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Justice (Lonpicman, Wikimedia Commons)Driver who killed cyclist escapes jail sentence
A man convicted of causing the death of a cyclist by careless driving has walked free from a Scottish court after being handed a sentence of 300 hours community service and a four-year driving ban.
Alastair Dudgeon died after being hit by James Sneddon's Vauxhall Astra at about 2am on January 6, 2013 near the Kincardine Bridge in Fife.
According to The Scotsman's Dave Finlay, the High Court in Edinburgh was told on Monday that Mr Dudgeon, from High Valleyfield, Fife, regularly cycled to and from his work as a baker at a Tesco store in Camelon, on the outskirts of Falkirk.
He sustained a broken neck, rib fractures and internal injuries, including to the aorta — the main artery from the heart — when he was hit from behind by Sneddon.
Sneddon denied the charge of causing death by dangerous driving, and was found guilty of the lesser offence of causing death by careless driving.
One witness told the court that weather conditions were clear and visibility was reasonable even though the riad was not lit.
A police constable estimated he could see the flashing rear light on Dudgeon's bike from about 200 metres away as he drove to the scene.
Prosecuting, advocate depute Bruce Erroch reminded the court that the Highway Code told drivers to give motorcyclists, cyclists and horse riders at least as much room as when overtaking a car.
He told jurors that if they thought Mr Dudgeon had contributed in some way to his death by not wearing a high-visibility jacket, that was not something that absolved Sneddon. He said what mattered was that the driver should have seen Dudgeon well before the collision and taken steps to avoid him.
Defence counsel Emma Toner said Sneddon had expressed genuine remorse for having been the cause of Dudgeon's family's loss.
Sentencing Sneddon, judge Nigel Morrison said: “The death of Alastair Dudgeon at the age of 51 is a tragedy for his family.”
Mr Dudgeon’s widow was “devastated” by the loss, he said, but he was taking into accoount the lack of aggravating factors such as deliberate course of bad driving, drinking or using a mobile phone.
He noted that Sneddon had been assessed as posing a very low risk of re-offending.
Sneddon's sentence is within the recommended sentencing range (see page 15) for causing death through careless or inconsiderate driving arising from momentary inattention with no aggravating factors.
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
Regarding 'mens rea' - I know that's the legal difference. I just don't entirely agree with it, Latin name and all.
Its a dubious distinction in many cases, one that seems to have the effect of minimising bad behaviour by those with power.
Giving the thoughts in someone's head excessive importance means judging those with power by softer standards than those without, because the former don't _need_ to consciously think about causing harm, they can do so without making any special effort. (I think this also applies to issues other than road safety).
For someone on a bike to kill they have to go to a special effort (such as getting a gun) which will show 'intent'. For someone in a car they just have to let their mind go blank for a moment. The end result is the same, however, its just that the more powerful party doesn't need the conscious intent at an individual level, its more of a collective decision (on the part of all drivers to accept a low standard of driving, which is statistically guaranteed to kill at least a few people).
If one group collectively decides to habitually take risks with the safety of another group then I'm not sure that is morally very different from an individual deciding to deliberately injure another individual.
We have a situation where regardless of how many lights or high-viz you have, regardless that you did absolutely nothing wrong, a driver can still randomly kill you and pay almost no price for doing so, as society accepts that such a thing is just "one of those things" and to be regarded as almost normal.
Who in their right mind wants to take up cycling when that holds true? You might as well take up Russian roulette as a hobby.
Though I guess what I'm saying regarding 'intent' is just another way of saying that the more powerful party should have the greater burden of care.
With bans being difficult to enforce we might need a completely new thinking on who can drive what, and on the need for drivers to have licences with them, so that bans could actually be enforced - this is straight off the top of my head so may be totally impractical!
We are about to enter a new regime with VED where there is no need for a disc to be displayed from 1st October because the whether the vehicle is taxed, insured and covered by a current MOT(where applicable) will be found from just the registration plate.
Imagine if the registration plate also linked to those people registered to drive that specific vehicle (and all drivers were required as a condition of maintaining a licence to register to drive only specified vehicles) - there could be exceptions for hire vehicles, PSV and good vehicles where checks on licences before driving are already the norm).
I may be just rambling here; but take away the entitlement to drive everything and the chances of illegal drivers being identified would be much higher. Is there any sense in this?
One or two need to re-read the judge's words to the jury. He was telling them that the cyclist not wearing a hi-vis was no reason to find the driver not guilty of the offence charged.
You yourself need to re-read the article. It was the prosecutor who said that (to the jury), not the judge.
I stand corrected, it was indeed the prosecutor, but the point being that the jury were made aware that not wearing a high vis should not be taken into account when deciding the driver's guilt or innocence. Some appeared to read it as the opposite.
