Journalism and cycling

buffalo

mr spuckler wrote: »

the whole report makes me really angry. he said he saw the cyclist ahead of him and yet the lack of hi-viz is referenced for some reason. he said the cyclist didn't move off his line and yet they can't say who collided with who. what does it take to create any accountability for killing cyclists?

They are some bizarre statements. "He told me he saw the cyclist ahead of him. He told me he saw the cyclist turn his head but the cyclist did not alter his position on the road"... surely that can only be interpreted as, "he knew I was coming, but didn't get out of my way" ?

I'd like to see a full transcript of the inquest, they seem to be complete jokes sometimes.

CramCycle

That poor guy, the driver admits the bloody crime, how in hell's name does this not result in a conviction, loss of license and car seizure. It is disgusting.

Fian

This makes my blood boil. If I see a car ahead of me, rear end it or go to overtake it and collide with it nobody would be in any doubt as to who was at fault. Much less if i explicitly stated that the car in front didn't alter its position on the road.

magicbastarder

CramCycle wrote: »

That poor guy, the driver admits the bloody crime, how in hell's name does this not result in a conviction, loss of license and car seizure. It is disgusting.

i am guessing that it boils down to an inability to prove whether the cyclist swerved into the car, or the car swerved into the cyclist (according to the gardai).
even though, as pointed out, the driver statement was that the cyclist did not alter his position.

and a certain amount of 'poor man, hasn't he suffered enough' for the driver.

can an inquest recommend a prosecution? or is that purely a matter for the DPP; and if so, can the DPP proceed even if the inquest rules accidental death?

Seth Brundle

buffalo wrote: »

They are some bizarre statements. "He told me he saw the cyclist ahead of him. He told me he saw the cyclist turn his head but the cyclist did not alter his position on the road"... surely that can only be interpreted as, "he knew I was coming, but didn't get out of my way" ?

I'd like to see a full transcript of the inquest, they seem to be complete jokes sometimes.

I was wondering that too.
The cyclist didn't move position on the road (so travelling in a straight line)
The driver saw the cyclist.
The car overtook the cyclist.
The car and cyclist somehow met.
Given the above facts, there is no doubt that the driver is completely at fault and the coroner's court failed to assign blame for whatever reason.
If the car went to overtake and the cyclist didn't move line, then the car was too close, despite seeing the cyclist. It was a dangerous overtaking manouvre: full stop.
Then the court proceeds to pont towards the cyclists clothing despite the driver confirming that they saw the cyclist.
It may be possible that the cyclist would be alive had he been wearing a helmet but this doesn't remove the blame (IMO) from the driver - the driver should not have attempted the overtaking manouvre given the facts and outcome.

Muahahaha

Supreme Court Judge Peter Charlston (in his Tribunal report) took at broadside at the lack of Garda visibility on the streets and included cycle lanes as part of it

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/judge-criticises-extraordinarily-rare-presence-of-gardaí-on-the-streets-1.3660270

The failure of gardaí to police cycle lanes is indicative of their lack of visibility on the streets, Disclosures tribunal chair Mr Justice Peter Charleton has said.

The judge concluded that Ireland has a “real problem due to the invisibility of our police force”.

In a personal aside in the tribunal report, Mr Justice Charleton said he had only seen a garda once in the hundreds of journeys he had made between the Four Courts and Dublin Castle during the course of his investigations into a smear campaign against Sergeant Maurice McCabe.

He said it was “extraordinary” how much time gardaí spend isolated in Garda stations and in patrol cars.

“It is extraordinarily rare that gardaí are seen in uniform on the streets,” the judge observed in his tribunal report, “in contrast to other major cities, such as Rome and London and Athens, where police are visible at intersections, at junctions and in public plazas.”

The judge also observed that gardaí routinely fail to keep cycle lanes free for vulnerable road users even if the transgressions occur near Garda stations.

“Cars block cycle lanes, intrude on them and endanger cyclists. That happens repeatedly within a minute’s walk of Garda stations. So, where are the gardaí?”

Mr Justice Charleton said some people may see the failure of gardaí to police cycle lanes as a “small example” but “the consequences of serious injury, for even one person, is a tragedy”.

He concluded: “If it is said that the gardaí are too busy to be out on foot or on bicycles, the tribunal begs to doubt that. Everyone serving in the police should give a portion of the day to foot and bicycle patrols.”

