The Age reports that Billie Rodda has been sentenced to a three-year community corrections order after she pleaded guilty to causing the death of Australian pro cyclist Jason Lowndes by dangerous driving.
She also pleaded guilty to a summary charge of using a mobile phone while driving.
As well as the community order, she was fined and banned from driving for three years.
We’d already reported that Rodda was going to be spared jail, in large part because the prosecution and defence accepted she had not been using her phone in the moments immediately before the crash – even though she’d sent and received a whole series of texts leading up to it.
It was also agreed that she would have had between 2.2 and four seconds to see him. Reading the reports, this seems to have been considered a small amount of time.
We’d consider two seconds to be quite a long time to spot something on the road while driving. Four seconds is an age.
The defence said she’d been looking at her speedometer.
"You said you had no time to react and indeed you did not brake or steer away before the collision," said Judge Wendy Wilmoth. "There were no warning signs as to the likely presence of cyclists and there was no dedicated bike lane nor any opportunity for either Mr Lowndes or you to veer left."
Wilmoth said Rodda's moral culpability was low as she was not speeding, on drugs or alcohol, or fatigued at the time.
Sounds like there are at least three of us here who are very local, and probably either know one another or have at least nodded at one another as...
Apparently he's a phd.... Or was it an aphid? Need to get to specsavers
Unite is my union, I joined the MSF, which became Amicus then Unite....
Surely stuff like this is easy pickings for the police? Video evidence of the driver putting people at risk means 100% chance of a successful...
Two words which should never follow in the same sentence. 'Gogglebox' and 'Star'.
I don't understand what is happening in these car park occurances. At least the other one wasn't blocking the large tree strewn cycle path.
Obviously, as Mayor, he'd just make cyclists pay Road Tax (even if they would be paying to not use the roads). Bosh - job done!
Looking forward to "how to blow up a tyre"
Be respectful man, if you're clueless, doesn't mean the rest of us are. I told you the source, if you were capable to read my post....
Only charge is likely to revolve around not wearing a seatbelt, won't be anything to do with protecting cyclists......