The point surely is that this should never have been mentioned at all. Together with all the rubbish about remorse it is utterly irrelevant. Sneddon either deliberately drove into someone, has spectacularly defective vision, or has the concentration span of a distracted kitten. Whichever of these is true he should never drive again. That is all that matters - the rest is meaningless special pleading.
The law doesn't agree with you.
Written in tablets of stone? Surely this is exactly the sort of changes to the law we should be demanding.
He wasn't drunk or on drugs or on a mobile phone, so what the fuck was he doing that prevented him from noticing a large moving object in the road kicking out a bright flashing light. In some ways it is worse, he just wasn't paying attention. Lots of other distractions; changing the radio, reaching for something, not looking - but a shit sentence.
Damn right you shouldn't take into account the wearing of a high vis jacket. How many cars & motorbike are bright yellow, its not a factor if a cyclist has adequate lights.
it does highlight the need to have regular driving retests, not super stringent but to get the crap, incompetent drivers off the roads either for re training or a permanent ban, there are plenty out there. Not sure how we can do the same for crap cyclists though, again there are plenty.
High time we had a large government tv advertising campaign for road behaviour, with tougher sentences. Drive using a mobile - lose your car, simple.
Fucking disgrace. If I'm ever knocked down again and there is breath left in my body I will stand up for myself and do what has been done unto me to those who did it as clearly the justice system won't stand up for me by properly punishing whomever runs me down next. It is an absolute disgrace. They are all clowns. Sneddon should be doing time, a long stretch of it, for dangerous driving and had his driving license taken away from him for the rest of his life.
Not so much worried about the prison sentence, or lack of it (where there are exacerbating factors - being banned already, being off face through drink and/or drugs, yeah, throw away the key). But this driver did show himself to be catastrophically crap at driving, and should lose the privilege of ever being allowed to have another go.
The default position for killing someone whilst driving should be a lifetime ban. This isn't a kneejerk reactionary position. It addresses the needs of justice, issues of criminal jurisprudence, and the dangers caused by careless and dangerous driving.
A lifetime driving ban prevents the offender from carrying out the offence again. It deters other people from putting themselves at risk of carrying out this sort of offence (general deterrence; specific deterrence is kinda irrelevant if a lifetime driving ban is imposed). Rehabilitation? Well, a lifetime of walking, cycling, or using public transport should do the trick there.
What the hell!
Quote
"He told jurors that if they thought Mr Dudgeon had contributed in some way to his death by not wearing a high-visibility jacket"
and i am sure that taking a persons license away stops them driving
The law is totally messed up, with sentencing! I hope all you cyclist have life insurance.
Quote: "He noted that Sneddon had been assessed as posing a very low risk of re-offending."
There would be even less chance of re-offending if the 'revocation of licence' had been permanent.
For further reading
http://beyondthekerb.wordpress.com/2014/01/10/the-problem-with-good-people/
Shame on our so called British justice system.
When ever I read about another killer motorist getting away scout free with kill a cyclist, I all ways think of this case
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-dorset-25447028
I bet this guy wishes he was in a car that day and then he would have just got a couple of hour community service.
Joke!
A sad thing to have happened, sympathy to those involved.
This annoys me though...
'He told jurors that if they thought Mr Dudgeon had contributed in some way to his death by not wearing a high-visibility jacket, that was not something that absolved Sneddon'
Everyone out of a building needs to wear hi-vis now then?
the bridge in question is in the distance, this is the section of road roughly where it happenned. As you can easily see, there was plenty of space to put in cycle lanes...
http://goo.gl/maps/hA3E0
Could the cops check his computer to see whether he had ever downloaded or distributed any films? Perhaps they could do this in all similar cases in the future.
there was plenty of space there to put in a cycle lane on each side of the road... instead, the median strip was chevronned off to keep motor vehicles seperated...
I have only read this story so cannot express full knowledge of this case. I don't argue with the lack of prison time, as this guy is not a danger to society.
Except from behind the wheel of a car. He should have this privilege removed for life for killing Mr Dudgeon, along with a much greater community service sentence in my opinion.
I'm never sure about this... on one level I support the premise that having a licence means that you should have a degree of protection from the law, however the other side of it is that to provide a deterrent you need to apply punishments that act as, well an actual deterrent.
Right now, its accepted that people sometimes die on the roads, its no ones fault, just one of those things... that's not really acceptable to me.
To me, not giving custodial sentences frames the severity of these 'crimes' as not very serious... which is not the case.
So I acknowledge that imprisoning these people is a complete waste of a life, however I believe its an unfortunate requirement to set/change public perception.
I would support the permanent loss of licence should someone be convicted of death by careless/dangerous driving. Maybe they could be given a choice... 2 years in the clink, or permanent loss of licence.
Again its this whole privilege over right argument.
I disagree. First off there is a big difference between the crimes of Dangerous Driving and Careless Driving. So I wouldn't band them together. As far as Dangerous driving is concerned I would ensure that it was policed and prosecuted vigorously. And yes very long bans regardless of whether someone was injured or killed (I wouldn't give an 18 year old a life ban I might give a 40 year old one) Certainly 10+ years off the road for Dangerous Driving. If you kill someone doing it then that would attract and additional custodial penalty.
