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news
Chester Road A452, Walsall (Google Street View)Teenage motorist who hit and killed cyclist two months after passing test banned from driving for a year, ordered to complete 180 hours unpaid work, and fined £240
An “inexperienced” teenage motorist who pulled out of a junction and fatally struck a cyclist, just two months after passing his driving test, has avoided jail, and has instead been banned from driving for a year and ordered to complete 180 hours of unpaid work after pleading guilty to causing the cyclist’s death by careless driving.
Cyclist Alan Preston was riding on the A452 Chester Road near Aldridge, five miles north of Walsall, on the morning of Saturday 11 February 2023, when he was struck by 19-year-old driver Alfie Swann, who had pulled out onto the road at its junction with Lazy Hill.
Swann, who was on his way to visit his grandparents at the time, claimed to police that he had looked both ways before pulling out, but hadn’t seen Mr Preston approaching until it was too late, Wolverhampton Magistrates Court heard on Tuesday, the Express and Star reports.
The 58-year-old suffered serious head injuries and bleeding in the collision, and died in hospital 13 days later.
(West Midlands Police)
According to a statement from a witness, Janice Howard, who was driving on Chester Road when the crash took place, Mr Swann hit the cyclist as he pulled out, sending him “flying over the bonnet before landing on the floor”.
Swann stopped his car following the collision and remained at the scene until the police arrived, before co-operating in interviews. He later pleaded guilty to causing Mr Preston’s death by careless driving.
In court this week, prosecutor Mrs Maggie Meakin said tests carried out on the 19-year-old driver provided “no evidence of drugs or alcohol” and that conditions on the day were described as “clear and bright”.
Representing Mr Swann, Brij Chaudhry said the case was a “very, very tragic” one and that the motorist asked him to pass on his condolences to Mr Preston’s family.
“Mr Swann was taking quite a regular route. On weekends he would often have brunch or late lunch with his grandparents. They lived not far from where he resided,” Mr Chaudhry said in court.
He also claimed that Swann had not pulled out of the junction at speed, while distracted, or under the influence of any substances.
“He simply did not see Mr Preston, who was cycling down the road itself. He said he saw something out of the corner of his eye and braked but it was too late,” the lawyer said.
“He accepts his wrongdoing in the sense of driving without due care and attention, in the circumstances we have heard.
“He had only been driving for some two and a half months prior to this incident and therefore was a relatively inexperienced driver.”
Expressing his “heartfelt condolences” to the popular cyclist’s family, and criticising the time it took to bring the case to a conclusion, District Judge Michael Wheeler said: “No sentence that I can pass can bring back Mr Preston.
“Alfie Swann, the collision that led to Alan Preston’s death was your fault. You told the police that you looked left and you looked right, as you were required to do.
“You pulled out and you struck Mr Preston, who had the right of way. You didn’t see him – you should have.
“To your credit, you didn't attempt to divert responsibility away from your own conduct towards Mr Preston.
“You passed your [driving] test only a matter of weeks before this traumatic incident. This was not an unsafe manoeuvre in and of itself – it became unsafe when you failed to see a cyclist when you should have.”
However, the judge noted Swann’s remorse following the fatal collision and his previous good character, and said he would stop short of a custodial sentence.
Instead, he ordered the motorist, now 20, to complete 180 hours of unpaid work over two years, and banned him from driving for 12 months, a suspension that was backdated to 22 May, when an interim disqualification was first issued.
Swann must complete an extended driving re-test once his ban is completed. He was also told to pay a £154 victim surcharge and £85 in prosecution costs.
> “Panicked” motorist who mounted grass verge to undertake cyclist banned from driving for 12 months
In a victim impact statement read in court, Mr Preston’s ex-wife Jayne said that her life “stopped” on the day of the collision and that she has “just been existing since”, while his son Matthew said that he was unable to work for months following his father’s death, putting him in debt.
“On February 11, 2023, my life stopped – and I feel like I’ve just been existing since,” Mrs Preston said, before adding that she has been in “constant anxiety” since the death of the keen cyclist, badminton player, and Walsall FC season ticket holder.
“When you lose someone who you have loved for 30 years unexpectedly, it does have a massive impact. My health has been severely impacted. I have found myself struggling daily to stay strong for my family.
“It’s impacting on my physical, emotional, and financial wellbeing. All I want is justice for Alan and our family.”
Ryan joined road.cc in December 2021 and since then has kept the site’s readers and listeners informed and enthralled (well at least occasionally) on news, the live blog, and the road.cc Podcast. After boarding a wrong bus at the world championships and ruining a good pair of jeans at the cyclocross, he now serves as road.cc’s senior news writer. Before his foray into cycling journalism, he wallowed in the equally pitiless world of academia, where he wrote a book about Victorian politics and droned on about cycling and bikes to classes of bored students (while taking every chance he could get to talk about cycling in print or on the radio). He can be found riding his bike very slowly around the narrow, scenic country lanes of Co. Down.
