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Justice (Lonpicman, Wikimedia Commons)Driver "blinded by sun" found not guilty in cyclist death
A driver who hit and killed a 73-year-old cyclist has walked free from Ipswich Crown Court after being found not guilty of causing death by careless driving.
Retired planning officer Colin Crowther was hit by the car being driven by 29-year-old Sam Burrows on January 16, 2014. Mr Crowther hit the car's kerbside windscreen, rolled over the car and landed on the ground.
Mr Burrows said he had been blinded by the sun "without warning" and then heard a bang as his car hit Mr Crowther.
He denied causing death by careless driving and was unanimously found not guilty by a jury after a three-day trial.
The Ipswich Star's Jane Hunt reports that Burrows said he had been on his way to work at around 2.30pm. As he turned on to the Old London Road he lowered his sun visor as a precaution because he could see the sun ahead of him.
He had slowed down by taking his foot of the accelerator and put it over the brake pedal as a precaution in case he needed to brake.
“All of a sudden without warning I was blinded by the sun. It was a mixture of glare coming off the road and my bonnet,” said Burrows.
He said he had squinted and within one or two seconds he heard a bang.
Asked by his barrister Stephen Rose if there was anything he could have done to have avoided the collision Burrows said: “I’m really sorry about the outcome, but I honestly don’t think there was anything I could have done to avoid it.”
Colin Crowther, described as a keen cyclist, was riding a lightweight road bike and wearing a fluorescent yellow gilet and a helmet.
After being hit, he was taken to hospital but died later that night.
Paying tribute to Mr Crowther, his family said: “Colin was a quiet private man, however his kind, thoughtful and considerate presence was welcomed by neighbours, former work colleagues together with his family and friends.
“His sudden absence from the community will be sorely felt, particularly by his two granddaughters who idolised their ‘Grandpop’.”
John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.
He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.
Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.
John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.
He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.
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38 comments
@Climber. No it was not directed at you personally. Was not my intention. Calm down. Jeez.
Level headed in every sense. Ride safe.
Snipe was a typo btw ..thanks for correcting me.
Perhaps the Scottish police have more sense. If it's the police that's the issue, rather than jury offender empathy.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-31413947
Sentences aren't improving are they ?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/merseyside/6263169.stm
The killer got a £400 fine, a six month driving ban, and has to re-sit his driving test.
From a self preservation point of view - if you're on the bike and there's low sun - change your route. Clearly there are people in cars perfectly happy to drive without being able to see where they are going.
It's called having a balanced opinion.
Jesus I genuinely thought my fellow cyclists were a level headed bunch.
Carry on making snipe remarks....your get nowhere achieving safety for cyclists by being narrow minded.
Not sure if this was for me....but if it was, I am level headed thank you, and usually see 'both sides'. And not sure how you can deduce from what I wrote to know that I'm narrow minded.
It was not a snipe remark, or even snide, I have said before that we should stop calling collisions 'accidents' because they are not. I gather the police now refer to collisions as exactly that. Apologies if you took it that I was having a go.
We have for too long 'accepted' (generalisation I know) that damage caused by careless/thoughtless/inconsiderate driving is sort of ok because a motor vehicle is being driven. There have been plenty of debates on here regarding lenient and inconsistent punishments handed out to careless road users. I feel we should be tackling all bad behaviour on the roads but I really don't see how calling avoidable collisions 'accidents' helps - it sends the message that there is a level of acceptability (in my opinion).
Maybe I have a skewed interpretation of the word 'accident'.
Strict liability law might help. There's a petition here, sign it if you agree.
https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/strict-liability-law-for-motorists
@rjfrussel
I agree. Driving without due care or careless driving. But I think the driver was up on the bigger charge of causing death by dangerous driving. That is also one of the problems.
The CPS have far too many different driving charges and some that are just not fit for purpose. Getting caught using a mobile phone while driving : 3 Penalty Points and a paltry fine. A friend of mine got stopped driving a car club vehicle back to it's docking station because his wife became ill. Maybe a error of judgement but he got stopped and received 6 points and a £2500 fine because he contested.
Cyclists will never be safe while the CPS and the courts muddle through outdated charges. Driving offences need a revamp in my opinion.
Seems I have ruffled a few feathers. One of the problems with these online forums is that people get a little carried away.
