Mike Sales wrote:
> "JNugent" wrote in message > Mike Sales wrote:
>>>"JNugent" wrote in message
>>>>Mike Sales wrote:
>>>>>From: "JNugent"
>>>>>>Don't try Hansen's deceitful (but unsuccessful) "trick" of trying
>>>>>>to pass off mounting of the footway following loss of control with
>> >>>>"driving along the pavement".
>>>>>I don't quite grasp why motorists put so much importance on this
>>>>>distinction.
>>>>Because it is fundamental. Offences have to be knowingly and
>>>>deliberately committed. What one does whilst one is unconscious or
>>>>during a heart attack is a different question.
> If "one" is not incapacitated what excuse can one have for driving on the
> pavement?
Mechanical failure?
> It is no defence to claim you didn't mean to.
Absolutely. Is anyone trying to defend it?
>>>I notice you look at the event ( motorist hits ped. on pavement ) from
>>>one side, I expect you are right to do so.
>>Absolutely.
> The ped. will have little interest in why the driver hit him, it is only the
> driver who wants to excuse his incompetence, by claiming his action was
> involuntary. So it is clear which you expect to be.
Anyone injured in any incident will not be very much consoled by the
incident having been an accident. Perhaps that is what you were trying to
say, and if it was, I agree. But the law has to take a different view of
deliberate and unintentional actions, because that's what justice demands.
You cannot treat anyone as having done something deliberately if it wasn't
done deliberately. That is not limited to driving or road use.
>>>>>If a driver is so incompetent that he cannot make his car go
>>>>>where it should, then whereabouts he intended to drive it is not
>>>>>really very relevant to anything.
>>>>Exactly. That is why there is a law against driving whilst under the
>>>>influence of (too much) alcohol.
>>>Interesting offence to choose.
>>You think so?
> Drunk driving is an absolute offence. If "one" has too much alcohol on
> board one is guilty. If a car takes out a ped. is is sufficient excuse to
> say that the driver "lost control".
Perhaps you could consider *why* drink-driving is an offence. Isn't it
because intoxication can cause people to behave as they would not
ordinarily behave - ie, that alcohol (like other drugs) distorts the judgement?
>>>>>The fact is that the danger motorists inflict on us is not confined to
>>>>>the roadway.
>>>>Of course it isn't. No-one has ever claimed that it is.
> But you imagine that cyclists riding intentionally on the pavement is a
> heinous crime.
It is deliberate.
> My point is that drivers are allowed sufficient latitude in
> their competence that killing on the pavement is a normal and frequent
> event. In these circumstances intention is irrelevant. Drivers do not try
> hard enough to avoid killing the vulnerable.
Maybe you are right. Even if you are, it doesn't justify cycling on the
footway, does it?
>>>>>Motorists use the pavement as an emergency extension to the
>>>>>road often enough to kill many more pedestrians than cyclists do.
>>>>That's where we part company. I don't accept that drivers deliberately
>>>>drive (at travelling speed) along the footway. Neither do you, really,
>>>>because you know it isn't true.
>>>Where did that deliberately come from.
> You still do not explain how that deliberately got in. It is, of course, a
> straw man.
It isn't. The law does not treat deliberate and unintentional actions in
the same way (and it shouldn't).
>>Accidental or inadvertent behaviour (eg, during loss of control
>>immediately after an accident or medical emergency) is in a different
>>category from deliberate actions. Accident and inadvertence can be
>>only imperfectly legislated against.
> The normal operation of cars is predictably killing people on the pavement.
Don't be daft.
> Present legislation is obviously not sufficient to reduce the danger to the
> level posed by bicycles illegally ridden. You put down this to accident and
> inadvertence. It is due to rank bad driving.
It can be due to either. But which one is the major and which the minor is
an angels on a pinhead argument. And no matter what the answer, it doesn't
justify cycling on the footway, does it>
> It would be possible to ban
> drivers who have shown that they drive that badly, but our laws and courts
> will not do so. There is frequent protest at the leniency given to drivers
> who kill.
Maybe you are right. Even if you are, it doesn't justify cycling on the
footway, does it?
>>>My point was that it doesn't really
>>>matter whether the driver did it deliberately or not. From some points
>>>of view. Obviously not yours.
>>It won't make any difference to the victim.
>>Indeed not. However, it must make a
>>difference to the law, when a decision has to be made as to any further
>>action. Intention is central to notions of justice.
> If someone through negligence, (i.e. not intention) whilst in charge of
> something dangerous, kills he can expect a serious sentence, unless he was
> driving a car.
He can expect a serious sentence when driving a car. An example was posted
here (in this thread) about someone who got eight years for death by
dangerous. That sounds like a serious sentence. If it isn't, I'd like to
know what a serious sentence is.
> My point was that it is only from the perpetrator's viewpoint that intention
> is relevant.
And the law's.
> Justice happens afterwards. Pavement killing is so frequent
> that we should ask, "do drivers try hard enough to avoid leaving the road?
