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Justice (Lonpicman, Wikimedia Commons)Community service for driver who killed cyclist while eating sandwich
Paul Brown, the driver who was eating a sandwich at the time he hit and killed cyclist Joe Wilkins, has been sentenced to 240 hours community service for causing death by careless driving.
He is also required to perform four sessions of restorative justice within 12 months and was also disqualified for driving for 12 months.
Wilkins’ partner, Nicci Saunders, told the Oxford Mail: “The fact the judge put this case in the lower level of careless driving is just a joke really. For what he has done, and generally for people who do that, there needs to be a prison sentence. A year ban is just no punishment.”
Miss Saunders said that drivers found guilty of causing death by careless driving should be banned for at least five years.
“At the end of the day he can carry on with his life almost as normal. It is for life for us,” she said, adding that their two children wake up crying and can’t remember what their dad looked like.
“These girls will never have their dad around – their lives and mine will never be the same. How do you keep the memory alive when they are that young and are forgetting already?
“It is hard work dealing with all this. I do not have many happy days but I try to be happy for the kids. Today I feel numb and just really let down.”
Careless driving
Mr Brown admitted causing death by careless driving, but was acquitted by a jury of causing death by dangerous driving.
In passing sentence at Oxford Crown Court on Tuesday, Recorder Andrew Burrows said that although Mr Brown had been holding a sandwich at the time of the crash, his eyes had been on the road.
Recorder Burrows said: “In my view this falls significantly below that of dangerous driving.
“You simply did not see Joseph Wilkins in the darkness until it was too late, albeit you ought to have seen him before you did and then taken the simple evasive action necessary to avoid him.
“You broke down sobbing in the witness box in the trial and express deep remorse for what you have done and deep sympathy for Joseph Wilkins’s family.”
Causing death by careless driving carries a maximum sentence of 5 years’ imprisonment, while the more serious offence of causing death by dangerous driving can result in a maximum jail term of 14 years.
Sentencing review
Causing death by careless driving carries a maximum sentence of 5 years’ imprisonment. The more serious offence of causing death by dangerous driving can result in a maximum jail term of 14 years.
The case is the latest in a long line in which drivers convicted of killing cyclists have received what many perceive as too lenient a sentence.
Representatives of British Cycling, CTC and RoadPeace last year met with justice minister Helen Grant to call for thorough investigation and tougher sentencing in cases where a vulnerable road user is the victim.
They also urged that improvements be made to the support provided to the families left behind. Also at that meeting was the brother of British Cycling employee, Rob Jefferies, killed on a training ride in Dorset in 2011 by a 17-year-old driver who had passed his test six months earlier and who already had a speeding conviction. He received a non-custodial sentence.
In its largely disappointing response to the All Party Parliamentary Cycling Group’s Get Britain Cycling report, the Government said it will initiate a review of sentencing in cases involving cyclists and pedestrians in the new year.
The review of sentencing guidelines, which will be accompanied by a consultation, will be carried out by the Sentencing Council, an independent non-departmental public body of the Ministry of Justice. It will cover the offences of causing death by careless driving and causing death or serious injury by dangerous driving. Proposals will be subject to a formal consultation.
Reacting to the announcement of the sentencing review, Martin Gibbs, Director of Policy and Legal Affairs at British Cycling, said: "We need everybody to feel properly protected by the criminal justice system when travelling on the road.
"We’ve been asking the government for months for a review of sentencing guidelines so I’m glad to see that confirmed, though it should form part of a comprehensive review of the criminal justice process, which all too often fails people on bikes by not prosecuting or by returning sentences which don’t reflect the seriousness of the crime.
"We have been meeting with Ministry of Justice and the Department for Transport to push for improvements but progress has been slow.
“This announcement means that positive steps are being taken and is a victory for British Cycling and its members.”
John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.
He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.
Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.
John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.
He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.
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37 comments
It's technologically feasible and now economical to have a gaze monitor in every car. For one thing it would serve as an alarm if someone was dozing off. For another it would clear up concisely whether someone was taking their gaze off the road for an extended time or not. Video evidence could be saved. Dripping sandwich, texting, watching TV, sleeping, whatever, all would be known.
And furthermore, if the gaze monitor were connected to flash the emergency parking lights, people could even be trained to behave BEFORE an accident occurred. That is the ultimate goal.
Perhaps the guilty party should be made to keep the deceased family in the custom to which they are used to...although that said the CSA can't manage it so I doubt the courts here would manage it either
I ride that road frequently. It is straight as can be for about a kilometre. The collision happened right in the middle.
It was not night when my fellow villager was killed.
And no I am not one who wants vengeance, and I am sure the criminal was genuinely contrite, but I do want drivers to be obliged to take proper care when driving their tonne of metal around.
I put a more detailed comment in the comments section for another story, but my personal opinion is that prison is not the right place for someone who kills by accident.