The status quo appears to be that if you drive along a particular road everyday then you should be aware of the glare from the sun. Does that mean that you disregard other potential dangers on that particular road because your "Familiar with it" As you know in the winter months the sun is lower in the sky. That alone means at certain times the sun is directly in a drivers line of sight regardless if the visor is down. If a driver approaches the brow of a hill after driving some time glare free then the sudden glare can be very distracting. In the summer months a sudden downpour can leave the road like a mirror in which the sun will duly reflect catching a driver unaware. According to some cretins on here that is when you should put on sun glasses. Reaching down into a vehicle to retrieve items is far more distracting then the sudden onset of the sun in your line of sight.
I ride everyday in London. It's bloody dangerous. I have had many a near miss with Cars, Taxis, Buses and other gas guzzling behemoths. I have also had other cyclists cut me up. You know the ones. Those who think that cyclists should abide by a different set of rules, those that think drivers are always in the wrong.
I am not an apologise for reckless drivers. I am a realist.
Sometimes an accident occurs that could of easily been avoided
and then there are the times that the sheer incompetence of a cyclist is to blame.
A good example is the "Boris" Bike Hire scheme. I have seen tourists riding around on these things clearly unable to ride a bike to a required standard on a cycle path let alone on the busy streets of London. If a Boris bike gets crushed by a truck because the rider makes the grave error of passing on the inside left of this monster the blame more often than not lies with the driver.
I suspect the "argumentative cyclist types" will harangue me and tell me to throw my bike into the river and tear up my licence.
Never mind.
Ride as safe as you possibly can.
You're a bit carried away yourself.
The factual problem with what you have written is that most accidents are demonstrably the fault of the motorist. That's according to police statistics.
The likely reason is that car drivers feel too safe and cozy: the idea that you would procede at a speed which means that you would not see large things in your path is one that beggars belief.
Not really an accident then is it?
It would be truly dreadful if an HGV was to do the same to poor Sam Burrows on his next drive to work.
wild stab in the dark here but ... all the jury are car drivers.
result want going to anything else was it. I've said this before but
this attitude will not change until someone "important" loses a
family member in the same manner.
alas, I've been that driver, when I was young and driving a van. All the comments about how the sun shouldn't be a surprise sound logical, but I still clipped a cyclist with the wing mirror when blinded turning a corner. The police came, I was being interviewed, and another driver very nearly drove into the back of the police car, which had it's flashing lights on. On the basis of that, they didn't press charges, and the guy was ok
so it can happen. I always have the brightest flashing rear light I can get, especially when the sun is low, and always keep a lookout
https://beyondthekerb.wordpress.com/2014/02/12/futility/
What happened to "driving in a manner appropriate to the road conditions" (i.e. low sun?). A few years ago I got hit on the elbow by a car wing mirror in similar circumstances. The driver didn't even slow down.
Sorry, that has now been changed to:
"Drive so you don't rear-end the motor vehicle in front, or get caught on speed camera. However, the speed limit should be adhered to at all times, and you may get fined for driving under it. Any collision experienced while driving is only illegal if it causes injury to yourself."
The HC just hasn't been updated yet, I'm sure they'll do that any decade now. Don't worry, all police and the CPS does have access to the new version, so all court cases are correctly judged as per the current rules.
Compare and contrast
http://road.cc/content/news/141722-diabetic-who-fell-unconscious-while-d...
And before everyone leaps up and shouts that they're not the same ... Yes! You're quite right. She didn't kill anyone!
He's admitted to not being able to see where he's going in the seconds prior to the impact, and to knowing that he was driving towards the sun, and yet he thought this was not being careless? Another sorry day for justice.
Always amazes me that the 'sun in my eyes' line is such a successful 'get out of jail for free' card.
As mentioned, he was fully aware of the potential for sun glare, but still was unable to take any action that would have prevented a death here.
How is slowing down regarded as such an unreasonable, nonviable method for ensuring safety in these circumstances?
And equally... how is it that no one ever questions how the defendant kept his car on the road if he was so suddenly and completely blinded in that moment.
As I've commented on before, my personal belief is that in these poor light situations, drivers simply drive in response to the car infront... if you can see that car, and respond to what its doing, you can in essence see where you are going.
However, the challenge is if the car infront misses something, or does not have to react to something, you have no warning of the hazard in front, and bang... you've killed someone.
I think this style of driving needs to be recognised, and then torn apart in court.
