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Justice (Lonpicman, Wikimedia Commons)Lorry driver jailed for three years for causing cyclist's death by careless driving
A judge has told a lorry driver that a cyclist’s death was, “the almost inevitable culmination of a long course of reckless behaviour with a very large lorry in your charge." Co-op delivery driver William Magee was jailed for three years at Maidstone Crown Court yesterday for causing the death of Barbara Phipps by careless driving on Saturday, February 13 last year.
Magee denied the more serious charge of causing death by dangerous driving and this was accepted by the prosecution.
Essex Live reports that Magee was criticised by Judge Martin Joy for not using on-board cameras or for using his wing mirrors correctly.
Joy was also highly critical of the fact that Magee had parked on double yellow lines, on the wrong side of the road, facing the wrong way, close to a junction.
Magee pulled away from the Co-op store in Teynham just after 10am, without indicating, moving diagonally across the carriageway and into Phipps on her bike.
The 73-year-old was dragged underneath the HGV's rear axle and run over. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
Magee had driven off, unaware of what had happened, and only stopped some minutes later when staff at his distribution centre in Essex phoned him.
The charge of failing to stop was not proceeded with as it was said to have been 'perfectly reasonable' that due to the size of the lorry, Magee would not have realised what had happened.
Prosecutor Peter Forbes said that Phipps had been riding in a 'perfectly safe and proper manner', close to the kerb, and was blameless for what took place.
He said she would have been visible in the lorry's nearside mirrors and on the CCTV safety system. Use of the latter was not a legal requirement and Magee had described it as 'one of those annoying things' of no use to him.
Addressing Magee, the judge said: "This was a terrible and irresponsible course of conduct and led to the unnecessary death of a road user and you behaved irresponsibly from the moment you arrived in Teynham.
"There has to be a clear and consistent message that to drive a vehicle, especially a lorry, in such an irresponsible way, must be severely punished. This was not a momentary lapse of attention. Your pulling away and into Mrs Phipps was reckless and your conduct after the collision was extremely surprising.
"It was the almost inevitable culmination of a long course of reckless behaviour with a very large lorry in your charge."
As well as the jail sentence, Magee was banned from driving for five-and-a-half years.
Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn't especially like cake.
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Stick it in the road.
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26 comments
3 years!
Under-resourced to actually do anything, I suspect.
they'd be all of this shit if it had happened on a building site and shut it down for months.
So where are the HSE on these events?
Far too busy lecturing the cyclists about helmets and hi viz to actually do anything that might be remotely useful. It's in the job description.
16.3 says the HSE should look at it.
http://www.hse.gov.uk/foi/internalops/oms/2009/002.htm#Circumstances-Whe...
Co - op have their own logistics division, they do not employ an outside company like Tesco do with Stobarts.
Co-op use XPO for their logistics at some depots and Stobart at others.
I live in Teynham and pass this most days. Lorries still park right out front on the double lines to deliver although not seen them facing the wrong way. Cars all park on the double lines despite there being parking spaces available out the back and further down the road. Pure ignorance and laziness I'm afraid.
"one of those annoying things"....was he referring to the CCTV safety system or cyclists?
Let's hope he never gets behind the wheel again.
Well luckily with the ban it means he doesn't have a job.
Unfortunately he can get behind the wheel again to drive smaller vehicles and become self-employed if he can afford the insurance.
Surely Coop also liable under H&S@work act, duty to protect others. They organisdd the delivery to the location. Have they changed the delivery procedures?
Not Co-op at fault, it would be the company contracted by Co-op to make their deliveries, like a lot of supermarkets and other high street names it is usually a big name in the transport industry doing the deliveries.
DHL, Gist, XPO, Ediie Stobart are a few names that are in this line of business.
no, Co-op are still responsible for where the deliveries are made that it is a safe space to do it...
you can't sub-contract out the risk... it's still your risk.
Fairly early in the report it states Coop delivery driver.
Eitherway the Coop schedule their deliveries. Nothing turns up randomly.
I really don't think the roads are suitable for lorrys this big. I would far rather high roof long wheel base transits (yes, it would take 3 van trips to replace one lorry) or similar were used for deliveries to shops which lack loading bays in the back. A lorry this big doing a distribution center to distribution centre with 99% of the driving on the motorways is fine enough (if we ignore the damage heavy vehicles do to the roads), but trying to deliver to a street address shop in something this size ... madness.
Like many other driver caused collisions, this wasn't careless, it was dangerous. There is something fundamentally wrong when what is clearly dangerous is described as merely careless, and punished accordingly.
It is time that the charge of careless driving was dropped as being misleading and useless. If the behaviour is clearly dangerous it isn't careless to do it, it's dangerous to do it.
Damn right. Careless with tons of metal = dangerous. There should be no such thing as careless, the consequences are too high.
"Prosecutor Peter Forbes said that Phipps had been riding in a 'perfectly safe and proper manner', close to the kerb, and was blameless for what took place."
This is worrying for those using Primary Position.
Hang on! He was parked on a double yellow line the pulled away without indicating or looking.
Phipps must have been not close to the kerb, but already passing the parked lorry when it pulled out to be caught by the rear wheels. ehh!
He was on the other side of the road facing on coming traffic. He then moved across both lanes of traffic and when rjoining the other carriage way dragged her underneath.
Correct. He was parked outside the Co-op and she was passing the lorry going in the same direction as him when he pulled away not indicating ,not looking for her, not seeing her.Just wiped her off the road basically.
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I hate it when vehicles don't use their indicators. Just how lazy do you have to be to not indicate when pulling out into traffic? It's only a little stick or button to press - how difficult is that?
I hate it when thoughtless bastards kill cyclists and get away with a 3 year jail term, which means they are out in 18 months.
or turning into side roads. About half the drivers round here honestly think that if the left side rosd is on a right hand bend there is no need to indicate because 'they are going straight on'
I agree it is becoming very annoying and utterly unacceptable not to use something so easy, much like utterly failing to use wing mirrors as well.