Cyclist facing manslaughter charge

Yorkshire wallet wrote:

Can you really see a car driver seeing court for this at the same speed? 20mph with a 10mph collision speed would probably see the blame fall on the pedestrian, especially if in phone-zombie-mode. Pedestrians have right of way, bla bla but pedestrians really don't seem to give a shit about walking out in front of bikes, where they wouldn't do it to cars.

what about a car with no brakes, relying on the handbrake to stop? Thats the comparison you should be making.

Having ridden on the track I know that stopping pedalling does not stop the bike, it just kicks you off the saddle, I accept that with practice it may be possible to hop the back wheel to lock it and cause a skid, but skidding is not as effective as proper braking and even if it were 70-80% of braking comes from the front wheel on a functioning bike.

We should also be seeing manslaughter charges for any RTA deaths were the causing vehicle is found to be defective (bald tyres in the wet/faulty brakes/steering etc etc) or drivers drunk/drugged or pon the phone.

Beecho wrote:

FWIW... I get why he shouted at her straight after. I commute in London and have been taken out by pedestrians stepping out in front of me 5 times, always coming off far worse. The adrenaline surges through you. Last fella ran off after I shouted at him and not a soul checked if I was alright. OK, I was livid, but bleeding and could have easily been seriously (SERIOUSLY) injured by a vehicle, but got lucky. 

I'm surprised more pedestrians mindlessly wandering into the road aren't run over by electric cars and definitely that more cyclists aren't hurt by them. In only two, nice and clear sections of my 10 mile commute do I ride at anything approaching 15mph and do despair at risks many a fellow rider takes, but they're not braking the law. It's such bullshit about the occasional 75kg, 2 foot wide, cyclist "whizzing" about at 15mph being a menace when one tonne metal monsters breaking the speed limit, especially when accelerating through changing red lights*, dominate the roads and make them dangerous.

This is a horrible, unfortunate incident, but it should not be in court. If the cyclist loses, I worry we'll become like NSW.

*this is acceptable apparently.

Yeah, I can sympathise with shouting at pedestrians. The ones crossing roads without checking for traffic annoy me so I try to time a sharp, loud "Oi" so that it makes them jump and almost drop their phone whilst going past them.

I feel sorry for this poor bloke who's going to be fed to the wolves (probably not literally) for his poor choices. I reckon he'll have the book thrown at him (again not literally) to show that even lawless cyclists have to keep to the rules. I think he made 2 mistakes - removing his front brake (which would have been a fashion statement) and not managing to miss the pedestrian.

Ultimately, pedestrians always have priority even when they're clearly in the wrong place at the wrong time and this is why road-going contraptions have to be able to stop quickly. If you're going to remove a brake, then you have to take extra care to not be out of control. This cyclist was unlucky to be caught out going too quickly, but not nearly as unlucky as the poor pedestrian.

I'm sorry, but he should be in court for this and should be found guilty. Just because there's lots of examples of motons getting off with bad driving does not excuse the fact that this cyclist's poor choices led to the death of an innocent person.

jaysa wrote:

It may be bonkers that pedestrians prefer zombying at their phones and wander into one's path without looking, but it's predictable, so it makes sense to ride at an appropriate slow speed in precincts, near schools, stations, bus stops etc. taking primary if possible. I don't want someone's death on my conscience, whoever's at fault ...

I scream (female here) if we're likely to collide - works wonders!

Is it predictable that a pedestrian takes 3.8 seconds to not walk across a 3.8m wide lane? Is it predictable that they move in differing directions and ignore two audible warnings and despite the defendants best efforts to swerve around the pedestrian they still failed to cross the lane as one would ordinarily predict would happen.

Do you slow to 15mph when driving on any 30mph road when there are pedestrians walking on the footway, if not, why not?

alansmurphy wrote:

As an experienced rider, would you say from noticing something to reacting and stopping, that you stop in 3 metres? And surely it should have been compared to the original bike with the original brakes?

I reckon that's reasonable. With disc brakes, if I'm paying attention, I reckon I can stop from 18mph in about 2 metres though I'd probably be lifting my rear wheel a bit.

hawkinspeter wrote:

alansmurphy wrote:

As an experienced rider, would you say from noticing something to reacting and stopping, that you stop in 3 metres? And surely it should have been compared to the original bike with the original brakes?

I reckon that's reasonable. With disc brakes, if I'm paying attention, I reckon I can stop from 18mph in about 2 metres though I'd probably be lifting my rear wheel a bit.