Being visible was one of seven obligations that gardaí should have, he suggested. He recommended that gardaí shouldn’t moan, but a garda should “ask himself or herself what he or she has done on any particular day for the taxpayer”.

He is not wrong.

Fian

Seth Brundle wrote: »

I was wondering that too.
The cyclist didn't move position on the road (so travelling in a straight line)
The driver saw the cyclist.
The car overtook the cyclist.
The car and cyclist somehow met.
Given the above facts, there is no doubt that the driver is completely at fault and the coroner's court failed to assign blame for whatever reason.
If the car went to overtake and the cyclist didn't move line, then the car was too close, despite seeing the cyclist. It was a dangerous overtaking manouvre: full stop.
Then the court proceeds to pont towards the cyclists clothing despite the driver confirming that they saw the cyclist.
It may be possible that the cyclist would be alive had he been wearing a helmet but this doesn't remove the blame (IMO) from the driver - the driver should not have attempted the overtaking manouvre given the facts and outcome.

Well the verdict is correct. It was an accident, I don't for an instant imagine it was a deliberate act. Regardless of where fault lay.

Seth Brundle

Fian wrote: »

Well the verdict is correct. It was an accident, I don't for an instant imagine it was a deliberate act. Regardless of where fault lay.

No that's not good enough.
From the article we don't see that the driver has been banned so what punishment, if any, has there been for a dangerous manouvre that resulted in a death?
The driver came up behind the cyclist. He may not have intended to hit him; but he did hit him, causing death. The driver did not overtake safely.
If it was a child on their bike, would the man have given more space and if not why not?
It wasn't an accident. It was a completely avoidable incident.

ED E

Seth Brundle wrote: »

No that's not good enough.
From the article we don't see that the driver has been banned so what punishment, if any, has there been for a dangerous manouvre that resulted in a death?
The driver came up behind the cyclist. He may not have intended to hit him; but he did hit him, causing death. The driver did not overtake safely.
If it was a child on their bike, would the man have given more space and if not why not?
It wasn't an accident. It was a completely avoidable incident.

No punishment, wasn't prosecuted.


Again I find the need to trot this out:

magicbastarder

Fian wrote: »

Well the verdict is correct. It was an accident, I don't for an instant imagine it was a deliberate act. Regardless of where fault lay.

well, if by 'accident', you mean 'not wilfully intentional', you are correct.

however, there are many offences which don't need wilful intent to prosecute.

rubadub

The jury of three women and three men returned a verdict of accidental death and made a recommendation that all cyclists wear helmets.

no recommendations for motorists so?

Any other recommendations? chastity belts?

Well reading that sure ruined my day. Never ceases to amaze me some of the bolloxology seen in our courts.

Seth Brundle

ED E wrote: »

No punishment, wasn't prosecuted.

But given the outcome in the Coroners Court the gardai wont take it further.

ED E

Seth Brundle wrote: »

But given the outcome in the Coroners Court the gardai wont take it further.

As I understand it the coroner only gets it in absence of a prosecution.

Seth Brundle

ED E wrote: »

As I understand it the coroner only gets it in absence of a prosecution.

Either way a man is dead because somehow a driver saw a cyclist ahead of him yet still managed to knock him down and kill him but let's not make the old man feel worse than he may already do.
The cyclist's family saw no justice!

tomasrojo

Martin Porter was making the argument two or so years ago in the UK that cycling cases shouldn't use juries. It was this sort of thing he had in mind. Look how they contorted themselves to absolve the driver and blame the cyclist (which is what the references to hiviz and helmets is really about).

tomasrojo

Incidentally, I used to be of the opinion, mentioned already, that it was worth pursuing "safety" strategies that you don't really believe in, on the grounds that authorities might be more likely to pursue the person who harms you. I don't believe this anymore. I think they'll "attaboy" your departed soul in an aside, if that, and talk about how traumatised the driver is.

RacoonQueen

mr spuckler wrote: »

aaaaggggghhhh, just NO again.

the whole report makes me really angry. he said he saw the cyclist ahead of him and yet the lack of hi-viz is referenced for some reason. he said the cyclist didn't move off his line and yet they can't say who collided with who. what does it take to create any accountability for killing cyclists?

It's nonsense. Blood boiling nonsense.

