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news
police line (CC licensed by hugovk_Flickr)89 year old driver receives community sentence for his part in death of cycling father
An 89 year old driver has been sentenced for his mistakes that led to the death of a young father on his bike.
Second World War veteran Richard Lyon received a community order and curfew for killing Frodsham cyclist Michael Davies on Friday, June 12, last year.
Mr Davies, 33, was cycling home at 4.10pm when Mr Lyon pulled out in front of him. He admitted that he looked left and right and saw the bicycle, but told the court that he misjudged the manoeuvre - and in particular the speed at which another car heading the other way was travelling.
As a result it swerved into the path of Mr Davies.
The other vehicle – a Ford Mondeo driven by motorist Teresa Nickson – was said to be travelling at an estimated 41-44mph, on a 30 mph road.
However, Rob Jones, prosecuting, said: “It doesn’t matter because the fault lies with Mr Lyon emerging from the junction.”
Lyon pleaded guilty to causing death by careless or inconsiderate driving, and his lawyer suggested mitigating factors such as the speed of the Mondeo and his own remorse, lack of intent to cause harm and previously clean record.
Prosecutor Mr Jones and defence counsel Andrew Nuttall agreed the offence was in the lowest classification of culpability, Category 3, for which the potential sentencing range allowed for a community order or less.
Mr Nuttall added that Lyon had handed in his licence at the first opportunity after the collision and said he would never drive again, according to the Chester Chronicle.
Judge Nicholas Woodward imposed a community order and 8pm-8am curfew on Lyon and disqualified him from driving for 18 months.
Mr Woodward said: “Richard Lyon, on the afternoon of June 12 you stopped at Balmoral Road and according to your basis of plea, which has been accepted by the crown, you look to your left and to your right, you intended to turn right.
“You did see Mr Davies, who was to your left, and you saw the car driven by Mrs Nickson to your right but you took the view that you had sufficient time to pull out to make your right turn.
“You misjudged the speed of Mrs Nickson’s motor car and the collision occurred and that led to the awful death of Mr Davies.”
Earlier this year we reported how a sheriff ruled that stricter checks on elderly motorists would not have prevented the death of a cyclist knocked down by a 93-year-old woman.
Alice Ross suffered a suspected blackout while at the wheel in 2011, killing 30-year-old Elaine Dunne. Following a fatal accident inquiry (FAI), Sheriff Andrew Berry said a stricter licensing regime would not have prevented Dunne’s death.
Elaine and Christopher Dunne were standing with their bikes while on a cycling holiday in Scotland, celebrating their wedding anniversary, when they were hit by Ross’s car. While Christopher was injured, Elaine was killed. Charges of causing death by dangerous driving were dropped after prosecutors accepted Ross’s defence that her blackouts were due to an underlying medical condition.
Last year, in submitting evidence to the FAI at Wick Sheriff Court, procurator-fiscal Alasdair MacDonald said that people in their 80s and beyond should have to undergo regular check-ups on their health.
MacDonald believes that older drivers should be required to renew their driving licence every two years and produce a statement corroborated by a suitably responsible person certifying the person’s fitness to drive.
However, Sheriff Berry concluded that there was nothing to indicate Ross should not have been driving at the time. Her medical notes had reported "dizziness" and "consciousness disturbance" in 1955 and 1981, but nothing from then up to the time of the crash in September 2011.
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24 comments
So the mondeo driver was speeding (significantly so), apparently didn't have time to stop, hit cyclist head on; old man who misjudged his manoeuvre precisely because she was speeding is scared out of his wits, pleads guilty and swears he'll never drive again; how on earth is it that (1) the mondeo driver doesn't appear to feel responsible and (2) that no sanctions appear to be applied against her?
Tragic story for the victim, contempt for the speeding motorist. I hope karma is forthcoming and severe. If it is one thing I detest it is drivers who exceed red circle speed limits by considerable amounts.
20, 30, 40, and 50 mph are in a red circle for a damn reason; to protect vulnerable road users and to make roads or specific sections of roads safer for all.
It has become socially acceptable to treat red circle limits as a guide. Everyone is doing it, gramps and grannies, pensioners, your mother and father, you, young mums and dads with kids in the back... The list goes on. There is no justification for travelling at 41-44mph in a 30 zone. It is just not socially acceptable to do so.
The risk to vulnerable road users however small is too high when travelling at those speeds in a 30 zone. When you are in these built up areas and it's not 4 am you save no time whatsoever by speeding.
Had she been driving at or under 30 mph then my money would have been on this victim surviving. More reaction time, shorter stopping distance and if there was an impact or collision way more chance of survival. You've seen the adverts...
Sorry, im confussed.
Mr Lyon pulled out and misjudged the speeding motorists speed, yes? And the Speeding motorist then swerved to avoid Mr Lyon and ploughed into and killed the cyclist, yes?
SO if the speeding motorist hadnt been speeding none of this would have happened?
Maybe....
One problem is proving the speeding motorist WAS speeding, you can do the calculations, you can be pretty certain, but you don't have any hard evidence.
Still pretty sick that you can kill someone and suffer no real punishment. Yes i know the motorist has to live with the knowledge etc etc etc.