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64 comments
So essentially, someone who was wholly incompetent was let out on the roads behind the wheel of a car. Maybe the real trial here should be of the last few decades worth of Home Secretaries, Transport Ministers, etc. for dangerous governing, in failing to ensure an adequate licensing regime.
I would suggest the test is as hard or harder than its ever been. Unless you want to have a far more extreme, long and expensive test that few people would pass, it is what it is. If you want to do that then you really need to be looking at making driving in general because the average newly qualified driver probably isn't that much worse than most drivers who have been doing it for years.
Which is an excessively low bar.
Sounds good to me.
Although it doesn't need to be a one-off test - it can be a longer period of assessment (plus regular reassessment). Like what we'd do for operating any other piece of potentially dangerous equipment in the public realm.
This is somehow simultaneously too lenient, at least in the length of the driving ban, and also a more severe punishment than other cases where the driver was older, probably richer, more likely to elicit sympathy from the magistrate, and/or deployed one of a variety of excuses (sun in their eyes, medical condition, financial hardship if banned, etc, etc.)
Matthew Briggs and Ian Duncan Smith will be dancing with joy.
And here we see another example of the entire problem, "law enforcement" that refuses to hold killers accountable for their crimes.
"I looked but did not see" is rank nonsense that would never be accepted from a killer who used any weapon other than a motor vehicle. The cyclist was hit by the front fender of the vehicle, which necessarily means he was only a few feet away when the driver claims to have looked. It is ridiculous to believe that a grown man was invisible from just a few feet away, and such an obvious lie would never be accepted in any other killing.
This case is an invitation, a formal request even, for motor vehicle operators to drive completely without care or attention -- all they need do is remember the magic password, "Oops", and they will face no repercussions.
Bumper.
But is it a wing mirror over in the States?
It is a fender mirror apparently. Or a door mirror. Or a bumper mirror. Who knows?
Sorry, I cannot always be arsed to translate English into English.
Horrible when this sort of thing happens. Sometimes though you have to accept that prison isn't the solution every time someone dies on the road. There is no right answer here and perhaps the right judgement was made.
Maybe prison isn't the right solution, but any driver who who gets 6 or more points on their driving licence within 2 years of passing their test for a full licence, has their licence cancelled. And they must then retake both parts of the test again. Why hasn't that been implemented here ?
There isn't even any mention of points that were given in this sentence, merely an extended driving test, which would apply to any driver of any experience convicted of causing death by careless driving.
Not saying that it's sufficient but he's banned for a year which is what someone would get for getting 12 points in three years and then racking up 12 points again within three years of the original (6 months) disqualification, so pretty hefty in terms of the law, if pathetically inadequate in terms of common sense.
If you are ordered to take an extended driving test before being allowed to drive again you have to apply to the DVLA for a new provisional licence and you are a learner again, so you have to retake the theory test before you can apply to take the extended practical.
Will also take a hammering from the insurance.
I agree, a 10 year ban would be much more impactful, keep other cyclists safe for a while and send a message to other dangerous drivers.
Also what about a £6000 fine which would have to be paid off over 50 years at £10 per week which might remind the driver to look out for vulnerable road users every time he looks at his bank statement?
Most Gen Zers I know never check their bank statements and would imagine that they wouldn't notice the tenner per week. A large fine to be paid quickly resulting in taking out a loan to cover it so the large monthly payments over five years would be quite effective.
At 18 many young people make a positive decision that costs them around £50K worth of debt to be paid back over decades. I sometimes wonder why those that make bad decisions aren't saddled with similar amounts of debt.
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Quick, quick! Let's give children the vote!
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A Lay Bah government. A Laaaaaay Bah government.
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Coming your way very soon, to sort out every problem in the world, especially cycling ones.
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Oh, hang on .....
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If we're going to deny the vote to age groups where people do dangerous shit on the roads, we'll be doing away with democracy in pretty short order.
Since they remember Kinnoch in his prime, they're probably suffering from the same tendency as some of us other folks here might. That is to imagine that anyone less than say 40 is a giddy youth that can't be trusted not to eat all their sweeties at once and needs wiser adults to manage things.
Enfranchise - and worry about Parliament being renamed "Talky McTalkPlace", your old absolutes being redefined and cringy ministerial TikToks? Or don't - and worry that the current wave of enthusiasm to shake things up might not stop at sitting in the road or splashing paint on things?
Those 8-year-olds might not wait quietly for their chance to use democratic change to give them space to cycle! And they're a good height to let your car's tyres down...
