Video: Melbourne driver swerves into cyclist and rams him off the road

Podc wrote:

I don't buy the 'keyed the car' story. Firstly the link is to the DM (my default position for any story in the DM...), secondly, the driver didn't check his car, or point at his car; his concern and focus was with something back up the road, and thirdly, if the cyclist had keyed the car, I don't think he would be riding along in that calm manner when the car was alongside him. 

 

More to this story, but I don't think its that.

 

Disclaimer - I didn't, and won't, read the DM article.

If you’d read the article, you’d know that the cyclist admitted a charge of criminal damage in court, so clearly someone bought it.

vonhelmet wrote:

If you’d read the article, you’d know that the cyclist admitted a charge of criminal damage in court, so clearly someone bought it.

Thanks for reading it for me

Still think there is more to this though.

Podc wrote:

vonhelmet wrote:

If you’d read the article, you’d know that the cyclist admitted a charge of criminal damage in court, so clearly someone bought it.

 

Thanks for reading it for me

 

Still think there is more to this though.

Probably, but even if there is, it’s still escalation and tit for tat that has ended up with someone being run off the road. The cyclist is not free from blame in this, and he could have backed down or taken things down a different route before it came up this. If your response to... something... is to key someone’s car then you are not making the best choices and things may not go well from there.

antigee wrote:

Victoria police appear to have acted in good faith - the driver was actually charged with some pretty serious offences but apparently the Magistrate threw out the serious charges...

"Court documents obtained by Fairfax Media reveal, Michael Giarruso, 27, fronted the Melbourne Magistrates Court on June 25 and pleaded guilty to recklessly causing injury over the November 9 incident.

He was convicted and fined $1000 by magistrate Franz Holzer.

Four other charges were struck out including careless driving, unlawful assault, intentionally causing injury and reckless conduct endangering serious injury............"

Fairfax Media are owners of TheAge a Melbourne based newspaper (sometimes paywalled / sometimes not depends on cookies and hits I guess) 

https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/grotesque-attack-cyclist-sid...

But he wasn't driving carelessly: he knew exactly what he was doing.

antigee wrote:

Four other charges were struck out including careless driving, unlawful assault, intentionally causing injury and reckless conduct endangering serious injury............"

Fairfax Media are owners of TheAge a Melbourne based newspaper (sometimes paywalled / sometimes not depends on cookies and hits I guess)

Since the charges were apparently legally brought and match the offence, has the magistrate given any reason for striking them out?  Surely there must be a court record with the legal reasons for striking out such obviously applicable charges?

dassie wrote:

If that video was admitted as evidence, I cannot see how ''Reckless Driving Causing Injury' and fined $1,000'  was any sort of justice.    Beyond belief.   From the video the motorist points down the road implying that something else went on earlier, which would seem to make his 'action' some kind of punishment, where the vehicle appears to have been deliberately used as a weapon.

Maybe the video wasn't used as evidence in Court. There are a number of countries even in the rest of Europe where it wouldn't be allowed into evidence. In Austria and Luxembourg even the use of the camera would be an offence. Many other countries will not allow footage to be used as evidence.

Burke wrote:

So if I'm in Australia and I haul off and deck a bike rider going by, what am I charged with?

I think they give you a medal 

a1white wrote:

Just a $1000 fine for assault? what would you expect from a country that fines people $330 for cycling without a helmet.

well... in this fine country you can drive around with only one working headlamp, drive over a man lying in the road, killing him, drive away, come back for a look and continue to drive away, wait until the Police come to your house and give a 'no comment' interview... all for £500 fine and 8 demerit points. Your point?

brooksby wrote:

WTF-ingF!?!  "Reckless Driving Causing Injury"? - b0ll0cks!  Attempted f-ing murder, surely?  

Only if you can prove he intended to kill the cyclist. He didn’t, given he didn’t kill him while he was busy throwing his bike over a hedge.

vonhelmet wrote:

brooksby wrote:

WTF-ingF!?!  "Reckless Driving Causing Injury"? - b0ll0cks!  Attempted f-ing murder, surely?  

Only if you can prove he intended to kill the cyclist. He didn’t, given he didn’t kill him while he was busy throwing his bike over a hedge.

I suppose so, yes.  But reckless driving causing injury just seems ridiculous - what did the motorist think was a likely outcome of swerving his SUV into the cyclist?  I mean, it's Australia so the cyclist was wearing his polystyrene hat, but the motorist surely *intended* to cause him at the very least serious injury?  Is that GBH or attempted manslaughter?

vonhelmet wrote:

Only if you can prove he intended to kill the cyclist. He didn’t, given he didn’t kill him while he was busy throwing his bike over a hedge.

