Investigation into Mike Hall’s “avoidable” death was compromised by loss of evidence

cougie wrote:

How the hell did the Police destroy the evidence ?

I'm sure I'd seen video evidence showing the reflectives and light on the back of the bike from that night ?

 

The blame can only be with the driver. 

 

I've seen a cyclist with no lights and wearing black on a 70mph dual carriageway at night from 100's of meters.  He had reflective pedals on - thank god.  He was a braver/more foolish man than me though - I have multiple bright lights and reflectives when I'm out at night.  Reflectives are brilliant in circumstances like that when you come up to the rider from behind.  No use when you're merging lanes though - you have to look for that....

Reflectives are unecessary IF the driver is obeying HC 126 and actually bothering to look, reflectives might help in some circumstances were a beam of light will highlight the patch/es but again only IF the other party is actually looking/seeing and takes appropriate action, if not then lights and reflectives are as useless as a sunflare, you only need look at how many times emergency vehicles are smashed into when they have reflectives, flashy red and blue lights on top of their main lights as well as the thousands of times a week cyclists who have reflectives and lit up like the proverbial xmas tree are struck or near missed due to motons not looking.

This is the type that killed Mike Hall, good luck avoiding these types, I've been struck and knocked off by one in a hit and run, and plod trried to victim blame me as well despite overhead stret lights, my bike lights and reflectives on my trouser leg, heel of my shoes and jacket!

Jimmy Ray Will wrote:

Ho hum, separately, but related, its amazing the amount of education that is required out there. I was discussing with my missus the other day about whether cyclists should use A roads. She firmly believes they shouldn't, but when pushed couldn't give a plausible reason why not... instead did a bit of wahat iffery and said that 'you wouldn't ride a horse on an A road'. 

My counter argument, is that cyclists are legally allowed to do so, therefore drivers are legally obligated to look out and be prepared to meet cyclists on A roads. Change the law, not live by some unofficial populist rule book.

If A roads had decent cycle tracks, properly wide and with priority over side roads, I'd agree with your Mrs, but this is the UK, where fake cycle facilities are the norm.  If cyclists were banned from A roads, the rest of the road network would have to be limited to 20mph, but I'm guessing your Mrs and most other drivers wouldn't be totally in favour of that either.

Jimmy Ray Will wrote:

Do you know what, when we are driving at night, there is a massive assumption amongst many of us, myself included, that A roads and motorways are clear of anything that shouldn't be there.

Dipped headlights at 70mph do not provide an adequate view of the road to be able to see and react to dark objects in the road in appropriate time.

If you drive at 40mph (about the safest max speed for dipped beams) on an NSL road you'll get tailgated, beeped, cut in on, and eventually be subjected to dangerous overtakes. I know because with experience of driving on unlit country lanes I won't do more than 40 on any unlit carriageway so I get this all the time. I've even had people overtake me and then brake test me. Beggars belief.

Motorways are slightly different as most are still lit or busy enough that you can drive to the lights in front of you.

The default behaviour for most drivers is "Prepare to go" not "prepare to stop" - in some ways it's ingrained in the driving test because you'll fail for hesitancy or failing to make progress (I assume that's still the case? It was when I passed in the late '80s). I know it's a behaviour I had to unlearn when I came back to cycling.

The default behaviour for most drivers is "Prepare to go" not "prepare to stop" - in some ways it's ingrained in the driving test because you'll fail for hesitancy or failing to make progress (I assume that's still the case? It was when I passed in the late '80s). I know it's a behaviour I had to unlearn when I came back to cycling.

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You certainly can fail your test for undue hesitation and quite rightly so.  Driving, like much of life, relies on compromise.  If you think safety is paramount to the point where nothing else matters then we could all roll along at 5mph and, for sure, there would be very few casualties.  But that's unacceptable to almost everybody and the sensible amongst us try to tread the middle path between what's safe and what's necessary.  It isn't a perfect world I'm afraid. 

mike the bike wrote:

 

The default behaviour for most drivers is "Prepare to go" not "prepare to stop" - in some ways it's ingrained in the driving test because you'll fail for hesitancy or failing to make progress (I assume that's still the case? It was when I passed in the late '80s). I know it's a behaviour I had to unlearn when I came back to cycling.

You certainly can fail your test for undue hesitation and quite rightly so.  Driving, like much of life, relies on compromise.  If you think safety is paramount to the point where nothing else matters then we could all roll along at 5mph and, for sure, there would be very few casualties.  But that's unacceptable to almost everybody and the sensible amongst us try to tread the middle path between what's safe and what's necessary.  It isn't a perfect world I'm afraid. 

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It isn't "necessary" to travel at more than 5mph if that is the fastest safe speed. We just need to learn to alow more time for our journeys so we don't feel rushed all the time. I have come to realise this since retiring. I leave more time for my journeys, drive as safely as I can, and most of the time end up arriving just as quickly as the person in front who accelerates as fast as they can then brakes hard at the next queue.

If I get tail gated I just drive slower, as advised on speed awareness courses.

kil0ran wrote:

The default behaviour for most drivers is "Prepare to go" not "prepare to stop" - in some ways it's ingrained in the driving test because you'll fail for hesitancy or failing to make progress (I assume that's still the case? It was when I passed in the late '80s). I know it's a behaviour I had to unlearn when I came back to cycling.

It's in our culture.

The other day, I had a spare ten minutes in the office, so I pooter on down to the kitchen for a coffee.  And I put the paper cup into the machine and hit the button.  It takes about 90 seconds for a coffee, so I wander over to the work surface and there's a car magazine sitting there, that someone had either forgotten or had left for general consultation as he or she had finished with it.