Maybe we should. It still doesn't justify cycling on the footway, does it?
>>>>Now, does that mean that motor vehicles aren't dangerous? No.
>>>No kidding?
>>Unfortunately, there are some posters around who seem to think that any
>>attack on footway-riding yobs on bikes is some sort of promotion of
>>dangerous behaviour by other road-users. For some reason.
> When you troll a cycling newsgroup you can expect cyclists to point out your
> beam.
The x-post is not my doing. I am well aware that some cyclists are
incoherent with rage at any suggestion that they should obey the law.
>>>>Does it mean that drivers aren't under a duty to do all that they can to
>>>>retain control? No.
> But they don't do so.
Prosecute them.
> >>>I get it, "driving" stops when you leave the road.
>>It certainly can do (see above) - but that's a red herring. Just when I
>>thought you were trying to be constructive as well...
> So perhaps you mean a driver is no longer driving when he loses control,
No. It is merely that he *may* not be blameworthy after that point.
What if he's had a heart attack (it happens)? Would you hold him
responsible for anything the vehicle does while he is incapacitated, from
failing to give way to parking on a yellow line?
> because many of the dead peds. were hit by cars doing 30 or more. In one
> sense you are right, but this too easily absolves the driver of
> reponsibility for the results of his carelessness. His car is "out of
> control" because of his own actions.
Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't (what of drivers who are hit by thrown
stones (it happens)? Don't forget that these things can also happen to
cyclists.
>>>>Put the other way, does the indisputable fact that far too many cyclists
>>>>ride their bikes on the footway (I've seen several doing it today, BTW,
>>>>and probably, so have you) make it OK for drivers of cars to do the
>>>>same?
>>>Here I agree with you a bit, for the first time. I may well dislike
>>>pavement riders more than you. I make a point of riding legally. I
>>>dislike cycle paths much more than motorists do. I say this to
>>>establish my own position on this road.
>>Good.
>>>I've been cycling for a long time and I have seen many changes in normal
>>>behaviour, from cars and bikes. I would suggest that the changes have
>>>been brought about by the increasing volume of traffic, or rather,
>>>motorised trafffic. You may perhaps blame an epidemic of moral
>>>turpitude amongst cyclits. As I keep saying, you do have a rather
>>>narrow view through your windscreen.
>>I speak on this subject as the pedestrian I am for most of the time.
> Sure you are.
Are you trying to claim that I am not a pedestrian?
>>"Moral turpitude"?
>>Not bad.
>>You left out the "Gross".
> "Moral turpitude" does not have to be preceded by "gross" even though it may
> in your experience always be .
> I was pointing out that cyclists (and pedestrians) have to exist in an
> environment built for and dominated by motor traffic. To use the road
> correctly nowadays seems to require training. It certainly needs skill,
> concentration and a rooted belief that a cyclist has just as much right to
> use the road as a motorist. Though pavement cyclists may have many different
> motivations, what they have in common is that they do not believe that in
> practice they have a right to use the road as motorists do.
Their problem. Not the problem of the pedestrian.
> They may have
> never grown out of the rule they learned as children (stay out of the way of
> cars), or they may just fear motor traffic, or they may have some self image
> as street wise urban guerrilla. Some may rationalise that since the law does
> not protect them and their supposed right of way, they can ignore the laws
> which were not made for them. They are all wrong, and to understand is not
> to excuse. To behave towards pedestrians as some of them do, and as you
> assert they all do,
Not all, merely most.
> is inexcusable and to me evidence that they have adopted
> the motorist viewpoint. Which would be understandable since motorists set
> the climate of behaviour on the roads. They are certainly behaving as many
> motorists do.
Oh dear... "it's the motorist's fault..."
> In case you choose deliberately to misunderstand that last
> sentence, I do not mean that motorists "drive" on the pavement, but that
> many expect the right of way and if a ped doesn't get out of the way, it is
> their fault if they are hit. You will face this attitude if you try to use
> your pedestrian right of way when crossing a side road. I have been shouted
> at by motorists crossing the pavement to their drive because I took my right
> of way as a ped.
Same here. I'm not saying that cyclists are the only offenders. But the
fact that they aren't doesn't justify cycling on the footway, does it?
> I dislike pavement cycling because I fear that it is part of the process
> by which we are loosing the right to use the road freely.
I dislike pavement cycling because I fear that it is part of the process by
which we are loosing the right to use the road freely as pedestrians.
> Pavements and
> cycle tracks are slow, inconvenient and dangerous, but drivers shout at me
> to get on the pavement cycle track because they want me out of "their" way.
> This is a clue to why many cyclists use the pavement. They know motorists
> want them out of the road and resent the cyclist's presence, and since the
> car approaches rapidly from behind, this belief unnerves them. They accept
> the motorists' belief that holding up the "traffic" is in all circs wrong,
> and that we should not, can not do it. The more cyclists who do this the
> worse it will get for those of us who use the road and expect to be given
> our right of way. So although I dislike the practice, I understand it, and
> this makes me hate it even more.
Fair enough.
