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Driver in Mary Bowers case acquitted of dangerous driving, found guilty of careless driving

Driver said he was in conversation on hands-free mobile phone at time of incident that led to Times' Cities fit for Cycling campaign...

The driver of the lorry that hit Times journalist Mary Bowers as she rode to work in November last year, leaving her in a coma with serious injuries, has this afternoon been acquitted by a jury of dangerous driving and found guilty of the less serious charge of careless driving. Petre Beiu, aged 39, has been fined £2,700 and banned from driving for eight months.

After the jury's verdict had been announced and ahead of sentencing, the judge presiding over the case said that she was unable to impose anything more than a fine on Beiu. It has been reported that he has not driven a vehicle since the incident more than a year ago.

The jury's verdict has been treated with dismay and anger on Twitter by cycle campaigners and colleagues and friends of Ms Bowers. Danny Williams of the Cyclists in the City blog tweeted: "Drive an HGV on yr mobile phone, run over a cyclist, put them in hospital over a year & only get banned 8 months. Farce."

Times journalist Kaya Burgess, not only a colleague but also a close friend and closely involved in the Cities fit for Cycling campaign the newspaper subsequently launched, said on Twitter: "If Mary Bowers had died, and it had been 'death by careless driving', it could have been 7 years in prison. But the sterling work of doctors to narrowly save Mary's life means the driver gets a fine and a ban instead. Utterly senseless."

In the trial at Snaresbrook Crown Court this week, the jury was told that Beiu had admitted being on his handsfree mobile phone at the time of the incident, which happened as Ms Bowers neared the end of her commute to work at the newspaper's headquarters in Wapping, east London, on the morning of 4 November 2011.

Driving while using a handsfree mobile is not in itself illegal, unlike using a handheld phone, but if it results in driver distraction it can be used to support a charge of dangerous or careless driving and the prosecution had maintained that Beiu was “too engrossed in a telephone conversation” to be aware of the cyclist.

The prosecution also said that he had failed to check whether the road ahead of his lorry, where Ms Bowers had positioned herself at traffic lights, was clear, and witnesses described how the truck continued to move after Beiu jumped from the cab having failed to engage the handbrake.

Ms Bowers, aged 28, suffered horrific injuries including a punctured lung as well as a broken pelvis, arm and both legs as well as a severed artery and brain damage. Writing on the anniversary of the incident last month, Burgess said: "Mary remains in hospital in a rehabilitation unit. Doctors have described her condition as 'minimally conscious,' and she has only a fleeting awareness and little ability to communicate."

The incident inspired the newspaper to launch its Cities fit for Cycling campaign in February, with editor James Harding ensuring that the issue remained high on its agenda throughout the year. Harding resigned earlier this week, and cycle campaigners will urge whoever succeeds him - John Witherow, currently editor of sister newspaper The Sunday Times is favourite - to continue the campaign's momentum.

Martin Gibbs, British Cycling Policy and Legal Affairs Director, commented: “Once again the justice system has failed us. The HGV driver was on a phone call, said he didn’t look properly and the evidence is clear that Mary was visible for a long time.

“It seems to me that there was no other sensible conclusion than that his driving was dangerous, not careless. These failures send completely the wrong message about how we expect people to behave on our roads.”

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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34 comments

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Stumps replied to OldRidgeback | 11 years ago
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OldRidgeback wrote:

The sentence for the driver by no means reflects the damage that he caused. I agree hands-free phones should be illegal also, though I disagree about sat-nav devices that attach to the windscreen.

I have to disagree with you there mate, hands free is no more dangerous than changing channel on a car radio or changing a cd, switching on / off heaters or air con.

Whereas a sat nav attached to the windscreen is a clear distraction through the windscreen.

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mrchrispy | 11 years ago
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F me...i want to cry.
I urge you all you write to your MP (its dead easy www.theyworkforyou.com).
I'v had a right good moan at mine about punishments for drivers and road saftey and ended up getting invited to commision thing.

The courts growing a pair and that only happen with political support.

Avatar
Simon E replied to Stumps | 11 years ago
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stumps wrote:

hands free is no more dangerous than changing channel on a car radio or changing a cd, switching on / off heaters or air con.

The evidence suggests otherwise:

http://www.rospa.com/roadsafety/adviceandinformation/driving/mobilephone...
http://www.directline.com/about_us/news_27022009.htm

Why add to the risk?

Avatar
Bez replied to Stumps | 11 years ago
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stumps wrote:

I have to disagree with you there mate, hands free is no more dangerous than changing channel on a car radio or changing a cd, switching on / off heaters or air con.

Whereas a sat nav attached to the windscreen is a clear distraction through the windscreen.

And I, in turn, have to disagree with you entirely.

About 10 years ago I had a handsfree kit in my car (a proper plumbed-in one, there was no Bluetooth or anything back then). It was a distraction. One time I was in the outside lane of a dual carriageway and had been so involved in the conversation on the phone that I had failed to notice the "end of lane" warnings. I ended up just about merging. Talking on a phone, IME at least, occupies the mind in ways which are more obtrusive than conversing with someone in the car.

A satnav can be positioned right in the corner of the screen - on the rare occasions that I use mine, it does not obscure anything and I can glance at it intermittently with no more distraction than looking in the rear view mirror or the speedometer.

Operating the satnav whilst driving is a major distraction. And there are people who are stupid enough to mount them in the middle of the screen. In those cases, yes, it's a significant problem. But operated correctly it needn't be. Whereas using a hands-free phone, IMO and IME, inherently is.

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