The trouble is when it comes to careless driving where there is no mens rea and no harm caused. In my opinion that should be stiffened up a bit.
What there needs to be is a much more clear distiction between careless driving and dangerous driving. At the moment there is a bit of a continuum at the lower end of DD. That leads the CPS to press the more provable charge. ie CD. I believe that when someone is KSI the charge should be binary. An automatic assumption that they were DD for the purposes of charging thereby forcing the CPS and the police to up their game going in to court. If they can't prove dangerous then CD is still on the charge sheet. But at least they attempt the higher charge.
It will result in more DD convictions and more DD acquittals as well.
Proof, if any more needed, that all our protests and petitions are in vain.
It's a shame isn't it?
Yes, it could be any one of us, I get that, but actually its not is it? It's not any of us at all, it is very few of us, generally doing something clearly wrong, inattentive or down right stupid.
This needs addressing badly... however having heard magistrate judges attitudes towards drink driving offences, I think there is little chance in the sentencing being toughened up.
The point that needs to be expressed is that on the day you are given your licence, you are being handed the responsibility to not kill anyone in your car... should you fail in that responsibility the punishments will be severe and exceptions not made.
Being careless, being dangerous, does it really matter? Someone died.
[quote=Jimmy
Being careless, being dangerous, does it really matter? Someone died.[/quote]
Well actually it does matter. That's why it is a separate offence. It's two different things. It's why there are different sentences.
The difference is Mens Rea. (state of mind)
Driving without due care is failing to give the task your full attention and in so doing creating a potential danger. You aren't intending to cause a danger or harm you are just failing to drive carefully enough.
Driving dangerously on the other hand is deliberately driving in such a way that you must know what you are doing is dangerous in and of itself.
They can both result in someone being killed. I would imagine that most drivers hand on heart have at times driven without due care. Maybe not for long maybe only occasionally through distraction, or stress or whatever. But it would be a brave person who would say that at not time whatsoever have they driven below the standard required. So, there but for the grace of god go most drivers. This is distinct from the drivers that deliberately drive in a fashion that is inherently dangerous. They aren't just a bit over the speed limit because they weren't paying attention. They knew they were over the limit because they were deliberately trying to go as fast as they could. They didn't cut someone up by mistake because they didn't look closely enough, they deliberately forced their way through a gap knowing full well what they were doing.
I deplore the way in which the CPS are prone to charge dangerous drivers with due care because it is easier to prove. And the reason that I deplore it the most is because there is such a massive difference between being a bit careless and being an automotive thug.
Have a look at the sentencing manual
http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/s_to_u/sentencing_manual/death_by_dangerous_...
Well actually it does matter. That's why it is a separate offence. It's two different things. It's why there are different sentences.
The difference is Mens Rea. (state of mind)
Driving without due care is failing to give the task your full attention and in so doing creating a potential danger. You aren't intending to cause a danger or harm you are just failing to drive carefully enough.
Driving dangerously on the other hand is deliberately driving in such a way that you must know what you are doing is dangerous in and of itself.
They can both result in someone being killed. I would imagine that most drivers hand on heart have at times driven without due care. Maybe not for long maybe only occasionally through distraction, or stress or whatever. But it would be a brave person who would say that at not time whatsoever have they driven below the standard required. So, there but for the grace of god go most drivers. This is distinct from the drivers that deliberately drive in a fashion that is inherently dangerous. They aren't just a bit over the speed limit because they weren't paying attention. They knew they were over the limit because they were deliberately trying to go as fast as they could. They didn't cut someone up by mistake because they didn't look closely enough, they deliberately forced their way through a gap knowing full well what they were doing.
I deplore the way in which the CPS are prone to charge dangerous drivers with due care because it is easier to prove. And the reason that I deplore it the most is because there is such a massive difference between being a bit careless and being an automotive thug.
Have a look at the sentencing manual
http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/s_to_u/sentencing_manual/death_by_dangerous_...
To be honest this reads like sophistry to me. Terribly clever, but ultimately meaningless. If someone is genuinely incapable of understanding that being 'a bit impatient', or not looking 'quite all the time' is dangerous they have no business driving a car. And yes, this is a ridiculously high standard to demand, but then the whole idea of allowing fallible humans to attempt to control tonnes of metal travelling at high speeds is frankly pretty ridiculous. And whether drivers fall short of those standards by stupidity, inadvertence or malice, is utterly uninteresting. Whatever the cause they should never be permitted to drive again, and should be punished, if only pour encourager...
Once again, the church of the holy motor car prevails. How little regard for human life these people have. Disgusting thugs, the lot of them.
Seriously, where the hell do you get that from? A lot of us are motorists as well as cyclists.
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