An 88-year-old motorist who ran over and killed a cyclist on a roundabout despite witnesses yelling at him to stop has been banned from driving for three years – although he has not driven since the fatal crash and never plans to do so again.
Frederick Clague, who pleaded guilty at Liverpool Magistrates’ Court yesterday to causing death by careless driving, did not see cyclist Simon Jones, aged 46, before he hit him on the roundabout in Hoylake, Wirral, on the afternoon of 27 November 2019.
The Liverpool Echo reports that Clague struggled to stop the car, running over Mr Jones. People nearby lifted the car off him, but he died in hospital four days later.
Prosecutor Alan Currums told the court that Mr Jones “stopped breathing, was resuscitated, but sadly died on December 4.”
He said that Clague “entered the roundabout at what appears to be a normal speed and went into the path of the cyclist,” who tried to steer clear but with the driver failing to brake, he fell beneath the front of the car.
“The vehicle itself doesn’t stop, it was driving forward at a slow speed,” Mr Currums added.
One witness said that despite people “screaming, shouting and waving their arms at the car,” Clague “continued to drive over the top of him [while] slowing right down.”
He said that the motorist got out of his car and asked, “Where did he come from, who is he?”
According to another witness, he said: “I couldn’t make it stop, it wouldn’t stop.”
In mitigation, Tom Gent said it was a “tragic case” and that Clague was “devastated by the consequences of his actions.”
He said: “He is so desperately sorry for what he did and wishes he could turn back the clock.
“He wakes most nights thinking of Mr Jones – of course his suffering can’t be compared with that of Mr Jones.
“He will forever be haunted by the consequences of his mistake,” and added that Clague had held a clean driving licence for 60 years.
Sentencing Clague, District Judge Paul Clarke said that the crash was “far from deliberate” and resulted from “inattention,” but was also “aggravated to some degree to fail to regain control of the vehicle.”
Acknowledging that Clague remained at the scene and had been left “disturbed” by what had happened, the judge said: “This is not a case that calls for imprisonment, I think that would serve no purpose.”
He imposed a 16-week curfew on him from 8pm-8am and said that should he wish to regain his driving licence once the three-year ban ends, he would have to take an extended retest – although Clague has not driven since the fatal crash and never intends to do so again.
51 thoughts on “Motorist, 88, gets three-year driving ban for killing cyclist”
Surely time for age-limited
Surely time for age-limited driving licences, with retests more frequent with increasing age? Something very similar happened to me two years ago, with an elderly driver pulling out so close in front of me on a roundabout that I hit the side of the car. Again, slow speed so no serious injuries, but it was broad daylight; I used to wake up at night wondering what would have happened if he was a second later pulling out, as I would have been right in front of him. The police wouldn’t prosecute, so as far as I know, he’s still driving.
Once the young uns are 100%
Once the young uns are 100% accident free, I think that this would be the time to introduce age limits and frequent testing. Until then, I think necks could be wound back just a little bit.
What a pointless ban! Whata waste of a life!
I disagree, with advancing
I disagree, with advancing years it’s inevitable that we will all reach a point when we should stop driving and it should not be left to the individual. (I’m not against periodic retests for younger drivers either)
Again, once youngs uns are
Again, once youngs uns are 100% accident free, then we can talk about generalising whole age groups.
don simon fbpe wrote:
I really don’t know where to start with this reply, everything in this sentence is just so wrong.
First off you are generalising about age groups yourself when you talk about young uns needing to be 100% accident free. Soooo it’s pretty much a self-defeating statement before we even start. If you don’t want people generalising about things, you should probably stop doing this yourself? Hypocrite much?
Next I really don’t understand why we have to fix one problem before moving onto another, why not work on all the problems at once? Are you suggesting that we should fix the problem of dangerous drivers before we start on fixing the dangerous state of some roads? Or that we only police people aged 18-30 because they are the most dangerous and ignore everyone else? Makes zero sense at all.
I’m 50+ and would welcome regular (maybe every 5 years???) refresher training and assessments. It wouldn’t need to be a full driving test, just enough to say is this individual fundamentally dangerous. There are so many terrible drivers both young and old, we should make and effort to get all of them off the road.
MTB Refugee wrote:
I’d start by looking at the post that this was responding too, I’d then have a quick think to see whether it should be taken so literally.
You’re new here, so forgiven. Sorry for wasting your time.
don simon fbpe wrote:
I really can’t tell if you are being serious or just trolling the comments section, nothing you say makes any sense to me. I’m resonding to what you are writing.
“You’re new here, so forgiven. Sorry for wasting your time”. Supercilious much?
I’m serious about taking the
I’m serious about taking the piss out of the guy that thinks age is a measure of starting the removal of driving licences. Neither serious, nor trolling. See if you could find something in between.
