Appeal rejected against "unduly lenient" sentence for driver in Audrey Fyfe case

dp24 wrote:

Simon_MacMichael wrote:

And an appeal from the Court of Appeal in Edinburgh would go to the Supreme Court in London (formerly the House of Lords); at that level, decisions in Scottish cases would be binding on lower courts in England & Wales, and vice-versa.

Criminal cases in Scotland can't be appealed to the Supreme Court.

Of course they can....I think you might want to check your facts out again, I'll just point you to two cases

Nat Fraser's numerous appeals and this one

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/crime-courts/uk-supreme-court-overrul...

Gkam84 wrote:

Of course they can....I think you might want to check your facts out again, I'll just point you to two cases

Nat Fraser's numerous appeals and this one

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/crime-courts/uk-supreme-court-overrul...

The circumstances in which this is possible are extremely limited - largely, as Simon has pointed out, in relation to the ECHR (as in the Fraser case), or whether the government has acted ultra vires in respect of devolved powers.

In general there is no right of appeal to the Supreme Court, and the SC cannot review something which is purely a matter of (Scots) law. I believe the number of cases that have fit the criteria and been reviewed by the SC since devolution is about 30.

dp24 wrote:

The circumstances in which this is possible are extremely limited - largely, as Simon has pointed out, in relation to the ECHR (as in the Fraser case), or whether the government has acted ultra vires in respect of devolved powers.

In general there is no right of appeal to the Supreme Court, and the SC cannot review something which is purely a matter of (Scots) law. I believe the number of cases that have fit the criteria and been reviewed by the SC since devolution is about 30.

Ah, that makes sense, I thought there were quite a number of ways to get it to the Supreme Court.

sfichele wrote:

The police /expert/ report doesn't add up.

"The damage was very slight, therefore speed on impact was low and speed was not a contributory factor. From the position of a scratch on the road surface made by the cycle’s offside pedal guard, PC Wilson concluded that after the collision the cyclist continued in the same direction of travel for 7 feet or more, lost her balance, and fell to her right. Contact between the car and bicycle must have been minimal”."

If she was travelling at a very slow 10 mph, then 7 feet means she hit the deck in less than 0.5 seconds. That is a small amount of time to describe a cyclist that has lost her balance, and fell over of her own accord. Whereas in fact the impulse from the collision means she has practically hit the deck almost immediately, and in no way tallies with the police report conclusion.

The phrase "Arse from elbow" springs to mind

sfichele wrote:

The police /expert/ report doesn't add up.

"The damage was very slight, therefore speed on impact was low and speed was not a contributory factor. From the position of a scratch on the road surface made by the cycle’s offside pedal guard, PC Wilson concluded that after the collision the cyclist continued in the same direction of travel for 7 feet or more, lost her balance, and fell to her right. Contact between the car and bicycle must have been minimal”."

If she was travelling at a very slow 10 mph, then 7 feet means she hit the deck in less than 0.5 seconds. That is a small amount of time to describe a cyclist that has lost her balance, and fell over of her own accord. Whereas in fact the impulse from the collision means she has practically hit the deck almost immediately, and in no way tallies with the police report conclusion.

I'd not seen the investigation report and from what I read here as an engineer something seems rather flawed.

I've had a few crashes with cars in around 48 years of riding a bike. I wrote off a car once, luckily I wasn't wearing a helmet and the main impact was between my backside and the A pillar - the bike remained rideable - even after a calculated 40mph impact speed so damage is not always a clear-cut reflection of the collision speeds and outcomes.

In another T-bone incident, hardly a mark to be found on the car - bike wrecked - me badly cut ankle where my heel went through the spokes after rolling down the road with the bike just flicked enough to set off a violent rotation which fortunately could be turned in to a somersault at speed, possibly more than one roll to cover a distance of at least 5 metres from the point of impact

What I don't understand is the 'pedal guard' what is a pedal guard? It would be unlikely that the bike Audrey was riding had a chainguards so I'd conclude the officer might have meant the pedal. Now for the pedal to strike the road within 7 feet of the point of impact (? barely a bike-length) there has to be a substantial rotation of the bike from a vertical position. There will also be small marks on the bike and the car to define the height at which the contact was made. A low hit would put a substantial overturning moment in play as the CoG of rider and bike would be flicked over to the right. A higher hit would have pushed to the left. Clipping the extremity is likely to deliver a more violent flick than hitting it 'midships' both rotating in the vertical plane and in the lateral plane, depending on whether the rear of the bike was lifted or not and how the bike and rider rotated in the horizontal plane with various factors coming in to play on the forces which might act to throw the rider to the ground or up in to the air.

Indeed it would be very interesting to see the technical details for the impact and forces delivered to Audrey and the bike to figure out how just a clip of the wheel would have delivered such a result.

All of that reasoning is sound, except:

'A fatal outcome as a result of the degree of danger created by the quality of the respondent's driving was not reasonably foreseeable.'

This is the fundamental issue with road safety for cyclists - people assume that low speed collisions for cyclists have the same risk as low speed collisions for cars. While people (and in particular, those in government and in the judiciary) continue to operate on that assumption, the ignorance of cycle and safety and the poor enforcement of the law will continue.

mad_scot_rider wrote:

Court opinion distills to

- accident caused by only momentary inattention at low speeds - death resulting not forseeable

- victim not wearing a helmet irrelevant due to "... no evidence, medical or otherwise, that the absence of a cycle helmet contributed to the death"

- previous conviction not taken into account due to "... the antiquity of the aggravating offence..."

When spelled out the logic holds some water - however I still feel emotionally torn about the outcome

step-hent wrote:

This is the fundamental issue with road safety for cyclists - people assume that low speed collisions for cyclists have the same risk as low speed collisions for cars. While people (and in particular, those in government and in the judiciary) continue to operate on that assumption, the ignorance of cycle and safety and the poor enforcement of the law will continue.

Spot on step-hent.