You're a better man than me. I mean I was doing 40 as the last accident began and the brakes were the wrong way round (stupid French piece of shit) but I was a good 30m from the barrier and seemed to knock little speed off.

alansmurphy wrote:

hawkinspeter wrote:

alansmurphy wrote:

As an experienced rider, would you say from noticing something to reacting and stopping, that you stop in 3 metres? And surely it should have been compared to the original bike with the original brakes?

I reckon that's reasonable. With disc brakes, if I'm paying attention, I reckon I can stop from 18mph in about 2 metres though I'd probably be lifting my rear wheel a bit.

You're a better man than me. I mean I was doing 40 as the last accident began and the brakes were the wrong way round (stupid French piece of shit) but I was a good 30m from the barrier and seemed to knock little speed off.

Nope, I was just making it up. I have however found this link with a stopping distance calculator and it gives 3.74m for stopping from 18mph and 18.5m for stopping from 40mph:

http://www.exploratorium.edu/cycling/brakes2.html

Sounds like your brakes weren't working or maybe the road was slippery.

hawkinspeter wrote:

alansmurphy wrote:

hawkinspeter wrote:

alansmurphy wrote:

As an experienced rider, would you say from noticing something to reacting and stopping, that you stop in 3 metres? And surely it should have been compared to the original bike with the original brakes?

I reckon that's reasonable. With disc brakes, if I'm paying attention, I reckon I can stop from 18mph in about 2 metres though I'd probably be lifting my rear wheel a bit.

You're a better man than me. I mean I was doing 40 as the last accident began and the brakes were the wrong way round (stupid French piece of shit) but I was a good 30m from the barrier and seemed to knock little speed off.

Nope, I was just making it up. I have however found this link with a stopping distance calculator and it gives 3.74m for stopping from 18mph and 18.5m for stopping from 40mph:

http://www.exploratorium.edu/cycling/brakes2.html

Sounds like your brakes weren't working or maybe the road was slippery.

 

FWIW, stopping distance for a car on a dry road at 40 mph is usually given as 36 m and there is no way a bicycle is a going to outbrake a car.

brooksby wrote:

alansmurphy wrote:

And surely it should have been compared to the original bike with the original brakes?

This.   Otherwise, in a car-related analogy, you could start comparing a 1958 Ford Anglia to a McLaren F1 and say "Oh, well, he should have been able to stop in 0.5 nanoseconds".

It's only took me 500 plus comments to make a useful one

alansmurphy wrote:

And surely it should have been compared to the original bike with the original brakes?

He WAS riding the bike with the original brakes. That bike has no front brake as standard and doesn't have the mounts to fit one. Granted they could have tested it against a road bike rather than a mountain bike, but it wouldn't have made that much difference I don't think.

Vehlin wrote:

alansmurphy wrote:

And surely it should have been compared to the original bike with the original brakes?

He WAS riding the bike with the original brakes. That bike has no front brake as standard and doesn't have the mounts to fit one. Granted they could have tested it against a road bike rather than a mountain bike, but it wouldn't have made that much difference I don't think.

Casper, road and mountain make huge difference, position of brakes, disc VS rim, tyre grip and in and in. I hear they ride up/down mountains differently too

I mentioned removing the front brake as that's what some reports had said, unsure whether it ever had one...

I've also no doubt the cyclist was I the wrong to be riding it, just question the idiotic evidence presented. As brooksbys post says, thinking distance for a car driver at 20mph would result in a collision yet our 'expert' witness here doesn't even account for that...

brooksby wrote:

Car stopping distances, according to the HC:

20mph thinking 6 metres, braking 6 metres = 12 metres
30mph thinking 9 metres, braking 14 metres = 23 metres
40mph thinking 12 metres, braking 24 metres = 36 metres

Correct me if I'm wrong, but that means a car would have definitely hit a pedestrian stepping out in front, ten metres away...

I'm not convinced about the "thinking time" on a bike as it's quite possible to "instinctively" react without needing to consciously think about what you're going to do. I'm sure I can stop from 20mph in a lot less than 12 metres on my bike. By the power of maths, that 6m at 20mph works out to be about two-thirds of a second which is quite a slow reaction - the typical reaction to visual stimulii is about a 0.25 seconds. If you're practised at riding a bike and watching for hazards, you'd be anticipating peds stepping out and be swerving and stopping within that 6 metres of thinking time.

hawkinspeter wrote:

brooksby wrote:

Car stopping distances, according to the HC:

20mph thinking 6 metres, braking 6 metres = 12 metres
30mph thinking 9 metres, braking 14 metres = 23 metres
40mph thinking 12 metres, braking 24 metres = 36 metres

Correct me if I'm wrong, but that means a car would have definitely hit a pedestrian stepping out in front, ten metres away...