So I opened it, and on almost every page, there were ads or articles about how fast cars can go.  The photographs of the cars had them at slightly skewed angle, mimicking high-speed cornering, or with a photoshopped little 'wake' behind them as they were driven quickly away into the sunset (on empty roads, of course). 

Someone said a while back that cars are to Britain what firearms are to the US.  It's true that the AA and the RAC are like the National Rifle Association.  

Legs_Eleven_Worcester wrote:

The other day, I had a spare ten minutes in the office, so I pooter on down to the kitchen for a coffee.  And I put the paper cup into the machine and hit the button.  It takes about 90 seconds for a coffee, so I wander over to the work surface and there's a car magazine sitting there, that someone had either forgotten or had left for general consultation as he or she had finished with it.

So I opened it, and on almost every page, there were ads or articles about how fast cars can go.  The photographs of the cars had them at slightly skewed angle, mimicking high-speed cornering, or with a photoshopped little 'wake' behind them as they were driven quickly away into the sunset (on empty roads, of course). 

Someone said a while back that cars are to Britain what firearms are to the US.  It's true that the AA and the RAC are like the National Rifle Association.  

How true - and this has lead to the common assumption that being allowed to drive is a right not a privilege.

And it's not just the speed of cars that are selling points these days, but also how safe they are FOR THE DRIVER, and how many touchscreens, entertainment systems and audio accessories are included to ensure you have the maximum opportunity for distraction. It's like they are trying to sell us a living room on wheels. All this does is emphasise the sense of being cut off from the reality outside the protective metal box.

Kendalred wrote:

Legs_Eleven_Worcester wrote:

The other day, I had a spare ten minutes in the office, so I pooter on down to the kitchen for a coffee.  And I put the paper cup into the machine and hit the button.  It takes about 90 seconds for a coffee, so I wander over to the work surface and there's a car magazine sitting there, that someone had either forgotten or had left for general consultation as he or she had finished with it.

So I opened it, and on almost every page, there were ads or articles about how fast cars can go.  The photographs of the cars had them at slightly skewed angle, mimicking high-speed cornering, or with a photoshopped little 'wake' behind them as they were driven quickly away into the sunset (on empty roads, of course). 

Someone said a while back that cars are to Britain what firearms are to the US.  It's true that the AA and the RAC are like the National Rifle Association.  

How true - and this has lead to the common assumption that being allowed to drive is a right not a privilege.

And it's not just the speed of cars that are selling points these days, but also how safe they are FOR THE DRIVER, and how many touchscreens, entertainment systems and audio accessories are included to ensure you have the maximum opportunity for distraction. It's like they are trying to sell us a living room on wheels. All this does is emphasise the sense of being cut off from the reality outside the protective metal box.

I believe that this phenomenon is also responsible in part for the unwillingness of the powers that be to prosecute drivers (financial considerations aside, since forty years of neocon rule and the same length of time dedicated to looting the British taxpayers to keep the toffs in the manner to which they have become accsustomed, is another factor..).   People know that if they murder someone inside their own home, the law is going to get involved, but for other, more 'mundane' stuff, there is a definite sense that one's own home is one's 'castle' and the state has no business interfering there.

The car is seem as yet another extension of one's own private space, and people believe - subconsciously or not - that they can and should be able to do anything they want inside that car. 

That the car in fact moves in the public space, is not something that everyone considers.  But then, when one considers how many people think that the earth is flat, that climate change is 'a hoax', that the moon landings 'took place in a warehouse in the New Mexico desert' and that 'Europe needs us more than we need them', it shouldn't come as a surprise that so many people think that a driver has in effect done nothing wrong by knocking over a cyclist.  

My experience of the pigshit ignorant vermin who go on 'driver awareness courses' and who firmly, honestly and sincerely believe that they have done absolutely nothing wrong, reinforces my opinion.  

Christopher TR1 wrote:

Disgusting! This turd of a motorist needs to be kept away from the road for good.

And what he was or wasn't wearing is totally irrelevant: He had lights on.

You should be able to see a person on the highway or anything else for that matter that does not have lights or reflective garments, the onus should be on you as the operator of a machine that kills by the millions every year globally, that we continue to push the onus onto everyone else is a sick endictment of how those in power, including police think!

Driving at a speed you can stop well within the distance you can see to be clear is HC126, it's one of the rules broken the most often but is one of the most important and should be a 'You must' becausy not obeying that rule clearly poses danger to others and indeed yourself and does end with deaths and serious life changing injuries to innocent parties.

If there's a broken down or crashed vehicle with no electrics just ahead then you should be able to see that by the beam of your lights to take action to avoid a collision, same with a fallen tree, animals in the road around a bend, pedestrians walking toward you, sink hole in the road or a cyclist in black with no lights. (some thing the then CTC president objected to vehemently in the 1920s and 30s because it absolves motorists of their responsibility and pushes the onus onto the vulnerable and so it has come to pass with the ever weaker rules and standards for killers/those that present the harm and more rules/more onus to not get killed.

it's precisely the same as telling your female friend/parter or even mum/grandmother, don't forget to not walk down x street, make sure not to wear anything that looks 'sexy' and always make sure to wear an anti rape device otherwise you're just asking for it!!

The twat that mowed down Mike Hall would have smashed into anything and the Australian system yet again proves it's even worse than ours, a disgrace and sets the rod for future prosecutions and from that protection for road users from killers!

Argos74 wrote:

It may be time to start accepting applications for asylum from Australian cyclists.

Which tells you how bad their system must be if ours is seen as better.  Ours is still abysmal, but better than Oz; I'm not sure whether to be grateful or to cry.