It's sad that it took the death of this cyclist to make the 89-year-old realise they are not fit to drive.
That Newspaper report says the same.
It certainly reads that Teresa Nickson did indeed not bother to stop but just chose to go round the car pulling out. The cyclist was beyond the other car from her perspective. I certainly hope there is a separate prosecution for her.
This is what puts me off cycling.
Its not a numerical calculation of risk based on casualty figures, its the _nature_ of the risk, the fact that it is not under your control and that you are putting yourself at the mercy of other people's irresponsibility and/or errors. No amount of 'defensive cycling' or 'road craft' or high-viz is going to help for something like this (or when someone drives into you from behind because 'the sun was in their eyes')
That the state also doesn't regard that carelessness as being terribly important very clearly sends the message that you shouldn't be out there at all.
And then that same state bemoans everyone getting fat and not being physically active enough.
I agree with the comments that the speeding driver takes the majority of the blame in this case, however she wasn't on trial the old guy was.
The old guys defence will have put 100% of the blame on the speeder, the prosecution has to argue against it.
This just seems so terribly unfair.
A young family left without a father and husband.
Parents having to bury their son.
Friends and colleagues with the pain of loss.
An elderly man who led a blameless life, regretting his part in killing that person for the remaining years of his life. His crime? To misjudge the speed of a speeding driver.
And the person, in my mind at least, most responsible for her decision to speed in a built up area, apparently walks away without punishment.
Obviously I hope that the Police and CPS have done their jobs properly and as ever there is always much more than a few words in a press story can accurately report. But my heart goes out to Mr Davies' family and friends who surely now have the extra torment of justice not being done.
Bloody ridiculous.
Jesus Wept.
If the on-coming car had not been speeding the impact would have been reduced. Maybe not by enough but at least by some amount.
If the on-coming car had not been speeding a collision might have been avoided.
If the on-coming car had not been speeding it would not have been 'sharing' that exact piece of the road when the collision occurred.
Yet the courts let this person walk away without a stain on their character.
Jesus Wept.
So, the female in the Ford was not only speeding by a significant amount, but either chose swerve into the bike rather than the other car or she was travelling too fast to acknowledge the presence of the bike in time.
Separate prosecution should be pending.
How can there be no penalty for travelling at one-and-a-half-times the speed limit when you kill someone?
How do they come to the conclusion that being hit at 40-44mph is no more likely to kill than being hit at 30? Is there data to show this? I just don't get it.
Plus - if the issue was the elderly driver misjudging the speed of the other, isn't the fact that the other was going faster than they should have been, relevant? Judgements are influenced by expectations, surely?
Because the court/prosecutor was ignoring physics and stats... yes, the higher speed is even more likely to kill, though 30mph (plus the cyclist's speed!) is usually lethal already.
The increased stopping distance and distance travelled while reacting is much more pertinent, the Mondeo driver is at least as culpable as the older man.
Bring on driverless cars. The human had a choice of T boning a car and getting injured or hitting a cyclist head on - result, dead cyclist. I strongly suspect a computer would choose otherwise.
You're likely correct. The computer would likely be targeting the more hardened target as the outcome is likely less severe.
Google cars for the masses.
Never mind the fact that the driverless car wouldn't even have been speeding in the first place.
Holding a driving licence in this country is a licence to kill.
The cyclist would have been more likely to have lived if hit at 30 rather than 40 plus. Teresa Nickson Is just another selfish killer motorists. I hope the universe meters out some justice to her in the future.
That content of that article and the people involved turn my stomach.
What an insult to that poor cyclist.
RIP. Michael Davies
The implication is that she had time to avoid the car pulling out but chose not to stop despite a cyclist coming the other way. It's written that he was pulling out in front of the cyclist and intending to go the same way, so she must have effectively driven down the wrong lane and over the cyclist. If that's not the case would he not have collided with the cyclist himself. Her speed MUST have been a factor.
Agree at 30mph this probably wouldn't have been a fatality. There should have been a consequence for the mondeo driver.
That's some a grade bullshit right there. Unbelievable that he is punished while the speeding driver isn't.
...Unbelievable that he is punished while the speeding driver isn't.
I don't think there is any indication that the Mondeo driver was let off. The prosecution team would by the adversarial nature of court seek to reduce the contribution of the Mondeo driver's speed. His defence would state that it was a factor and would attempt to make the speed appear as large as possible as he was obliged to do so. But he did misjudge the speed of the approaching car and any driver must make assessments before starting a manoeuvre to decide if it was safe to do so.
There is no indication of the judge's summary as to how much weight he gave to each of these views in his sentencing.
There is no mention of the Mondeo driver's sentence as this would be a separate case.
This contains a bit more of the personal tragedy involved by the cyclist's family.
http://www.chesterchronicle.co.uk/news/chester-cheshire-news/frodsham-cy...
The prosecutor is wrong. If the Mondeo driver was traveling at the legal limit she may have had more time to react, alternatively the cyclist would have had a greater chance of surviving the impact. 30mph limits are imposed in urban areas precisely for these reasons.
Speed was a contributory factor in the cyclists death, and the driver of the Mondeo should have been nailed.