For instance, I recently saw a repeat of 'Motorway Cops' or a similar series where a cyclist was knocked down at night and killed on a dual carriageway in Essex. The driver did not report it until they arrived at their family home and claimed they thought they had hit a deer.

    I subsequently googled the road in question to find more details and found no fewer than 3 cyclist fatalities & serious injuries in the last few years that were hit-and-runs.

    Incidently, in the TV programme case, no further action was taken against the driver by the police/CPS. Apparently, the cyclist had alcohol in his system and there was no evidence he had lights.

    Be careful out there, folks.

    Posted 11 years ago #
  23. le_soigneur
    Member

    Looks like he will have to re-sit the test when the ban is up.
    @Dangerous: The 63mg/100ml Blood Alcohol Count(BAC) was at 04:20h, 3 hours after the running over at 01:20h. According to the BAC calculator, for a 180lbs man that meant his BAC would have been 120mg/100ml at the time he hit the victim.
    That would be 12X 5%-by-volume drinks consumed, not 4 as stated by his legal.
    More than 3 times the legal limit!
    The word on the street is that his passenger had a tiff with him and pulled the steering wheel- hence the jeep wobbled all over the road and across the oncoming lane to mount the opposite footpath rather than just veering drunkenly.

    Posted 11 years ago #
  24. chdot
    Admin


RSS feed for this topic

Reply

You must log in to post.


Video embedded using Easy Video Embed plugin