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Driver who killed cyclist escapes jail sentenceJustice (Lonpicman, Wikimedia Commons)

Driver who killed cyclist escapes jail sentence

Community service for driver who hit cyclist from behind at 2am
by John Stevenson
Tue, Aug 26, 2014 13:15
37

A man convicted of causing the death of a cyclist by careless driving has walked free from a Scottish court after being handed a sentence of 300 hours community service and a four-year driving ban.

Alastair Dudgeon died after being hit by James Sneddon's Vauxhall Astra at about 2am on January 6, 2013 near the Kincardine Bridge in Fife.

According to The Scotsman's Dave Finlay, the High Court in Edinburgh was told on Monday that Mr Dudgeon, from High Valleyfield, Fife, regularly cycled to and from his work as a baker at a Tesco store in Camelon, on the outskirts of Falkirk.

He sustained a broken neck, rib fractures and internal injuries, including to the aorta — the main artery from the heart — when he was hit from behind by Sneddon.

Sneddon denied the charge of causing death by dangerous driving, and was found guilty of the lesser offence of causing death by careless driving.

One witness told the court that weather conditions were clear and visibility was reasonable even though the riad was not lit.

A police constable estimated he could see the flashing rear light on Dudgeon's bike from about 200 metres away as he drove to the scene.

Prosecuting, advocate depute Bruce Erroch reminded the court that the Highway Code told drivers to give motorcyclists, cyclists and horse riders at least as much room as when overtaking a car.

He told jurors that if they thought Mr Dudgeon had contributed in some way to his death by not wearing a high-visibility jacket, that was not something that absolved Sneddon. He said what mattered was that the driver should have seen Dudgeon well before the collision and taken steps to avoid him.

Defence counsel Emma Toner said Sneddon had expressed genuine remorse for having been the cause of Dudgeon's family's loss.

Sentencing Sneddon, judge Nigel Morrison said: “The death of Alastair Dudgeon at the age of 51 is a tragedy for his family.”

Mr Dudgeon’s widow was “devastated” by the loss, he said, but he was taking into accoount the lack of aggravating factors such as deliberate course of bad driving, drinking or using a mobile phone.

He noted that Sneddon had been assessed as posing a very low risk of re-offending.

Sneddon's sentence is within the recommended sentencing range (see page 15) for causing death through careless or inconsiderate driving arising from momentary inattention with no aggravating factors.

Causing death by careless driving
Fatality
Alastair Dudgeon
James Sneddon
John Stevenson

John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.

He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.

Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.

John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.

He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.

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37 comments

Avatar
shay cycles | 9 years ago
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With bans being difficult to enforce we might need a completely new thinking on who can drive what, and on the need for drivers to have licences with them, so that bans could actually be enforced - this is straight off the top of my head so may be totally impractical!

We are about to enter a new regime with VED where there is no need for a disc to be displayed from 1st October because the whether the vehicle is taxed, insured and covered by a current MOT(where applicable) will be found from just the registration plate.

Imagine if the registration plate also linked to those people registered to drive that specific vehicle (and all drivers were required as a condition of maintaining a licence to register to drive only specified vehicles) - there could be exceptions for hire vehicles, PSV and good vehicles where checks on licences before driving are already the norm).

I may be just rambling here; but take away the entitlement to drive everything and the chances of illegal drivers being identified would be much higher. Is there any sense in this?

Avatar
Eebijeebi replied to Joeinpoole | 9 years ago
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Joeinpoole wrote:
Eebijeebi wrote:

One or two need to re-read the judge's words to the jury. He was telling them that the cyclist not wearing a hi-vis was no reason to find the driver not guilty of the offence charged.

You yourself need to re-read the article. It was the prosecutor who said that (to the jury), not the judge.

I stand corrected, it was indeed the prosecutor, but the point being that the jury were made aware that not wearing a high vis should not be taken into account when deciding the driver's guilt or innocence. Some appeared to read it as the opposite.

Avatar
oldstrath replied to Eebijeebi | 9 years ago
0 likes
Eebijeebi wrote:
Joeinpoole wrote:
Eebijeebi wrote:

One or two need to re-read the judge's words to the jury. He was telling them that the cyclist not wearing a hi-vis was no reason to find the driver not guilty of the offence charged.

You yourself need to re-read the article. It was the prosecutor who said that (to the jury), not the judge.

I stand corrected, it was indeed the prosecutor, but the point being that the jury were made aware that not wearing a high vis should not be taken into account when deciding the driver's guilt or innocence. Some appeared to read it as the opposite.