[/quote]

It's reasonably foreseeable that the outcome might well be serious injury or death. It is certainly assault and battery. If the cyclist had died, it would have been murder.

rkemb wrote:

vonhelmet wrote:

Only if you can prove he intended to kill the cyclist. He didn’t, given he didn’t kill him while he was busy throwing his bike over a hedge.

It's reasonably foreseeable that the outcome might well be serious injury or death. It is certainly assault and battery. If the cyclist had died, it would have been murder.

No, it wouldn’t, because you have to intend to kill or at the very least seriously injure someone for it to be murder. Most people aren’t thinking that, they’re just lashing out. The serious injury or death is foreseeable but it isn’t intended or desired in the overwhelming majority of cases.

vonhelmet wrote:

No, it wouldn’t, because you have to intend to kill or at the very least seriously injure someone for it to be murder. Most people aren’t thinking that, they’re just lashing out. The serious injury or death is foreseeable but it isn’t intended or desired in the overwhelming majority of cases.

"Just lashing out" with a deadly weapon indicates an intention to seriously injure someone. Deliberately driving into someone indicates an intention to seriously injure them.

The fact that you can maintain that deliberately driving into someone is "just lashing out" and not an attempt to cause them bodily harm is a good illustration of the cultural issues related to the crappy charge and sentencing here. Is #metoo also "just banter"?

rkemb wrote:

vonhelmet wrote:

No, it wouldn’t, because you have to intend to kill or at the very least seriously injure someone for it to be murder. Most people aren’t thinking that, they’re just lashing out. The serious injury or death is foreseeable but it isn’t intended or desired in the overwhelming majority of cases.

"Just lashing out" with a deadly weapon indicates an intention to seriously injure someone. Deliberately driving into someone indicates an intention to seriously injure them.

The fact that you can maintain that deliberately driving into someone is "just lashing out" and not an attempt to cause them bodily harm is a good illustration of the cultural issues related to the crappy charge and sentencing here. Is #metoo also "just banter"?

I'm not saying I agree with it.  The fact is, though, people are just lashing out.  They're not thinking about what they're doing.  They should be, but they're not.  The law should recognise the severity of the potential consequences, but it doesn't.  If I had my way, driving offences like this would be dealt with way more harshly.  Prison sentences and terminal driving bans.  Caught driving while banned?  Back to prison, no questions asked.  No leniency for "hardship".  Get a bus pass.  Get a bike.

Until then, though, the law interprets this sort of behaviour as just lashing out, as though you'd thumped someone after they spilled your pint in the pub or walked into you on the street.  That's the law we're stuck with.  That's the law the public want, apparently.

vonhelmet wrote:

That's the law the public want, apparently.

You can't conclude that at all. If you punch someone in a bar, there's a good chance you'll get charged with assault. This is a road-specific problem because there are driving laws which, in general, assume carelessness or recklessness but no particular malign intent towards an individual, and the police and prosecution services choose to pursue these laws rather that the more appropriate ones which are in fact available. Neither of these bodies responsible for choosing which laws to apply are "the public". They're just lazy. I'm pretty sure that if you actually conducted a poll asking, "If someone deliberately runs you over, is that dangerous driving or assault?" then you would not get support for your position.

rkemb wrote:

vonhelmet wrote:

That's the law the public want, apparently.

You can't conclude that at all. If you punch someone in a bar, there's a good chance you'll get charged with assault. This is a road-specific problem because there are driving laws which, in general, assume carelessness or recklessness but no particular malign intent towards an individual, and the police and prosecution services choose to pursue these laws rather that the more appropriate ones which are in fact available. Neither of these bodies responsible for choosing which laws to apply are "the public". They're just lazy. I'm pretty sure that if you actually conducted a poll asking, "If someone deliberately runs you over, is that dangerous driving or assault?" then you would not get support for your position.

You can get people to agree to anything with the right survey questions. Besides, people will say anything to appear to give the right or virtuous answer. People will say in a survey that they want more police to enforce the laws on the roads, but their actions betray them. Look around you - people want to speed, jump red lights, look at their phone while driving. People don’t want to obey the laws and they certainly don’t want the laws to be properly enforced. As for whether the public gets to decide on these laws, this is a democracy, but people vote - if they can be bothered - for parties who cut police funding and they certainly don’t engage any further than that. We get the government we deserve and, by extension, the laws we deserve.