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news
Cyclist pushed off bicycle July 2015 Facebook stillAnother video on Facebook shows cyclist being pushed off bike
A video that showed a car passenger leaning out of the vehicle’s window to push a cyclist off his bike has been viewed almost 700,000 times and receiving thousands of ‘likes’ and shares.
The footage was posted on Saturday evening by Facebook user Eoin Maughan, who denied in subsequent post that he was the person doing the pushing, although he may well be the one filming. The video opens with the words, “Right boys, this is the new challenge here.”
As of Monday afternoon, it was not possible to access the video, although it is unclear whether Facebook or the user removed it, or whether it was made private.
It is unclear where it was shot, although the poster appears to be based in the Republic of Ireland, as are many of those commenting on the video, some of whom said they would try something similar themselves – although many others condemned the footage.
This is the new challenge boys
Posted by Eoin Maughan on Saturday, 25 July 2015
It is similar to an incident we reported on in March, prompting concerns that people would mimic that and similar assaults on cyclists and the post footage to social media.
On that occasion, the footage was removed from Facebook by the original poster, although the social network had responded to earlier complaints by refusing to take the post down, saying it was not in breach of its community guidelines.
Cycling Ireland CEO Geoff Liffey, quoted on Independent.ie, said of the latest incident: "There has also been attempts to disrupt cycling events and regular cycling paths by introducing serious hazards on these routes.
"Many of these attacks are of a very serious nature and we would advise any persons who experience or witnesses these attacks to report them to the relevant authorities in the area.
"This incident was a disturbing, cowardly and deliberate attack on a vulnerable cyclist. This kind of behaviour is nothing new, but it's becoming more prevalent," he added.
The newspaper said that the Gardai are appealing for any cyclist involved in such an incident to report the matter.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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71 comments
30/07/2015
There has been another incident.
A 50 year old cyclist has been pushed off his bike by a car passenger in Londonderry. The Police are appealing for witnesses.
Sorry for the lack of details but I don't know any more at this time.
Not seeing any details for this; given the location (Derry/Donegal border) and age of the victim I suspect it's a news report on the same incident.
Edit: Please ignore. It is the same incident. It is a late report of the Police Appeal for Information. To be honest I'm quite relieved to be wrong.
It's not rewarding stupidity, because it's not like anyone wins a prize for doing something idiotic. If you really wanted you could say that it is excusing stupidity.
But speeding through a residential area is for exactly this reason an offence of negligence, due care and attention, dangerous driving, etc.
You can't and won't ever get done for it on a charge which involves intent to cause harm or injury. Of causing harm or injury, of risking harm or injury, of failing to take due precautions to prevent harm or injury - sure.
Of intentionally causing it; no. Mens rea is precisely what's missing for *that* charge.
Reasonableness and intent aren't the same thing, as you say. The question of reasonableness is relevant in relation to the charges like battery and ABH, where you have to question whether the perpetrator could have reasonably foreseen the consequences of their actions. If you're dealing with a charge like attempted murder, then for there to be an attempt there has to be an intent, and for there to be intent there has to be a reasonable (or unreasonable, depending on how you look at it) understanding that your actions will cause harm, because you can't intend to murder someone if you don't foresee your actions causing harm.
You are correct legally, of course. But personally that's something I dislike about how the law operates.
Putting too much emphasis on 'intent' serves to reward stupidity. And stupidity is often a choice, one cultivated over a long period.
In effect it rewards the powerful. More powerful groups can get away with stupidity, because the cost of it is imposed on others rather than themselves. Hence they choose to be stupid, because it benefits them. Less powerful groups don't have that choice as an option, because they will be the ones who suffer for it.
In this case the powerful group involved is 'people in cars' (ethnicity has nothing to do with it - and bringing that into it is like staging some sort of insane cavalry charge straight off the moral highground and into a swamp where you will be cut to pieces!).
Edit - I mean, is stupidity really something that should be incentivised?
