My supposition is that it's reasonable to assume dangerous driving in such a case, because *I can see very very few reasons why a car would hit a cyclist from behind on a road with no junctions and it would be the cylist's fault*, unless the cyclist swerved very hard to the right just before being passed.
It's /always/ the responsibility of the overtaking vehicle to keep clear, irrespective of what the overtaken vehicle does.
On Thu, 13 Oct 2005 20:36:41 +0100, "Ambrose Nankivell" <[email hidden]> wrote:
> Jim Ley wrote: >> The prosecution presumably believed that the accident was either >> no-ones fault, or it was the dead cyclists fault, so didn't >> consider bring any charges related to the accident. > > Or possibly they couldn't reach a suitable burden of proof to get > any charges related to the crash to be likely to stand.
Well certainly, but the CPS specifically gave _no evidence_ to a charge of careless driving, are you suggesting that they did have evidence of dangerous driving but declined to give it?
I imagine they gave no evidence because only two people who saw the crash, and one's dead, and one has a vested interest in not being found guilty (I have to say, if I were to do such a thing, and I'm sadly far from infallible behind the wheel of a car, my conscience would *demand* I pleaded guilty and told the truth in as unpolished a way as I could), so there really wouldn't have been a lot to go on.
Have just read the Southern Daily Echo on it. It seems there was a charge of driving without due care an attention but it was dropped. From what the police said it seems clear they were trying manslaughter as a test case to clarify its use in motoring deaths. Looking at the picture of the car and windscreen it appears that the cyclist was hit by the driver side front wing near the front of the car and then hit the front pillar and windscreen on the drivers side. If that is the case there is no way the driver could not have seen what happened.
Does anyone know whether the prosecuting authorities in England have the power to appeal the judge's decision not to allow the manslaughter charge to proceed? If this is a 'test case', a very dangerous precedent is being set.
An angry motorist who was involved in the death of a 62-year-old city cyclist after a road rage attack has been given a suspended jail sentence. Andrew Hart pushed Alan Scott off his bike because he was furious at being held up on a country lane. The city council employee, who lived in Sweetbrier Lane, Exeter, fractured a shoulder and later developed a fatal blood clot.
A classic case of manslaughter, in fact. The actions of the motorist did in fact "cause or accelerate" the death of the cyclist.
An angry motorist who was involved in the death of a 62-year-old city cyclist after a road rage attack has been given a suspended jail sentence. Andrew Hart pushed Alan Scott off his bike because he was furious at being held up on a country lane. The city council employee, who lived in Sweetbrier Lane, Exeter, fractured a shoulder and later developed a fatal blood clot.
A classic case of manslaughter, in fact. The actions of the motorist did in fact "cause or accelerate" the death of the cyclist.
Good grief. This from someone _employed_ as a journalist? What happened to 'pled'?
He's an English journalist using the correct term in English English. Pled is Scots, Spenser, US and some other dialect forms of English.
Correct. The OED for pled says see plead where you will find the word pleaded widely used by Gibbons in his epic work on the Roman Empire, in Howards End and in plenty of other literary references.
-- Tony
"I did make a mistake once - I thought I'd made a mistake but I hadn't" Anon
