Uninsured lorry driver pleads guilty to causing death of cyclist Alan Neve

vonhelmet wrote:

It's a fair point that it could be argued that it's negligent manslaughter, but please please please can we stop calling it murder? It's not murder. It just isn't.

Yep. Totally agree. Murder requires intent to kill some one which is unlikely. As egregious as the death of Alan Neve is, it was not murder, gross negligence perhaps, even manslaughter as he could have been grossly reckless, but not murder, unless there is evidence to the contrary such as footage of him shouting words of intent to kill before he drove into and over Mr Neve. Awful in any explanation of events. The driver should go to prison for a long long time and be banned from driving for life and have to wear an electronic tracker tag for life when he is released to deter him from driving ever again.

Das wrote:

Its not fair to blame the employer without knowing what checks were made. As a banned driver its unlikely he bothered returning any licence he had. He maybe even reported his licence lost at some point and used that as proof to his employer that he has/had a licence. Employers have no way of checking a licence is valid. The DVLA wont give out that information due to data protection, and unless hes employed in some kind of security work or with children they'd have no reason to ask for a Disclosure check.

It is fair to blame the employer. Everyone who is employed submits a resume which should be checked, including qualifications which show your ability to do the job. You don't just turn up to work as a doctor without someone checking you can do the job. It doesn't really take much to do these checks and for the purposes of insuring their vehicle they must have someone qualified to drive. Of course they share the blame.

Colin Peyresourde wrote:

It is fair to blame the employer. Everyone who is employed submits a resume which should be checked, including qualifications which show your ability to do the job. You don't just turn up to work as a doctor without someone checking you can do the job. It doesn't really take much to do these checks and for the purposes of insuring their vehicle they must have someone qualified to drive. Of course they share the blame.

what happens if he was self employed though,precisely because he could never pass those employer checks, then there are no real checks & balances are there...unless the business hiring his company insist on checking as well, cant help think theres far more to come out of this

jacknorell wrote:

Das wrote:

mrmo wrote:

who was his employer*? shouldn't they also be in the dock as an accomplice?

* I am assuming he isn't an owner driver with that sort of track record.

Its not fair to blame the employer without knowing what checks were made. As a banned driver its unlikely he bothered returning any licence he had. He maybe even reported his licence lost at some point and used that as proof to his employer that he has/had a licence. Employers have no way of checking a licence is valid. The DVLA wont give out that information due to data protection, and unless hes employed in some kind of security work or with children they'd have no reason to ask for a Disclosure check.

BS. DVLA will give out that information as Data Protection doesn't apply around parties who have a legal right to know.

ZipCar will get you, and DVLA, on a conference call to verify you have a valid non-sanctioned licence when you take out a membership.

If they can, an employer can even more easily.

If he presented a "valid" licence why would they have any reason not to believe him? As I said its not fair to blame the employer without knowing what checks were made at the time. He might have even been a agency driver, so an employer would expect the agency to do these checks. I know when I started my work they took I photo copy of my licence, I was never asked if I was a banned driver.

Quote:

Every employer I have worked for has demanded to see a licence before they will let you near a company vehicle, and demanded to see the licence at regular intervals there after. Granted it isn't foolproof, but with the drivers history you do have to wonder about the employers attitude.

So if he produced a licence and every time after that as asked too that is still his employers fault? He’s hardly likely to rock up for a job interview and tell them hes currently serving a ban for driving whilst disqualified on 5 occasions now is he? Im not saying his employer wasn’t at fault, im saying no one here knows what checks his employer did or did not make, yet most people here appear to have been working in the HR Dept of the company he was employed by. It’s so easy to have multiple (valid) licences in this country, and yes I know that it is illeagal.

Das wrote:

I know when I started my work they took I photo copy of my licence, I was never asked if I was a banned driver.

I would argue that employer would be liable, as only checking against DVLA would be reliable. See what Wardy74 said:

"I have signed a form allowing my employer to be notified immediately of any endorsements without me saying anything to them. The systems are in place already, so any employer can and really should check credentials before allowing someone to work for them, even if they are only sub-contracting. "

Das wrote:

Im not saying his employer wasn’t at fault, im saying no one here knows what checks his employer did or did not make.

We do know, the checks were not adequate to establish whether he was driving a company vehicle legally. One of the immediate effects of that is the fleet insurance isn't valid.

This driver is likely to have been self employed owning his vehicle, as he certainly wouldn't be able to lease one with his (lack of) driving licence.

From what you're saying, the standards for verifying the legal ability to drive a vehicle are low indeed.

Reading between the lines, that's normal, so a systemic failure to ensure the most basic level of safety for company drivers or road users in the vicinity of those drivers.

Wouldn't that be against his human rights though
Notwithstanding the copious propaganda from the gutter press and rightwing nutters, there's absolutely nothing in the human rights act or the ECHR(European Convention on Human Rights, one of Churchills better ideas) that would prevent people incapable of driving safely from being banned from driving, or being imprisoned for flouting an existing driving ban.

Human rights exist - whether you like it or not - but it's worth recalling that they are *your*/*everyones* protection against an overbearing state.

The problem isn't "human rights", it's with the the police and the cps, to a large extent, and also with the courts.

Police for not taking road crime seriously enough, not prioritising enforcement and not prosecuting;

CPS for plea bargaining open and shut cases("You were driving a tipper truck in the most densely populated part of Britain WHILE DISQUALIFIED FROM DRIVING and drove over a cyclist THAT YOU WOULD HAVE SEEN IF ONLY YOU LOOKED"). IMHO, driving while disqualified should, by statute, give you a lifetime ban and a year in the slammer. Doubled on every subsequent offence.

Courts for applying ludicrously low standards to he behaviour of drivers. You might think, e.g., that driving straight into the back of a law abiding, fully it up, complying with every legal requirement, road user in front of you would be considered "dangerous driving". It isn't. The legal standard for driving in the UK is so low that you it can be proven that you were on the phone, proven that you should have seen the cyclist, and you still get off.

That's the problem. Not "human rights".