Supercilious…
Chao!
How about taking the piss out
How about taking the piss out of the person who thinks he’ll live forever with no decline in faculties? I’m not saying take all old people off the road (I’m 60 next month myself) and agree that in general older drivers are safer, but some aren’t and don’t realise it. I’m saying there should be a mechanism it place to monitor the inevitable decline.
+1 for regular re-testing.
+1 for regular re-testing.
Written tests every 5 years.
Practical test every 10 or 15 years until 60, then every 5 years.
Waiting for someone to make a mistake before you retest them, is just dumb.
Chalk and cheese. Young
Chalk and cheese. Young drivers have, after a little experience, good reactions unless they drink, drug or fatigue drive or are distracted. They do not suffer from uncorrectable degeneration of their eyes and nervous systems.
Statistically, young drivers
Statistically, young drivers are a much bigger problem than old drivers. I believe old drivers tend to mitigate their declining abilities by going slower and only driving on ‘known’ routes where they have lots of experience.
However, I think it’d be worthwhile to have driving re-tests every 5-10 years or so as that’d identify people with declining eyesight and also hopefully correct bad habits. The other aspect is that it might change people’s belief that once you pass a driving test, then you’re licensed forever and even causing someone’s death through your own fault wouldn’t necessarily stop you from being able to drive on public roads.
Remarkably (for road.cc),
Remarkably (for road.cc), almost a consensus. Is socraticyclist on holiday or something? However, introducing compulsory retesting after (say) 70 won’t fix the problem. First, people’s health can go downhill very quickly over 60 so retesting every 5 or 10 years won’t help much. Also, it’s hard enough getting an appointment for a test already, without adding thousands of over-70s to the queue. A simpler solution might be to replace the (useles, imo) self-certification with a proper eye test & a doctor’s certificate, & repeat the process every year. It wouldn’t fix the problem entirely but would take most of the worst drivers off the road, especially if the medical includes testing for short term memory loss & early signs of dementia.
Fessing up, I’m 71 & have recently renewed my licence for the first time (it’s every 5 years incidentally). I’m an MTBer, so I’m pretty sure if there was anything wrong with my reflexes &/or eyesight I’d be a permanent resident in the Fracture Clinic. However I do know I’m not the man I was 40 years ago. I think I’m still OK to drive, not least coz my driving has definitely calmed down a lot in recent years. But it is an issue. Already some of my friends aren’t people I’d readily accept a lift from these days…
Private pilots’ licences are
Private pilots’ licences are like this – you need a medical and an eye test every so often (I know this because my dad is about to give his up through age). It doesn’t catch everything and is a pain – there are registration hoops for the medics and it’s not cheap (nothing is with flying, of course).
But we mustn’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. If the testing was routine and part of general care, that would help. Eg have a standard eye test, just like your normal one, but if you want to retain a driving licence, an eye test within the last 2 years must have been logged with DVLA. Similarly (but more expensively) it would probably help us all to have a medical every 2 years, and might well save lives & NHS costs. Again, that assessment should be logged for those trusted with driving.
There’s no sweeping
There’s no sweeping generalisations here… as relevant as your position that young inexperienced drivers pose the greatest danger, so to is the argument that driving standards inevitably decline with old age.
To look at one before the other makes no sense when a system can be surely be created to manage both.
How about mandatory retests for all drivers, with the frequency of these retests determined by age and driving history. Could be as often as every year for new / young drivers, then 5 and as long as ten years for drivers in their theoretical ‘prime’. Then at certain age milestones, the testing frequency starts increasing again…. every 5 years between 60 and 70, 3 years 70 – 80 and the yearly there on.
Expensive, yes, but you could argue the consumer costs for annual tests (especially for the young), could be recouped in potential lower insurance premiums.
I don’t think its beyond reason to make driving competency an ongoing requirement in order to use vehicles on the roads.
I would be happy with regular
I would be happy with regular testing for all ages.
That said, I think there is a distinction between young drivers who choose to drive recklessly and old drivers who become incapable of driving safely due to deteriorating health. I suspect that the former group would be perfectly capable of passing the test, with little effect on their driving habits outside of the test conditions; where as the latter group may be more likely to fail and removed from the roads.
The corollary of that is that I do think younger drivers who choose to drive recklessly are more culpable and therefore more deserving of lifetime bans. There have been plenty of stories on here where I have felt very frustrated that drivers will be back on the roads in a matter of months, and I doubt their long term driving behaviour will have changed.
The initial test has to be
The initial test has to be tougher and penalties have to be higher. We need to move away from driving being a right and away from a position where money can allow you to circumvent current restrictions of high cost insurance. An old friend of mine was driving a Lotus of some sort at 17, because daddy could afford it.