I'm not convinced about the "thinking time" on a bike as it's quite possible to "instinctively" react without needing to consciously think about what you're going to do. I'm sure I can stop from 20mph in a lot less than 12 metres on my bike. By the power of maths, that 6m at 20mph works out to be about two-thirds of a second which is quite a slow reaction - the typical reaction to visual stimulii is about a 0.25 seconds. If you're practised at riding a bike and watching for hazards, you'd be anticipating peds stepping out and be swerving and stopping within that 6 metres of thinking time.

Sorry but you're guessing about 'instinct' and thinking times is just nonsense.

human beings are human beings, you cannot predict X outcome, thinking time is about 1.5 seconds for these types of incident (accepted by crash investigators as a good in clear conditions/alert person), then you would have mechanical action time (braking/pressing accelerator etc), then you have actual braking time.

Also when does any road user fully slam on to the maximum potential braking to come to a full stop when an object/pedestrian crosses in front, hardly ever, you scrub a bit of speed off, as is clear the defendant did and you normally think/anticipate that the object/pedestrian carries on across. In this case the pedestrian (apparently) took 3.8 seconds to the time of impact from stepping off the pavement/footway, that is in no way normal. This would require the defendant to rethink again his actions (another second or so) he tried to swerve to avoid the pedestrian who was clearly still dithering in the middle of the road instead of simply walking across and they then collided.

it's all so easy to just use absolute numbers in a stress environ/situation but that's not how real life works all too often.

BehindTheBikesheds wrote:

hawkinspeter wrote:

brooksby wrote:

Car stopping distances, according to the HC:

20mph thinking 6 metres, braking 6 metres = 12 metres
30mph thinking 9 metres, braking 14 metres = 23 metres
40mph thinking 12 metres, braking 24 metres = 36 metres

Correct me if I'm wrong, but that means a car would have definitely hit a pedestrian stepping out in front, ten metres away...

I'm not convinced about the "thinking time" on a bike as it's quite possible to "instinctively" react without needing to consciously think about what you're going to do. I'm sure I can stop from 20mph in a lot less than 12 metres on my bike. By the power of maths, that 6m at 20mph works out to be about two-thirds of a second which is quite a slow reaction - the typical reaction to visual stimulii is about a 0.25 seconds. If you're practised at riding a bike and watching for hazards, you'd be anticipating peds stepping out and be swerving and stopping within that 6 metres of thinking time.

Sorry but you're guessing about 'instinct' and thinking times is just nonsense.

human beings are human beings, you cannot predict X outcome, thinking time is about 1.5 seconds for these types of incident (accepted by crash investigators as a good in clear conditions/alert person), then you would have mechanical action time (braking/pressing accelerator etc), then you have actual braking time.

Also when does any road user fully slam on to the maximum potential braking to come to a full stop when an object/pedestrian crosses in front, hardly ever, you scrub a bit of speed off, as is clear the defendant did and you normally think/anticipate that the object/pedestrian carries on across. In this case the pedestrian (apparently) took 3.8 seconds to the time of impact from stepping off the pavement/footway, that is in no way normal. This would require the defendant to rethink again his actions (another second or so) he tried to swerve to avoid the pedestrian who was clearly still dithering in the middle of the road instead of simply walking across and they then collided.

it's all so easy to just use absolute numbers in a stress environ/situation but that's not how real life works all too often.

You may or may not be right about thinking times - testing it is the only practical way to figure it out. In lieu of setting up a decent test site, try your hand at this simple little reaction tester:

https://www.humanbenchmark.com/tests/reactiontime

I haven't got any figures to back up actual times for "thinking", but when I'm riding a bike and approaching a hazardous area (e.g. a school at pick-up/drop-off time; takeaway shops; junctions) I keep my fingers on my brakes and if I anything unexpected happens, I scrub off speed whilst I think about what to do (generally involves lots of swearing).

In general, it's quite easy to improve specific reaction times by practising the skill and if you perform an action often enough, then you can "react" to it without having to be conscious of it (e.g. boxers don't need thinking time to avoid a punch).

The cyclist in question has stated that a front brake wouldn't have made any difference to his ability to stop/avoid the pedestrian, but I don't agree with that. The stupid thing is that if he had a front brake, he almost certainly wouldn't be in court even if the pedestrian had still died.