I think a better solution would be a ban till his 25th birthday, by which time has hopefully he will be mature enough to take on board the seriousness and consequential responsibility of being licenced to drive a motor vehicle. In the meantime using public transport and cycling will teach him much
Prison sentences are a deterrent not just for those who commit crimes but for others who might do the same and thus should heed the warning and take greater care.
The message here is that you can pass your test, immediately go out on your own, drive carelessly, kill, and as long as you apologise and make an excuse there will be no serious consequences. Nothing positive can come from such outcomes.
Problem is that deterrence either needs active thought OR training and reinforcement.
In the case of driving we'd have to fix it so people are more aware of the risks when they get into their vehicles. And/or more actively involved in the driving process. We have humans and mass motoring so lots are going to be driving at any given moment with insufficient attention / low mental arousal / distraction.
I'm less sure about the reinforcement side. Is it that we don't get the message enough, or we ignore it?
If the latter, is it because we only hear about the really terrible ones - because "news", or because less blantantly bad driving doesn't attract noteworthy sentences or indeed any punishment? Perhaps then we can "other" those bad drivers. We know we are good drivers!
Perhaps it's also that any messages about road safety get muted since we get daily reinforcement that driving's no big deal - because we almost always come home at the end of the day?
Perhaps we're now safe enough so that there's just not enough pressure to make things better. Not enough people dying or - nicer outcome - drivers walking away shaking from the blazing wreck of their vehicles? Or just having them impounded / their licences removed - but the "keeping them from ignoring bans" part is the trick!
Question -- do you all not have experience with the saying "Fifteen'll get ya twenty" in your country?
That phrase has prevented countless illegal sexual relations between young girls and older men. It's been around for decades at least, and not many in this country haven't heard it. It works, even despite the fact those relations were ubiquitous throughout human history until very, very recently.
Fear of spending a couple decades in prison does actually modify behavior, even some behavior that is arguably inherent to our species.
Well I am completely convinced by this argument.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/jeffrey-epstein-list-names-b2489252.html
No, wait...
In 2022 95,492 persons aged 15 and under were subject to sexual abuse from adults in the USA. That's just cases in which there was a conviction of the abuser, and it's estimated by some experts that up to 90% of child sexual abuse goes unreported, which would give us a figure of close to 1,000,000 victims per year. Doesn't sound like "it works" is actually working that well.
I feel that prison sentences should be sparingly used and perhaps in cases like this reserved for any failure to observe the much longer driving ban such a crime should demand, though I would like to see a suspended and repeatable 28 day prison sentence to be be enacted immediately on apprehension without any further court appearance attached to any driving ban.
Why, exactly, is prison not the solution in this case?
Had this killer chosen any weapon other than a motor vehicle, he would be facing a decade or so in prison for manslaughter. Precisely what magic makes killing with a car fine and dandy?
If a person walked up to this killer on the street, and shot him fatally, would that person escape all repercussions if they claimed that they "looked, but didn't see" the victim?
Why the double standard, then?
Ah, but driving a car is just like putting on shoes and going for a walk! Shoes and socks aren't weapons - I wear them every day! Then - if you step on someone's foot, it's probably an accident...
As to penalties - the UK charge being "causing death by careless driving" here.
History but this (with the more serious "causing death by dangerous driving" - which now tends not to get charged for the following reason...) was set up in large part because juries would simply not convict drivers of charges like murder or manslaughter.
Juries didn't think it was really "evil" and/or would compare their own driving behaviour / that they had observed and think "there but for the grace of god". Or feel that it was a small and/or inadvertent mistake which just happened to have tragic consequences. No intent to actually harm someone.
Unfortunately the new charges don't seem to have fully fixed this issue either. Reading the reports of these cases (albeit not the whole mess) it's possible to squint and see "could have happened to anyone" / "but they didn't mean to" at work. And a neat little variant - the "incompetence paradox" - where your counsel effectively implies that it's not fair to punish you for "mistakes" since you aren't actually a competent driver!
Now you've sent me down a rabbit-hole of reading about what the UK euphemistically calls its 'justice system', and holy cow, it might be worse than the United States'.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Louise_Jensen
That said, there's no rational argument that this crime wasn't manslaughter, in the UK. The test has four parts;
1. Was the act unlawful? Clearly, failing to yield the right of way and ramming a cyclist is unlawful.
2. Was the act dangerous? Clearly ramming a cyclist is dangerous.
3. Was the act the cause of death? Doesn't even need to be mentioned.
4. Mens Rea. Wouldn't even matter if the killer claimed that he didn't know a cyclist could die after being rammed by his car.
Ref: https://www.lawteacher.net/cases/invol-mans-cases.php
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