Cyclist facing manslaughter charge

Yorkshire wallet wrote:

Yorkshire wallet wrote:

Cyclists do seem to be at the bottom of the social pecking order in terms of sympathy. I’m not sure how we’ve mananged to end up here? Was it always this way or have attitudes soured as people have got fatter and cars have got faster and the roads more populated?

 

I think the latter.

Add to that a powerful motor lobby, a general lack of tolerance, social media echo chambers and trollumnists competing to outdo each other, and the car lobby has won, really. The world getting a motor-induced Hiroshima EACH MONTH barely raises comment.

Combine that with the cycling fightback consisting of the much quieter and less clickbaity reasonable arguments of the likes of Chris Boardman and we’re seen as weirdos.

I’m working with someone from a different department on a project at the moment – perfectly rational, unassuming, bit of a petrolhead. It wasn’t til our train back from London got cancelled a few weeks back and we went for a few beers that I found out he was apprehensive about working with me as he knew I was a cyclist and assumed I was an aggressive, militant stereotype. He was surprised that I was a bit of a petrolhead myself and I think he got the point that I was only militant about not being squashed purely for riding a bike on the roads.

If other conversations with some friends, family and colleagues, and the frequency of anti-cyclist diatribes in the MSM are anything to go by, that kind of shit is prevalent, and it’s going to take a real movement to overturn it.

BehindTheBikesheds wrote:

stating that having the brake would have meant the deceased didn’t die is wild speculation.

One cannot know if the women would have died if he’d have nudged into her at 1mph and she fell surprised that he was even there, speculation on that is simply that, speculation as to outcome. We know people that trip under their own steam whilst walking and die from head injuries.

Perhaps I’ve been following a different case. The whole prosecution case is based on speculation that a lack of front brake resulted in the death of the poor woman. Perhaps she would have died if she tripped over in the kitchen – totally irrelevant. Simple physics tells us that lower speeds in collisions decreases significantly the level of injury and or death – this is why urban speed limits are much lower than motorway limits. Yes, death can still occur, but the chances are much diminished.

kevvjj wrote:

BehindTheBikesheds wrote:

kevvjj wrote:

silkred wrote:

I guess its pointless for us as distant observers to judge this bloke – in the end she stepped out into the road without being fully aware – in my personal opinion knowing the limited stuff I do via the papers if I was on the jury I would find him not guilty of the crimes he is being tried for – he is not even all that stupid – simply human – if you are a cyclist reading this then you will have sworn at someone who got in your way or cut you up or put you at risk – every single one of you – he acted after the way he is reported to have because he had been put on the floor – there is no good answer to this but putting him in prison is not one of them.

Hmmm. The fact that he had time to yell out twice and then try to go around her (his words) indicates to me that he wasn’t going to stop but was aiming to veer around her. I think he had plenty of time to react (and stop?) but she apparently “stepped back” into his path (his words again) as he tried to go around her (no front brake notwithstanding). I’m afraid it doesn’t look good for this young man – no front brake makes the bike illegal and contrary to what he (or his lawyer) might say it does make all the difference – even if he had had still collided with her the front brake would have made a dramatic difference to the collision speed, resulting in potetially fewer injuries. In fact a front brake would mostlikely have had him going over the bars and their heads not colliding at all. I do agree that prison will not solve anything here.

Do you come to a full stop when someone walks out in front of you (if you are cycling or driving) or do you slow down a bit and predict as would be normal they would continue on across?

Given the 3.8 seconds from her stepping off  to impact how could one reasonably predict that she would not simply walk across the lane and no longer even be in the highway at all (2mph walking speed is 3.8 seconds to cross 3.8m carriageway BTW). How can one predict that a pedestrian would dither about to the point that they were still in the carriageway and despite all your efforts at trying to avoid them despite giving two audible warnings AND already having braked (this is a fact already) that there would be a collision.

How is this incident comparative to others of motorists v ped/person on bike/other motorists?