A less-powerful group can't argue with reality and point out they only cycled out into the junction against the red light because of stupidity, so therefore the HGV can't crush them. So why should a more powerful group get treated more lightly, just because the consequences have to be imposed via a legal process rather than directly? In this sort of case, I don't care what ideas were in the perpetrators heads, any more than the HGV cares if the foolish cyclist road out in front of it intentionally or not.
The test of reasonableness is an important one (in tort more than criminal law), but it's not a test of intent. So it simply isn't applicable to a charge like "attempted murder".
Perhaps it should be. I don't actually make the law. I'm just telling you what it is.
And I know perfectly well what "moot" means; *either* "debatable" *or* "inconsequential". So how about you actually check that you're correct in future, before trying to correct people
And yet there are cases where someone has been knocked off their bike and fallen under the wheels of a following vehicle. If you push a cyclist over while driving along the road then you are risking causing them serious harm and any right minded person would surely grasp this. Idiot or not, young Mr Maughan should also understand this (what adult wouldn't?) and should be judged accordingly.
Judged for the crime he committed, though, which is maybe battery in this instance, maybe ABH. You can't charge him for genocide just because the victim might have fallen on a discarded trigger for an atom bomb that took out Bosnia.
And I think you underestimate just how dumb some people are, for what it's worth. If you consider yourself to be of above average intelligence, as I'm prepared to assume you do, and consider how intellectually superior you feel to someone of "average" intelligence, consider how dumb people of "below average" intelligence could be.
I now await berating for referring to people as "dumb".
This one is still up it seems http://www.reddit.com/r/ukbike/comments/30xgt6/people_in_car_filmed_push...
Get a rear facing cam and prosecute the bastards!
I reported it to FB and they sent me an email at 14:26 saying it did not contravene their guidelines and another at 17:58 saying they had changed their minds...
I think that they must have received quite a few complaints about it and removed based on this, for this they must be congratulated.
#PowerToThePeople
After reporting it like many others, I complained about their decision not to pull it and a few minutes ago received this response - about bloody time...
Our Update
We reviewed the video you reported for containing graphic violence. Since it violated our Community Standards, we removed it. Thanks for your report. We let Eoin Maughan know that their video has been removed, but not who reported it."
Respect to Facebook for removing the video.
Unfortunately this muppet posted this around the tie the video was removed.
The lad's a complete idiot.
His Twitter account https://twitter.com/MaughanBoyMC/with_replies
His FB
https://www.facebook.com/Eoinm777#_=_
I was hoping the Gardai are aware. Apparently, they are. For what it's worth, there's lots of Irish Redditors who are as unhappy about this as we are. Fair play.
And yes, Facebook should be taking down the video, the tag posts encouraging other people to do it, closing down the Facebook account of the user in question and every user who tags someone else encouraging them to carry out a similar attack.
If a "challenge" (a la Neknominate) to other Facebook users to carry out assaults on cyclists isn't a prime example of "facilitate or organise criminal activity that causes physical harm to people", I don't know what is is.
For reasons of decency and to avoid repetition, I deleted 38 swearwords from the above. The more broadminded among you may wish to mentally readd them at your leisure.
Doesn't this video contravene FB's own community standards for criminal activity. https://www.facebook.com/communitystandards/
Criminal Activity: How we handle reports of criminal activity on Facebook.
We prohibit the use of Facebook to facilitate or organise criminal activity that causes physical harm to people, businesses or animals, or financial damage to people or businesses. We work with the police when we believe that there is a genuine risk of physical harm or direct threats to public safety.
We also prohibit you from celebrating any crimes that you've committed. We do, however, allow people to debate or advocate for the legality of criminal activities, as well as address them in a humorous or satirical way.
Well there you go then - they were obviously pushing that cyclist over humorously and satirically.
So, let's be clear here: someone posts a video on the interweb, publicly, of themselves (or a close friend) knocking someone off their moving bike (basically, attempting to cause a fatal road traffic accident) on their facebook page, and none of the powers-that-be will take this up and investigate it? And facebook doesn't see it as bad enough to be removed?