This man is not a danger to the public. A lifetime driving ban and service to the greater community would be more appropriate in my personal opinion.
Have to say that flobble has written perhaps the most sense on here I've seen on one of these threads for a long time.
No, I'm sorry. Driving 2 tons of steel at up to 70mph (and often more) is not some trivial task. That the task has been so trivialised by removal of most of the personal consequences, in terms of personal risk, and legal retribution, hasn't diminished the risks involved to those outside. If anything it's increased them.
As I said on the satnav death thread, taking on a driving licence means taking on responsibility for other people's lives. Take that responsibility seriously. 'Tuning out' is not acceptable. In any other environment where someone had control of a deadly weapon, tuning out would be personally deadly.
An RAF pilot clubmate of mine won't drive for more than 2 hours as he doesn't feel he can sustain the necessary attention. Yet everyone else feels they're a better judge of the risks and reduce their concentration levels. Remarkable.
I agree. It's not. And I chastise myself every time I catch myself doing it.
Next time you drive (or cycle for that matter) stop after 15 minutes and ask yourself whether you consciously registered, assessed and responded to every single risk for the entirety of the time. Bet you can't.
Your RAF friend has recognised this, done something about it, and made the world a better place for it. Bravo!
That's exactly it.
Driving is not something most people should be doing as much as they do. It's a serious responsibility which evidently a large proportion of the motoring population is incapable of taking on.
The idea that some fool eating a sandwich or peering at their satnav would _ever_ be allowed to hold a license to operate a dangerous piece of machinery again is staggering.
That's not even considering the fact that the testing procedures for gaining said license are obviously too lax.
Instead of harsher sentences why can't people just learn to drive? I am a cyclist but I drive to and from work every day and have never come close to hitting a pedestrian or cyclists. What is so difficult about operating a motor vehicle???
As much as I would like to personally beat the idiot who caused this crash, Education is the only true way of improving the situation.
How about a campaign to get cyclists to donate towards a safety campaign. I think the majority of us would chip in. It shouldn't be necessary but lets face it, the government as normal is not doing enough, the police don't really give a damn, they are too tied up in paperwork or being laid off, and the legal system is useless.
I've often though that this would be a good idea. If Sustrans, CTC and other groups came together then maybe we could get films like these out during X-factor.
http://www.bikebiz.com/news/read/irish-tv-airs-ad-on-how-motorists-shoul...
I'm not normally one to comment on the sentencing debate, but I'm getting a little hacked off with the lynch mob mentality. [Ascends soap box...]
I ride a bike every day, in London traffic, to and from work. I ride in the countryside most weekends, in good weather and in bad weather. I've been hospitalised by a thoughtless driver, and most days on the bike I see or am threatened by the thoughtless behaviour of pedestrians and other road users alike. And sometimes I cut it a bit fine at the lights, or wobble around while putting my sunglasses on, turning on my lights or looking at my Garmin.
I'm also a car driver. Sometimes I go too fast. Sometimes I eat or drink while at the wheel. Sometimes, perhaps even often, I 'tune out' while driving and find myself unable to recall details of what happened on the road around me in the last few minutes. Sometimes I don't notice the car in my blind spot, or the car approaching fast behind me on the motorway. Sometimes I don't notice the pedestrian, the horse or the cyclist either.
It is a simple fact that road users are people. People that are all imperfect and will make mistakes. Inevitably, when motorists and cyclists mix, accidents will happen. That's reality.
Yes, the results are sometimes ugly, traumatic and painful for the victims, their friends and their families. But the seriousness of the outcome does not necessarily mean that the person causing the accident deserves to be strung up.
Yes, we should investigate accidents and punish those that are unduly careless or reckless. Yes, we should seek to build roads & paths in ways that separate different traffic types. Yes, we should improve driver education and encourage safer driving.
But my philosophy on these things is that outrage and whingeing achieves nothing and is frankly rather boring. What matters is what we actually do, to acknowledge that the problem is not just 'out there', but also 'in here'.
Today, I rode my bike rather than taking the car. I stopped at the red lights. I held back a little to give myself more time when the pedestrians looked uncertain about what they were going to do next. And years ago, I re-learned how to use a road better by taking an Advanced Institute of Motoring course.
So, fellow road users, what did you do today to make things better for us all?
You better geet out before you are torn to pieces for daring to have reason.
Too much misguided anger in all these articles... and is it me or has there been much more of it lately on road.cc?
Couldn't have said it better myself.
Some candid and thought provoking comments here.
I would agree to a certain extent that the lynch mob thing is unhelpful. And even strict (or presumed) liability is little use to someone who's lying broken in the road.
For me the takeaway is the bit about more dedicated (safer) infrastructure for cycling, and prioritising sustainable modes of transport (which are generally more vulnerable). This has the advantage of not just preventing the tragedies in the first place, but making cycling feel safer and therefore making it more popular.