I drive (drove) in excess of 30k miles per year, surprisingly there is no clear demographic for the bad driver to fit in. They come in all shapes, sizes, ages, locations and vehicle marques.
Given the circumstances how
Given the circumstances how is this not a life ban? It’s not as if the usual “can’t work without a car bullshit” was mentioned?
Mandatory life bans for killer at fault drivers. They still have an amazing deal compared to their victims and their families (who seemingly, are ignored in cases such as this)
EddyBerckx wrote:
“He fought a war for us” (perhaps?)
brooksby wrote:
World War 2 ended when he was 12…
EddyBerckx wrote:
I know – it’s just that that one seems to often come up as a “Get out of jail free” type sentence… I saw a standup who was grumbling about men in their sixties complaining about how they’d fought a war for us, and the standup said they quite liked asking which war, exactly?
brooksby wrote:
He’s 88. WW2 ended 76 years ago, when he was 12/13. So no, he did not fight in WW2. Possibly Korea at most depending on when and where he did his National Service.
Anyone who is culpable for
Anyone who is culpable for ending someone else’s life through their own driving needs to have their license revoked permanently.
Appaling. Could happen to any
Appaling. Could happen to any of us.
Its always very sad when a
Its always very sad when a life is lost on the roads. Personally I believe every driver of a vehicle should be re-tested every few years, me included, as on very rare occassions I have to drive a vehicle. Driving a vehicle requires skills that requires all round observations and concentration at all times. It never ceases to amaze me that drivers of vehicles always seem oblivious to cyclists and other road users, and bleat sorry mate I didnt see you. The standards of driving today are just shocking.
The penalty for the driver
The penalty for the driver does seem rather light. But for those discussing the fitness of older people for driving, it’s worth remembering that it’s young drivers who are the biggest risk on average to both themselves and other road users.
The driver in this instance was distracted and failed to react. Why was that? Was the person on the phone r fiddling with the vehicle’s heating or music system? Distracted driving is a serious issue that is not being properly addressed.
I do think periodic retesting of all drivers, myself included, wouldn’t be such a bad thing for overall road safety. I also think the car test should include a mandatory section on cycling on the road (those unable to cycle would be offered the option of a hand cycle or tricycle unless physically unable, which would be the only reason for not completing the section).
I got my car licence a very long time ago. I got my motorcycle licence about four or five years later and to be honest, I learned a whole lot more about driving from the motorbike test than from the car test.
“it’s worth remembering that
“it’s worth remembering that it’s young drivers who are the biggest risk on average to both themselves and other road users.”
I presume this is based on accidents/injuries/deaths per year, and perhaps not based on accidents driven per mile of driving?
Yes, that’s correct. Older
Yes, that’s correct. Older drivers don’t tend to drive that far every year. But then young drivers aged 17-24 don’t tend to drive really huge distances either.
Burrowing into the statistics might disclose a higher risk factor/mile for older drivers. But bear in mind that older drivers also don’t tend to drive fast, as shown by crash statistics. So any crashes they are involved in tend to be less severe. Young drivers aged 17-24 are far more likely to speed and to misjudge conditions.
It’s not a simple topic to get to the bottom of. But I still feel overall that older drivers aren’t the biggest problem for safety on UK roads.
The reason that older people
The reason that older people’s fitness for driving is being raised is because Every. Single. Time. an old person seriously injures or kills someone because they ‘didnt see’, ‘confused the brake with the accelerator’ or ‘insert other old person excuse here’, people – the judiciary included – fall over themselves to pat them on the head, say ‘there, there, you didn’t mean did you?’, tell everyone else that ‘it was just a silly mistake’, then send them home with a cuppa.
Apologist bollocks. (very) old drivers are far too often a danger to everyone on the roads, walking on pavements, in shops…
Younger drivers can go to
Younger drivers can go to prison, much older drivers don’t seem to be able to go to prison, which leaves older drivers being permanently banned from driving to my mind.
The crash data shows that
The crash data shows that older drivers aren’t the biggest risk. I’m not apologising for anyone. I’m just using the actual crash data to make an informed comment.
It is hoped that younger
It is hoped that younger drivers are gaining experience from a non existing base, and therefore may improve, the elderly drivers seem to be only deteriorating. I’m guessing it’s fairly downhill for most 80+
My thoughts and condolense to the family and friends of Simon Jones.
This could happen to any of us.
Absolutely disgusting, this
Absolutely disgusting, this is exactly why annual driving tests for the over-80s should happen imo.
Agree but Driving resits for
Agree but Driving resits for license renewal for everyone every 10 years as well. He had an “unblemished” record for 60 years which means he passed his “test” in 1960. He has not been needed to be tested since and if he had, maybe his senses would have been kept sharper.
