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85-year-old driver who drove on for three miles after killing cyclist escapes jailJustice (Lonpicman, Wikimedia Commons)

85-year-old driver who drove on for three miles after killing cyclist escapes jail

Court hears how motorist needed to be told by wife that he had driven through group of five riders
by Simon_MacMichael
Thu, Nov 24, 2011 11:30
33

An 85-year-old motorist who continued to drive for three miles, unaware that he had ploughed through a group of five cyclists, killing one and seriously injuring another, has escaped jail after being given a six-month sentence suspended for six months.

Llandudno Magistrates' Court heard that Huw Edwards of Bryngwran, Anglesey, whose health had deteriorated in the months preceding the incident on 13 April this year, only became aware of what had happened when his wife Mabel, a passenger in the vehicle, told him about it.

Edwards had pleaded guilty to causing death by driving without due care and attention.

As reported on road.cc at the time of the accident two of the five cyclists one of whom was the deceased had been undertaking a challenge that involved riding from Belfast to London via Dublin and Bristol and running a marathon in each city to raise money for a leukeamia charity and in memory of a friend who had died of the disease.

At around 10.15am Edwards, who was taking his wife, a cancer patient, to a hospital appointment, struck the group from behind on the A55 near Rhostrehwfa, Llangefni.

According to the Daily Post prosecutor Nia Lloyd told the court that there had been “no braking and no skid marks.”

Gareth Crockett, aged 27, was killed in the incident while another of the cyclists suffered a compound fracture among other injuries. In a statement read out to the court, the sister of Mr Crockett, who was originally from County Antrim, said: “Our lives have been devastated by one moment of bad driving.”

According to Edwards’ solicitor, Gareth Parry, his client, who has also been banned from driving for ten years, was “genuinely remorseful.”

He explained that between February and June this year, Edwards’ health had taken a downturn, affecting his concentration and his eyesight, while he also had trouble controlling his diabetes. His wife also died during the summer.

According to District Judge Andrew Shaw, “It was a very serious act of carelessness.”  He added that he was “mystified” as to why Edwards continued to drive after the incident, and pointed out that due to the cyclists’ clothing they should have been visible from some distance.

“This is a terribly tragic case. Gareth Crockett was a young man from a close family,” he added.

Last month, we reported how there had been a sharp rise in the number of motorists losing their licences due to deteriorating vision, and how a report from the RAC Foundation regarding older drivers had stated that “many drivers will retire from driving at too early a stage while others will go on beyond the point where it is safe to do so.”

 

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Simon MacMichael

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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33 comments

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KirinChris | 12 years ago
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Tony, I'm not saying that you never covered those stories before or shouldn't cover them now.

In fact if you read my comment it wasn't just about court cases, although that's part of it, it was about a general shift towards commuting and campaigning. That was where I used the word balance, not in terms of the actual reporting. I know it is the off-season but this is not just a recent development.

In terms of that overall balance, the general tone and your point about just reporting the news that is there, I would refer you to the recent Confused.com story.

That's the cycling equivalent of swan-eating immigrants, and there've been others, if not quite so blatant.

I've worked in journalism and media for 25 years and run the TV newsroom of one of the world's major press agencies. I know how the silly-season works and I know a beat-up when I see one.

Story selection is done to reflect an agenda - not everyone will like it. I just don't see that you can say it is the same as always - there have definitely been changes IMHO.

At the end of the day if it works for the site as a business then it's your choice to make, I'm just giving my opinion.

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Tony Farrelly | 12 years ago
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If only we were organised enough to have an "agenda" 1
I do appreciate what you're saying and getting both the balance and tone of our news right is very important to us.

that reflect the remit we set for road.cc from the start to be a site that covers all aspects of riding on the road in Britain – 'from competing to commuting and all points in between'. Oh, yes, and it has always been a part of what we are about never to come across in what we are saying as sanctimonious cyclists - if we our editorial tone was going that way I'd be worried, we'd much rather take the piss out of stuff than get on a moral high horse. Taking the piss on incidents where people have died though is not an option - so there we'd rather go for a straight recital of the facts.

Of course we prioritise our stories but only on the basis of what the strongest stories on the day are… and that can change as more news happens. We are though always mindful of the mix of stories we're running.

If you look at the balance of news on the site I'd say sport related stories makes up about a third, our view has always been that the race scene is already comprehensively covered by a whole plethora of sites - commuting and campaigning and general stories about being a cyclist in the UK aren't.

The other thing I'd point out is that the web isn't print or TV - there is no silly season in cyberspace, especially on a special interest site like this. Even the race oriented sites don't struggle to fill their pages when there is no racing. The struggle for most websites isn't finding stories it's fitting all the ones they find in – even on a quiet day.

At different times of the year the balance swings more towards different parts of our competing to commuting remit simply because that's where the strongest stories are, but we are always looking for what's going on in other areas of cycling to try and balance that up.

During late autumn and winter there may be slightly more stories about court cases (as at other times there are more race ones). I think that reflects the fact that contrary to what people might believe there are more incidents involving cyclists being killed on the roads in the spring and summer which in turn tend to come to court in autumn and winter.

As for the Confused.com story - IMO that was the PR equivalent of the swan-eating immigrant story - our response was simply pushing back at that. Given the way that cycling is generally portrayed in the mainstream media that would seem to be the responsible thing for a cycling website to do rather than let a multi-million pound company and its PR machine get away with peddling a load of tosh to the media unchallenged. That's how attitudes are changed. We would have posted that story at whatever time of year we'd gotten the press release.

I'd also say our response was a pretty considered one compared to most - we were the only people to read the release and accompanying stats closely enough to see that Confused hadn't even presented the stats from its own research correctly. That's got to be news?

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Tony Farrelly replied to Tony Farrelly | 12 years ago
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tony_farrelly wrote:

Even the race oriented sites don't struggle to fill their pages when there is no racing. The struggle for most websites isn't finding stories it's fitting all the ones they find in – even on a quiet day.

Heh! I say that and then today was about the quietest day we've had in months if not years… mind you we still found some good stories 3

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