The incident happened somewhere around here, on a road I presume he cycled every day and would have been well aware of any bad patches of road he needed to avoid etc road looks like it's in good condition and plenty of space to overtake safely once traffic isn't coming in other direction. https://www.google.com/maps/@53.2924365,-6.2931545,3a,75y,23.37h,88.9t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sv9bGbmDkJ6zx_avbbcWfuw!2e0!7i16384!8i8192

Even if the cyclist had adjusted their position, the mere fact the two met means the car did not overtake safely.
They either pulled out too late, pulled back in too early or did not leave ample space when overtaking.

I'm sure the driver and his wife have not had a great time since the death themselves, awful thing to be 'responsible' for, even if the law doesn't agree. From the report, it sounds like they know the driver was at fault.

Seth Brundle

RacoonQueen wrote: »

I'm sure the driver and his wife have not had a great time since the death themselves, awful thing to be 'responsible' for, even if the law doesn't agree. From the report, it sounds like they know the driver was at fault.

Yes he is probably mentally tortured but it's his fault IMO.
If we look at the recent videos of taxi drivers deliberately swerving towards cyclists, if and when one of these idiots is successful and kills a cyclist they may well get off because the cyclist wasn't wearing a high viz vest on a bright June morning with good visibility.
We have to get out of the habit of coming up with nice outcomes for the sake (in many RTAs) of the deceased or in this case the driver.

Duckjob

It's just another way in which we look more and more like the island people of Europe when it comes to protecting our road users.

In Netherlands when there is a road fatality, a thorough investigation is done to FIND THE CAUSE and then concrete actions are taken to try to prevent the same circumstances happen again.

Here, we have this useless box ticking exercise where no blame is assigned to anyone except the unfortunate victim (useful as they can't argue back). We then forget about it until the next time, and rinse and repeat.

It achieves absolutely NOTHING!!!


On a sidenote,

I came across the recent taxi chasing cyclist up on the footpath story on several international sources FB groups/cycle blogs etc.

My only hope for change in Ireland at this point is that we start getting enough international attention/criticism on how backward our road culture is, and how little our government is doing to sort it, that they get embarrassed and shamed into moving their arses to do something, because they sure as hell don't seem motivated to do anything to risk disturbing the "car-is-king" status quo by themselves.

AndrewJRenko

Seth Brundle wrote: »

It wasn't an accident. It was a completely avoidable incident.

I was going to post my views, but I can't better this.

Rechuchote

Seth Brundle wrote: »

No that's not good enough.
From the article we don't see that the driver has been banned so what punishment, if any, has there been for a dangerous manouvre that resulted in a death?
The driver came up behind the cyclist. He may not have intended to hit him; but he did hit him, causing death. The driver did not overtake safely.
If it was a child on their bike, would the man have given more space and if not why not?
It wasn't an accident. It was a completely avoidable incident.

The coroners courts are completely unfit for purpose in investigating "accidents". This should be done by a professional body with expertise and without prejudice.

ford2600

The DPP didn't prosecute here, I presume because it would be really difficult to prove.

There was only 3 people at location at time in question; one is dead, one was driver and the driver's spouse. Can you be forced to give evidence against yourself or spouse?

Without witness testimony you are down to physical evidence. What was nature of impact(if any) between car and bicycle? It's possible there was none; car got much too close to cyclist who then lost control and fell. Contact might have been very light (between cyclist and car) as not to leave mark on car. Then defence team can argue there was none.


How do you convict beyond a reasonable doubt in that scenario? We can all guess what probably happened in this scenario but guess don't cut it in a criminal court where the deck is loaded in favour of the Accused. In my very limited knowledge all evidence used to prosecute a case has to be in Book of Evidence, which is handed to defence team well before a trial. The BOE here would be pretty light before some half decent legal team started punching holes in it.


It wouldn't be an easy civil case to win, but it'll probably settle as that seems to be how we, as a society, have generally decided to deal with death/injury on our roads.


As a side note, the driver I least like to meet are old drivers. You very rarely get aggression but very often get a close pass, often at moderate speed, but its often like they have really considered you at all, with no steering input. Compulsory retraining over age of 65 and a new licence application every couple of years might be a worthwhile recommendation

randomname2005

ford2600 wrote: »

The DPP didn't prosecute here, I presume because it would be really difficult to prove.

There was only 3 people at location at time in question; one is dead, one was driver and the driver's spouse. Can you be forced to give evidence against yourself or spouse?