But flobble criticises the outrage? Perhaps we should recall that in the Netherlands in the '70s it was only the outrage of the "Stop the Child Murder" campaign which stopped dual-carriageways being slapped through city centres - in some cases it was a close thing - and which led to the cycling nation they have today.
Whenever it is suggested that some parking is removed to make space for a protected cycleway, or that some bollards are added to block a through-route in a residential area (filtered permeability) we can expect outrage from the daily-mail readers decrying the "war on the motorist". So I think a little constructive outrage at the ongoing loss of our public spaces to motorised traffic - where can we cycle safely?, where can kids play? - is in perfectly understandable and healthy.
Well, I'm disgusted at the level of justice in the UK. You get more of a sentence for not paying a parking fine.
The justice who-ever he was; should be sentenced to a term of imprisonment himself for being too lenient.
prision clearly wouldnt have changed anything and the driver was obviously remorseful but a message needs to be sent, drivers have to go to prison for killing a vunerable road user with a car. its the only way we'll see attitudes change.
It wasn't mentioned in the road.cc article, but I believe the crash occurred at 9:15pm on 24th May. Sunset on that day in Oxford was 9:05pm. Under ideal weather conditions, it wouldn't have been completely dark and a cyclist would have been visible even without lights.
^What rich22222 just said. So many drivers are able to see the road with a badly defined verge and keep the car on the road, but cant see a cyclist.
I've driven on country lanes many times in these conditions and *seen* pedestrians walking on the road, no lights, and in dark clothing....
Yep Stan, but unlit ped's on country lanes look out for their own safety, by walking contra to traffic and moving out of the way when it comes.
I'm not saying it was the cyclists fault but how can a court be expected to give a harsher sentence in this case...
Use lights ffs.
Sensible drivers know that people walk on country lanes and make allowances for it with how they drive
Agreed but for the idiot drivers, we know exist.
"Be Visible" (I don't mean colouring yourself up with a fluorescent marker) is the safety strategy I adopt and I'm still alive.
"Forensic collision investigator PC James Henderson told the court visibility was “good” and tests showed the bike would have been first seen from 174 metres, giving 6.5 seconds reaction time."
174m sounds like a lot but 6.5sec is not that long..."
Actually that's only valid if the cyclist was travelling at zero speed.
Cyclist 0 mph : 6.5 sec
Cyclist 12 mph : 8.1 sec
Cyclist 18 mph : 9.3 sec
6.5+ seconds is a loooooong time....
8 seconds not enough time to react? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8pX52v_yNA
My driving instructor taught me that even a slow speed like 30mph is 44 feet per second so even 2 seconds inattention at 30mph means you travel 88 feet before reactions, brakes etc kick in. To take your eyes off the road to eat a sandwich is unforgiveable and this sentence is far too light. Rather than community service, the motorist should be given cumpulsory cycle training so that he realises how vulnerable cyclists can be.
I know when i learnt to drive a 5-6 years ago i was told always leave a 2 second gap, MINIMUM, between myself and the car infront. From the experience i have since gained i would say very few drivers give that much gap.
At risk of being beaten to death by cyclists...
Yes the driver admitted to eating a sandwich while driving and not fully concentrating but it was after dark and the bike had no lights on it.
If I ever get caught out without lights I ride back slowly on the pavement/very carefully on the road when no vehicles are around.
This may sound like victim blaming to some, but using the road in the dark with no lights is surely in 99% of people's no no book.
It was bang on sunset so by no means 'dark'. Yes he had no reflectors but it was inconclusive whether the lights were on because of crash damage(or not?) or maybe it was still enough light he had decided not to put them on yet. If the driver had not put his lights on yet then reflectors were not going to be a big help and it is the drivers word vs a dead mans whether his lights were on.
It was ~20 mins after dusk, I seem to remember from earlier investigation.
Yep, driver should have been paying more attention but how can a court be expected to give a verdict more in favour of the cyclist than they did?
How do you know he didn't have lights on?
That wasn't the view of the police investigator, who said
"the bike’s light had probably been on at the time of the crash but was faulty because it had been damaged. He could not be sure if the damage was caused before or after the crash"
So we only have the word of the person who killed him that he didn't have lights. Even if true, he should have spotted him in time to take evasive action.
But nice victim-blaming there, well done.
I've yet to come across a kerb that was lit up, yet most motorists manage to keep their cars on the road. Very very few pedestrians wear lights, drivers don't just drive in to them (usually).
If there was something in the middle of the road like a bollard or similar and you just drove straight into it there is no way you could excuse it away by saying "but it didn't have lights on" but for some bizarre reason people seem to think that as soon as you throw your leg over a bike you suddenly become invisible.
It's a brilliantly flawed logic that is spouted by some "I see cyclists all the time riding with no lights on".
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