So in this case... when blinded by the sun I'd ask the defendant how he managed to keep his car on the road if he was so completely blinded.
As a Cyclist (more often) and a driver living in London I understand how upset cyclists can get when these apparent injustices occur.
However, I have on many occasions been momentarily "blinded by the sun" while driving. It's scary. It is not uncommon to be blinded when approaching a brow of a hill. It takes you by complete surprise.
I believe it's a plausible defence in this case.
There are many more instances of reckless, carless or dangerous driving that go unpunished. If the chap who was driving in this case was genuinely unable to see the cyclist because he was blinded by the sun then he has to be given the benefit of the doubt.
I know that sounds unfair but the the prosecution and the jury has to be 100% sure that this death was unavoidable. Until there is any change in the law the "blinded by the sun" is always going to be a plausible defence.
It's only a "plausible defence" if
i) the presence of the sun in the sky is a surprise
and
ii) You think the bit in the highway code about 'driving so you can stop in the distance you can see to be clear' is a tedious irrelevance.
No.
Either he was right behind the cyclist when he was blinded, in which case he should have seen him previously. [Discounting the "jumped out from behind a bush scenario"].
Or he wasn't, in which case he must have been blinded for quite a while and just carried on going.
Either way he shouldn't have run him over.
The disregarded highway code is pretty clear
237
Keep your vehicle well ventilated to avoid drowsiness. Be aware that the road surface may become soft or if it rains after a dry spell it may become slippery. These conditions could affect your steering and braking. If you are dazzled by bright sunlight, slow down and if necessary, stop.
No its not a plausible defence. If you are heading in the direction of the sun there is a possiblity that the sun will be infront of you, if you go up a hill you are traveling in a direction towards the sun. The sun is in the sky, it is big it is obvious.
There is a route i travel to work, i know that for 2-3 days a year the sun and the road align perfectly at 5pm with a result that you can't actually see clearly as you approach a corner. It is just before the clocks change hence why it is an issue for so short a period. Do i see drivers adjust their speed? Do they hell!
Really? If you can't anticipate a daily occurrence such as setting or rising sun, please hand in your licence now.
I've never been surprised by the sun, bring sunglasses in my car, and slow the f down when I need to.
I take it you are continually surprised that water is wet and trains use tracks as well?
I can see why you created a new account... you already know the statement is twaddle.
Not so. What the prosecution thinks is irrelevant and the jury don't have to be 100% sure. They have to be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt, which is very different.
but without knowing how the prosecution made the case or what the judge instructed,previously judges in cases like these have advised the jury to ignore the highway code
, we dont know whether a prosecution case that satisfied beyond reasonable doubt was made. obviously the police and cps felt there was a case to answer else they wouldnt have brought it court,
and there is I believe grading of death by careless driving, which covers momentary inattention and low visibility crashes, which absolutely covers this youd have thought, though it results in just a fine/community order, not a prison sentence, its still a conviction.
but the jury in this case unanimously rejected the charge completely
That does sound pretty scary. I've not experienced that myself since my first driving test. I failed that one time because of an action taken while my vision was restricted by the sun, and despite moving somewhat less than a walking pace. I have anticipated and taken corrective steps since.
I recommend a clean windscreen, and judicious use of the sun visor and sunglasses. If you still can't control it and keep getting surprised I'd seriously think about not driving. You don't have to do it for other cyclists, this should be a self interest decision: think about the impact on yourself of running into a truck coming the other way or failing to spot a 'sudden' turn in the road.
I agree with much of that. But not the ultimate conclusion. When I am momentarily blinded, while driving, it is, I agree, scary. But my immediate reaction is to press pretty hard on the brakes. Instinctively, if I cannot see where I am going, I stop going there. INcidentally, I do the same when blinded by the sun when riding. I think if you don't immediately brake, that is careless driving.
In fact, subject to some freak medical condition, I think if you hit someone who was patently there all along, a defence of "I didn't see him" must almost inevitably mean careless driving. Might get you off reckless or whatever the higher charge is, but how can you not be careless if you hit something that is patently there in front of you??
Trial by drivers?
Indeed. And, as I've said before, as a tribe their natural gravitation is to wonder what they might have done in the same circumstances. It could happen to them. Their conclusion is that they would have done the same, would have suffered the same and it would be manifestly unfair to convict themselves.
So they don't and the perpetuation of cases such as this continues.
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