Without witness testimony you are down to physical evidence. What was nature of impact(if any) between car and bicycle? It's possible there was none; car got much too close to cyclist who then lost control and fell. Contact might have been very light (between cyclist and car) as not to leave mark on car. Then defence team can argue there was none.


How do you convict beyond a reasonable doubt in that scenario? We can all guess what probably happened in this scenario but guess don't cut it in a criminal court where the deck is loaded in favour of the Accused. In my very limited knowledge all evidence used to prosecute a case has to be in Book of Evidence, which is handed to defence team well before a trial. The BOE here would be pretty light before some half decent legal team started punching holes in it.


It wouldn't be an easy civil case to win, but it'll probably settle as that seems to be how we, as a society, have generally decided to deal with death/injury on our roads.


As a side note, the driver I least like to meet are old drivers. You very rarely get aggression but very often get a close pass, often at moderate speed, but its often like they have really considered you at all, with no steering input. Compulsory retraining over age of 65 and a new licence application every couple of years might be a worthwhile recommendation

I think it depends on what you are trying to make a conviction on. Manslaughter, probably difficult, but driving without due care and attention, driving inconsiderately (I am sure there are legal names for these but am too angry to find exact names). If the accident is close to where Racoon Queen suggested, then you look at how far it was from the kerb - if the distance between the car and kerb was very little then it should be possible to prosecute on a minor offense and at least have some justice for the family if a serious offense is not going to be successful. But there is no desire in the country to prosecute people for motoring offenses.

Macy0161

tomasrojo wrote: »

Martin Porter was making the argument two or so years ago in the UK that cycling cases shouldn't use juries. It was this sort of thing he had in mind. Look how they contorted themselves to absolve the driver and blame the cyclist (which is what the references to hiviz and helmets is really about).

You'd wonder what they would be forced to come up with, if he was wearing a helmet and hiviz?

I feel somewhat guilty (as I do think it's feeding into the whole nonsense) but I've reluctantly taken to wearing hiviz on my commutes just so should something happen, the fact I wasn't couldn't be used against me (either in real time, or in the extreme the coroners court).

mloc123

So the driver saw him and admitted he saw him and yet they still noted he was not wearing hi-viz.

Am I missing something about the RSA hi-viz vests? Are they made of kevlar or something similar that prevents injury when kit by a car?

Fian

ED E wrote: »

As I understand it the coroner only gets it in absence of a prosecution.

No. A coroner gets it in cases of road traffic deaths, along with a number of other circumstances. Generally a coroner will adjourn if a prosecution is ongoing.

The verdict of the coroner does not in any way preclude a prosecution should the DPP consider that there is sufficient evidence to bring one.

The evidence the garda gave, which is what annoyed me about this rather than the verdict, would suggest that there is insufficient evidence in his view, since he seems unable to apportion blame for the accident between the cyclist who held his line and the driver who made a decision to overtake him.

CramCycle

The Garda's evidence indicates he cannot say if the cyclist swerved out or the car in. It really fails to understand that in either case, the car was performing a dangerously close overtake.

If the minimum passing legislation had been enacted rather than excused on inability to enforce it live. We would have an easy and obvious conviction that would clearly indicate to other non cyclist what is and is not OK.

JMcL

ford2600 wrote: »

Compulsory retraining over age of 65 and a new licence application every couple of years might be a worthwhile recommendation

Over the age of 60 you can only renew up until your 70th birthday, and thereafter it's a 3 year license along with a "fitness to drive" cert (http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/travel_and_recreation/motoring_1/driver_licensing/renewing_a_full_driving_licence.html) - and from what I can see, it'd seem you'd have to be pretty bad not to get one of those - of course it's all down to how good/obliging your GP is.

It is shocking though that you get handed a driving license at age 18 and effectively retain it to the grave with no further training/testing required except in the most exceptional circumstances - drivers should at least be required to redo the test if they rack up 12 points. In France, you don't even have to renew - you can still be driving at age 80 with a picture of your 18 year old self on the license (though the only real difference here is that it's a bit of a revenue raising exercise)

Macy0161

I wouldn't be convinced its down to age and competence, as age and driving culture thing. I've had the arguements regarding two a breast with relations that used to cycle tour in their youth. Many really can't get their head around anything other than hitting is fine - I can only assume it goes back to days with less traffic, slower speeds, less agression on the roads....