And yet if an adult decides to go and fight for what they believe in in the middle east (you know, like Orwell and Hemingway did in Spain in the 1930s) then that's a crime and the full force of the law will fall upon them. Not defending that organisation, but it does seem like double standards.
(Out of interest, have we got a new version of Godwin's Law for how quickly an internet discussion will raise the spectre of ISIS/IS/whatever they are called? Or is it a sub-rule for Godwin's?).
OK, look, I agree with you in general on the question of whether Facebook should be allowing this sort of thing, but you can't argue that they were trying to kill the cyclist. They're trying to push him off his bike. The two are, believe it or not, not the same thing.
Not Facebook but Disgracebook.
They shouldn't be allowed to get away with it. Surely they can be hunted down and then some of their own justice meted out?
And if in doing so they kill or seriously injure they will neither know nor care. How is this different from shooting at someone, then saying 'but I never meant to kill him '?
Is the law really this stupidly biased in favour of allowing criminal idiots to go free?
Sorry, I should have written violent, rather than criminal. Out of interest, what would someone have to do to qualify as attempting to kill someone? Write their inention down in advance to kill a specific person, then take an axe to them? And if they kill the wrong man does that not count?
If someone shooting at someone and they hit them then it can more likely be assumed that they were intending to injure them, and possibly intending to kill them. Fair enough. People understand guns are dangerous and that shooting at and hitting someone is likely to cause harm. If someone is pushing someone off their bike, then you may struggle to say anything more than that they are intending to push someone off their bike, because you can barely be sure at that point that a person is actually intending to cause harm. They may well think it's all just a lark and that no harm will come to the person. Now you may think that is staggeringly stupid, but we are talking about people driving around pushing people off bikes, after all.
In any case, it's a far cry from intending to kill someone, which was the opening gambit. Before you get to that it might be considered assault, which is the threat to apply force, which is not at all inconceivable here, not least because force was pretty clearly applied. It might well be considered battery, which is the unlawful touching of another person with or without injury being caused - this would be a good bet, particularly as you need only show that the act was one of recklessness, rather than of intent, but even that assumes that the perpetrator was aware of the risks of their actions. It might be considered ABH, which is assault occasioning actual bodily harm, which broadly means bruising or bleeding, which is possible but obviously depends on the injuries sustained. Beyond that you'd be into the realms of GBH, but that's obviously unlikely, as for that the perpetrator would have to be going out of their way to seriously injure someone - you could maybe argue this if they were pushing the cyclist off their bike and over a cliff, or under a car, or under a train, but just pushing them off? Unlikely. Manslaughter? Maybe, if they actually killed the person in the course of events, but that seems to be out of the question. Attempted murder? Nope, not without showing they actually intended to kill them. Murder? Nope, not unless the person ended up dead and the perpetrator intended to kill or seriously injure them.
No, the law is in favour of not locking people up for the wrong crimes. If there's no intent to kill, then people shouldn't be locked up for attempted murder, for example.
So in summary you can't assume that someone who goes around pushing people off bicycles is intending to hurt them, because pushing people off bikes is evidence of a high level of stupidity.
Not exactly. If a person doesn't perceive that their actions will cause harm, then it's difficult to hold them accountable for the crime of causing harm. It's entirely possible that the type of person stupid enough to push someone off a bike doesn't understand the harm they could cause. That's not to say they're not guilty of an offence like battery, only that it might be harder to make a more serious offence stick.
If you speed through a residential area and kill a pedestrian you can't by law argue that you never intended to kill anyone, even though no-one speeds thinking that they will cause any harm by doing so.
Mens Rea, which loosely translates into intent and is a necessary part of a guilty verdict, applies in this instance. You know speeding is illegal, but did so anyway, hence you are culpable for the consequences.
This applies to anything we do. We have a duty of care for other peoples safety. If our actions show wilful disregard for others safety then Mens Rea applies.
I don't think that there's any question about the wilfulness of the behaviour of the twat in the video.
No, if you speed in a residential area and kill someone you can absolutely argue that you didn't intend to kill anyone. You may however be found guilty of causing death by dangerous driving, which doesn't entail any intent to kill.
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