Cyclist facing manslaughter charge

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.

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.

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.

brooksby 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.

I think the key thing here

I think the key thing here comparing this to a car vs ped death is that generally the cases I’ve seen involve a car that is road-legal. That would have changed the whole situation. I can’t see him getting out of going to prison, especially after his questionable behaviour pre and post collision. He clearly had overestimated his skill level, which is the premise of the young.

The bloke is a courier, going by the articles I’ve read, so should know London and the stupidness of pedestrians. I’ve commuted through Central London for years and only ever had one hard knock into a ped but I was on a bike with brakes and I stopped to make sure he got up. He certainly regretted stepping out on a red man whilst talking on his phone on the ear he should have been looking out of but he didn’t die, probably. I always wondered if internal injuries might have caught him later on in the day cos he went down like a sack of bricks! Having ridden track a fair bit I wouldn’t contemplate riding any bike in London with no brakes, even if I was great at fixie-skidding.

Cyclists without brakes is a massive issue in London especially. The amount of fixie riders doesn’t come close to the amount of people riding BSO’s with v-brakes that are disconnected due to warped wheels, or just missing parts due to poor maintenance. There’s nothing stopping them, and in I often wonder if the Police/ Ministry might one day set up a check point to check bike safety at strategic locations, as they do spot checks on cars and larger vehicles.

All he had to say was the sun

All he had to say was the sun was in his eyes and he’d have gotten off scott free..

LastBoyScout wrote:

So far, no question of why wasn’t the pedestrian using the official, safe, crossing infrastructure (provided at great expense for her convenience) that was a mere 30 feet away?

Double standards, much?

You can’t say that……. because that completely rules out an argument that cyclists have on a daily basis….. “Why are you cycling on the road when there is and official safe cycling path (provided at great expense for your conveniece) that runs alongside the road”

CCC depends very much on bike
CCC depends very much on bike gearing and rider. As a full on roadie that mashes big gears with a rather full on fixie (struggles to climb), I can’t stop mine using the rear pedal action – not even close to having the hamstring strength…