It’s a fucking witch-hunt on the back of him stating that it was her fault for walking out in front of him on her phone and that 2 years ago he mentioned on twitter taking the front brake off his Cinelli.

As for the 3metres stopping distance on a police MTB from 18mph, absolute bullshit and the defence should have called that to be scrubbed/ignored by the jurors.

You’ve got at least 1.5seconds thinking time for a start off, it’s already known he braked, she dithered, he had to rethink again what he was going to do after not clearing the carriageway.

Agree with most of what you say. However, there is no getting away from the fact that he had no front brake. In 3.8s he probably would still have hit her – but, WITH a front brake the speed would have been much less and I think this is the issue – not his attitude, manner or bravado.

The no front brake is irrelevant to the actual death/manslaughter, this has already being determined in a court of law when a motorist killed FOUR cyclists when he had THREE defective tyres, he was slapped on the wrist for the faulty tyres to the tune of £180. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-398901/Fury-driver-killed-cyclists-fined-180.html

stating that having the brake would have meant the deceased didn’t die is wild speculation.

One cannot know if the women would have died if he’d have nudged into her at 1mph and she fell surprised that he was even there, speculation on that is simply that, speculation as to outcome. We know people that trip under their own steam whilst walking and die from head injuries.

We already know that this case has had the law applied to this person differently than to if he was in a more dangerous vehicle, we already know that he will not be tried by his peers but by a group of people with an inherrent bias/hatred towards his kind.

Already the media and cycle forummers have condemned him, without even understanding how these things happen and the timescales involved, even the 3m offered up by the prosecution is misleading and total BS.

All too often motorists blame the victim when it’s a cyclist and the police, the CPS, jurists AND judges take it as read the cyclist is to blame for their demise and yet this flips 180 degrees when there is a cyclist involved in a collision with someone whom ends up dying as a result.

Application of the law and this case being fair is all I’m asking for, that and some actual understanding of what happens when an incident takes place, it really isn’t as cut and dried as the absolute numbers are being made out to be, not even close.

oldstrath wrote:

hawkinspeter wrote:

@alansmurphy – you’re right about the poor quality of evidence. Unfortunately, this cyclist is going to be used as a scapegoat/made an example of. Whether or not he could have stopped is probably going to end up being irrelevant due to the fact that he had no right to be on that road (whereas the pedestrian had every right to cross in the wrong place at the wrong time without even looking).

Which is fine, so long as every driver who has no right to be on the road while texting, tired, distracted, unable to see because of sun on a dirty windscreen, or in a vehicle as clearly unfit as most HGVs  is also tried and convictef of manslaughter when they succeed in killing someone. Want to bet?

I’d agree with that and it’s a shame that motons aren’t hold more to account. In general I believe in presumed liability – the bigger/faster vehicle should be presumed liable and in this case the cctv footage doesn’t prove the cyclist to be blameless.

I’d quite happily support a law that makes actively using a mobile phone illegal on the roads, whether you’re walking, cycling or driving (passengers would be exempt). Although in this case, that would confuse the issue even more.

The nature of the reporting and the general anti-cyclist feeling are not going to help this poor bloke.

srchar wrote:

Cyclist was reported to have been “racing along” at… 18mph!  Imagine if a driver ran over and killed someone while travelling at 18mph.  They’d be completely exonerated.

What cyclists are complaining about here are the obvious double standards – I don’t think anyone here would seriously argue that not having any brakes is a good idea.  Avoiding dopey peds in the city as well as all the vehicular traffic is hard enough with a full braking system.

The langauge being used by the prosecution isobviously  baised against the rider. The BBC was full of the bike being a racing bike, he was racing along at 18mph (29km/hr), which it shouldn’t be doing.

It’s a track bike and it isn’t a racing bike until it’s being raced and 29km/hr ain’t racing.