The point surely is that this should never have been mentioned at all. Together with all the rubbish about remorse it is utterly irrelevant. Sneddon either deliberately drove into someone, has spectacularly defective vision, or has the concentration span of a distracted kitten. Whichever of these is true he should never drive again. That is all that matters - the rest is meaningless special pleading.

Avatar
Eebijeebi replied to oldstrath | 9 years ago
0 likes
oldstrath wrote:
Eebijeebi wrote:
Joeinpoole wrote:
Eebijeebi wrote:

One or two need to re-read the judge's words to the jury. He was telling them that the cyclist not wearing a hi-vis was no reason to find the driver not guilty of the offence charged.

You yourself need to re-read the article. It was the prosecutor who said that (to the jury), not the judge.

I stand corrected, it was indeed the prosecutor, but the point being that the jury were made aware that not wearing a high vis should not be taken into account when deciding the driver's guilt or innocence. Some appeared to read it as the opposite.

The point surely is that this should never have been mentioned at all. Together with all the rubbish about remorse it is utterly irrelevant. Sneddon either deliberately drove into someone, has spectacularly defective vision, or has the concentration span of a distracted kitten. Whichever of these is true he should never drive again. That is all that matters - the rest is meaningless special pleading.

The law doesn't agree with you.

Avatar
oldstrath replied to Eebijeebi | 9 years ago
0 likes
Eebijeebi wrote:
oldstrath wrote:
Eebijeebi wrote:
Joeinpoole wrote:
Eebijeebi wrote:

One or two need to re-read the judge's words to the jury. He was telling them that the cyclist not wearing a hi-vis was no reason to find the driver not guilty of the offence charged.

You yourself need to re-read the article. It was the prosecutor who said that (to the jury), not the judge.

I stand corrected, it was indeed the prosecutor, but the point being that the jury were made aware that not wearing a high vis should not be taken into account when deciding the driver's guilt or innocence. Some appeared to read it as the opposite.

The point surely is that this should never have been mentioned at all. Together with all the rubbish about remorse it is utterly irrelevant. Sneddon either deliberately drove into someone, has spectacularly defective vision, or has the concentration span of a distracted kitten. Whichever of these is true he should never drive again. That is all that matters - the rest is meaningless special pleading.

The law doesn't agree with you.

Written in tablets of stone? Surely this is exactly the sort of changes to the law we should be demanding.

Avatar
oozaveared replied to oldstrath | 9 years ago
0 likes
oldstrath wrote:
Eebijeebi wrote:
Joeinpoole wrote:
Eebijeebi wrote:

One or two need to re-read the judge's words to the jury. He was telling them that the cyclist not wearing a hi-vis was no reason to find the driver not guilty of the offence charged.

You yourself need to re-read the article. It was the prosecutor who said that (to the jury), not the judge.

I stand corrected, it was indeed the prosecutor, but the point being that the jury were made aware that not wearing a high vis should not be taken into account when deciding the driver's guilt or innocence. Some appeared to read it as the opposite.

The point surely is that this should never have been mentioned at all. Together with all the rubbish about remorse it is utterly irrelevant. Sneddon either deliberately drove into someone, has spectacularly defective vision, or has the concentration span of a distracted kitten. Whichever of these is true he should never drive again. That is all that matters - the rest is meaningless special pleading.

Avatar
FluffyKittenofT... | 9 years ago
0 likes

Regarding 'mens rea' - I know that's the legal difference. I just don't entirely agree with it, Latin name and all.

Its a dubious distinction in many cases, one that seems to have the effect of minimising bad behaviour by those with power.

Giving the thoughts in someone's head excessive importance means judging those with power by softer standards than those without, because the former don't _need_ to consciously think about causing harm, they can do so without making any special effort. (I think this also applies to issues other than road safety).

For someone on a bike to kill they have to go to a special effort (such as getting a gun) which will show 'intent'. For someone in a car they just have to let their mind go blank for a moment. The end result is the same, however, its just that the more powerful party doesn't need the conscious intent at an individual level, its more of a collective decision (on the part of all drivers to accept a low standard of driving, which is statistically guaranteed to kill at least a few people).

If one group collectively decides to habitually take risks with the safety of another group then I'm not sure that is morally very different from an individual deciding to deliberately injure another individual.

We have a situation where regardless of how many lights or high-viz you have, regardless that you did absolutely nothing wrong, a driver can still randomly kill you and pay almost no price for doing so, as society accepts that such a thing is just "one of those things" and to be regarded as almost normal.

Who in their right mind wants to take up cycling when that holds true? You might as well take up Russian roulette as a hobby.

Though I guess what I'm saying regarding 'intent' is just another way of saying that the more powerful party should have the greater burden of care.

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