In most walks of life where
In most walks of life where qualifications are held there is a requirement for continuos professional development. Driving should be treated the same way, we all need to review our photo driving licences every 10 years, add a requirement to be properly assessed and the government gets more cash and drivers whose abilities have reduced are removed from the roads.
This would require better public transport and better police enforcement though, as both of these are woefully inadequate at present.
I have 2 comments on this
I have 2 comments on this (without calling for retesting etc)
1. I know he is unliely to drive again, but the avenue has been left open for him to regain his licence. Its time that life bans became at least an option for killer drivers
2. Whilst I am a supporter of regular tests etc perhaps the first stage would be to change the regular application to renew licnces for older drivers away from being a self declaration. Thier eyesight(including periferal vision) / reactions / flexibility (they need to look over shoulder, see round massive A pillars etc) has to be assessed independantly.
I’m not sure I’m 100% on the
I’m not sure I’m 100% on the current system.
1. If you don’t renew you have to retake the test, don’t you? So I assume if he wants to drive again he will have to do that?
2. If you lie on your self declaration and have an accident isn’t this a seperate criminal offence? ie if this person had lied and the killed somebody I’d like to think that’s manslaughter. That’s the only way self declararion has any chance of working. As we know if there are no consequences lots of drivers do what they like.
In this instance his sentence
In this instance his sentence includes an extended retest if he wants his licence back, I suspect that as he will be 91 and not driven for 3 years that he is unlikely to do that so he is probably off the roads permanently.
The current system is self declaration and it is either 5 or 10 years (not checked) but as you get older physical condition can go downhill quite quickly. I would bet the declaration is quite valid if in can’t be proven to be wrong at the time it was made (if an optician or doctor has recomended that you don’t drive for instance) but that all would only come to light after a crash so doesn’t really make roads safer.
I would prefer if medical professionals could notify DVLA and have licences removed (possibly need an appeals process obvs) and independant assesments rather than self declarations so that problems are corrected before thier luck runs out
I feel it will be far easier
I feel it will be far easier for courts to permanently ban drivers when the option of self driving cars becomes a reality.
Then again it could be argued that even today, losing your licence to drive could be replaced by using taxi services.
Permanently ban the AI
Permanently ban the AI driving the car?
Whilst jail might not be
Whilst jail might not be appropriate in this case, what actual purpose does a 16week curfew have during a pandemic with ongoing lockdowns ?
Tell me what the data is to
Tell me what the data is to support these mandatory tests everyone is demanding for certain age groups. ‘Coz I see no need. You can pop your knees back in now. I am aware that it’s a 2013 article but I’d be surprised to see these figures change too dramatically. Bad driving is nothing to do with age, gender or marque of car.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24204489
What are the figures for
What are the figures for people killed and injured by drivers as per the news item?
You’ll have to do your own
You’ll have to do your own research on that, the footy’s on. I’m sure there’s something out there to show that older drivers are a higher risk. I just couldn’t find it for some reason.
This looks at the question of
This looks at the question of risk posed by age of driver.
https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB9272.html
don simon fbpe wrote:
Where’s the figures for people killed by these drivers?
My business is plumbing and
My business is plumbing and heating. If you are a gas engineer you must be assessed every five years to prove your competency, and to keep up to date with the latest regulations. The same goes for pressurised hot water systems. Both have the potential to kill. Same for electricians.
There should be a similar system applied to motoring. It’s a potentially lethal weapon and yet I’ve been driving for 40 years without any ongoing checks as to my competency. I would welcome it.
In Australia we do for
In Australia we do for elderly drivers. When you reach 75 you are required to have an annual medical. From 85 you must do an on-road driving assessment every two years in addition to the annual medical. Quite likely that under this system that 88 year old would not have been driving.
I agree there should be routine competency assessments for all motor vehicle drivers.
Philh68 wrote:
I’d like to see something like that happen across the board
Out of interest, just found this on a quick G search. This suggests elderly drivers are a risk mainly to themselves – crashes (per mile) where others are killed are still at a lower rate than drivers in the 20 – 30 age bracket. The concentration of safety worries on this age group is misplaced, particularly when considering the low numbers of those driving. The worst most dangerous drivers are in the age group up to 30 – I don’t think any of us will be particularly surprised at that….
So from what that says, the
So from what that says, the situation here seems to have parallels with the misguided yet popular notion that cyclists are a pernicious menace that needs to be clamped down on, whereas the truth is – in both cases – that the danger is chiefly to themselves, and their small number means they are of little relevance to the overall picture. But if it saves one life…
Sriracha wrote:
Quite. If it saves one life I can stop worrying about the hundreds of lives ended prematurely each year by people like me…..