I hope that this case will lead to more motorist prosecutions based on the standards being set here. All cars will be scrutinised to find faults, subsequent driver behaviour used against them,  weight of fault falling on the victim, etc, etc…

Thoughts out with the victim’s friends and family, it can’t be pleasant reliving the accident.

Absolutely. We haven’t gone
Absolutely. We haven’t gone down the daily mail route and gone victim blaming here. If he’d had a decent set of brakes there’s a fair chance the outcome would have been different and he should be held to account for that. It just massively highlights the difference though when such a rare case of negligence is reported/prosecuted and in all likelihood punished in such a way and less than 12 months trawling here will show us drivers using phones or intoxicated or hiding car and returning to the scene and on and on all walking free (and often driving).

@alansmurphy – you’re right

@alansmurphy – you’re right about the poor quality of evidence. Unfortunately, this cyclist is going to be used as a scapegoat/made an example of. Whether or not he could have stopped is probably going to end up being irrelevant due to the fact that he had no right to be on that road (whereas the pedestrian had every right to cross in the wrong place at the wrong time without even looking).

BehindTheBikesheds wrote:

hawkinspeter wrote:

brooksby wrote:

Car stopping distances, according to the HC:

20mph thinking 6 metres, braking 6 metres = 12 metres
30mph thinking 9 metres, braking 14 metres = 23 metres
40mph thinking 12 metres, braking 24 metres = 36 metres

Correct me if I’m wrong, but that means a car would have definitely hit a pedestrian stepping out in front, ten metres away…

I’m not convinced about the “thinking time” on a bike as it’s quite possible to “instinctively” react without needing to consciously think about what you’re going to do. I’m sure I can stop from 20mph in a lot less than 12 metres on my bike. By the power of maths, that 6m at 20mph works out to be about two-thirds of a second which is quite a slow reaction – the typical reaction to visual stimulii is about a 0.25 seconds. If you’re practised at riding a bike and watching for hazards, you’d be anticipating peds stepping out and be swerving and stopping within that 6 metres of thinking time.

Sorry but you’re guessing about ‘instinct’ and thinking times is just nonsense.

human beings are human beings, you cannot predict X outcome, thinking time is about 1.5 seconds for these types of incident (accepted by crash investigators as a good in clear conditions/alert person), then you would have mechanical action time (braking/pressing accelerator etc), then you have actual braking time.

Also when does any road user fully slam on to the maximum potential braking to come to a full stop when an object/pedestrian crosses in front, hardly ever, you scrub a bit of speed off, as is clear the defendant did and you normally think/anticipate that the object/pedestrian carries on across. In this case the pedestrian (apparently) took 3.8 seconds to the time of impact from stepping off the pavement/footway, that is in no way normal. This would require the defendant to rethink again his actions (another second or so) he tried to swerve to avoid the pedestrian who was clearly still dithering in the middle of the road instead of simply walking across and they then collided.

it’s all so easy to just use absolute numbers in a stress environ/situation but that’s not how real life works all too often.

You may or may not be right about thinking times – testing it is the only practical way to figure it out. In lieu of setting up a decent test site, try your hand at this simple little reaction tester:

https://www.humanbenchmark.com/tests/reactiontime

I haven’t got any figures to back up actual times for “thinking”, but when I’m riding a bike and approaching a hazardous area (e.g. a school at pick-up/drop-off time; takeaway shops; junctions) I keep my fingers on my brakes and if I anything unexpected happens, I scrub off speed whilst I think about what to do (generally involves lots of swearing).

In general, it’s quite easy to improve specific reaction times by practising the skill and if you perform an action often enough, then you can “react” to it without having to be conscious of it (e.g. boxers don’t need thinking time to avoid a punch).

The cyclist in question has stated that a front brake wouldn’t have made any difference to his ability to stop/avoid the pedestrian, but I don’t agree with that. The stupid thing is that if he had a front brake, he almost certainly wouldn’t be in court even if the pedestrian had still died.