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Justice (Lonpicman, Wikimedia Commons)Driver who killed cyclist on roundabout near Bristol given community order
A Bristol motorist has been order to complete 250 hours of unpaid work after being found guilty of causing the death of a cyclist by careless driving. Phillip Bridges said he made all the usual checks when approaching the roundabout on which the collision took place only to hear his wife scream as he was about to hit 74-year-old Peter Brown.
The Bristol Post reports that the incident took place at the M48 Aust junction in October 2016.
Bridges said that at the end of the slip road he slowed for the roundabout and looked both left and right, but failed to see Brown, who was wearing high visibility clothing.
When his wife, who was sitting beside him, screamed, he braked.
He struck Brown’s back wheel and the cyclist fell, suffering a brain injury from which he died two weeks later.
Bridges said when he got out of the car, Brown was not wearing a helmet. “I saw a helmet over on the grass, four to five feet away.”
Bridges denied the charge. Attempting to explain why he had not seen Brown, he said: “I feel that he’s come from off the cycle path. He’s come from the back of my car. He’s pulled onto the roundabout instead of carrying on to the cycle path. I was not able to see him doing the checks I did.”
Patrick Jones-Barbour, who had been driving behind Bridges’ BMW after crossing the Severn Bridge, told the jury he had seen Brown on the roundabout.
“A cyclist appeared on the roundabout from the right hand side. I saw the cyclist contrasted against the dark green foliage on the roundabout.
“I thought to myself ‘we’re going to have to stop’. I started braking, ordinarily. The BMW slowed but it didn’t stop.
“It went onto the roundabout and there was a shout from the cyclist, who tried to swerve out the way of the BMW. The cyclist and the BMW collided.”
A forensic collision examiner who made videos of both the driver’s and cyclist’s views on their respective approaches to the scene of the crash said he could not account for why Bridges had not seen Brown.
James Tucker, defending, conceded that his client had previous convictions for drink driving, but said he had grown into a family man who had started his own window cleaning business.
As well as the year’s community order and a three-month curfew, Bridges was banned from driving for 15 months after which he will be required to pass an extended driving test.
After the guilty verdict, the jury sent a note to the judge suggesting that 'Think Bike' signage be added to the junction.
Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn't especially like cake.
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47 comments
All roundabouts are dangerous for cyclists, and this one is no exception.
Because they pick them up after each death.
Sorry but if you have convictions for drink driving and have now killed someone through the poor standards of your driving I think a lifetime ban should be in order. He clearly can't be trusted behind the wheel, momentary lapse of concentration/judgement or not, he's had more than one chance to prove his ability to drive and someone has died as a result of it.
Custodial sentances would be good, but that's so unlikely that it doesn't make people think about what they're doing, the threat of losing your license permanently might just make people try a little harder, and if not, might at least get some of them off the road. If you were a doctor who killed someone through malpractice you'd lose your medical license pretty quickly, especially if you had previous charges, I don't see why this is different.
As a Bristol cyclist knocked off in very similar circs a couple of weeks ago, this story and the punishment horrify me. This gives drivers the clear message that cyclists don't matter and even if you kill one you'll only get a slap on the wrist.
I can't wait for the government's inquiry into cycling and safety, and I hope the cycling organisations give them both barrels for their complete failure to protect cyclists.
Put up signs ffs.
The cynic in me thinks it'll be a whitewash, and if it isn't a whitewash, it'll be denied and any experts won't be listened to.
The ideology just won't cater for it: see Davids Nutt and Kelly, the latter of whom I'll spuriously connect with cycling via Andrew Gilligan.
Is it me or Bristol THE spot to avoid as cyclist?
Or the place to kill them in the safe knowledge you'll get away scott free?
So sad.
RIP Peter.
I do not think that these stupid "think bike" signs will make any difference.
How much cycling awareness is in the current driving test, if any? That needs to change! Cycling needs to become a normal thing.
The signs might make a negative difference
Some think additional sign clutter is dangerous. Takes people's attention away from what they should actually see, folks start to ignore signs as they're too common or folk become complacent and and think they somehow protect them
Or they displace the problem, folk only look when a sign is there and when there's no sign somewherre else they don't even think about looking 
"I drove my car into someone and killed them, but I did look a little bit to see if there was anything as big as me that might hurt if I hit it, but there weren't any of those, so that's alright isn't, your honour".
"Yes, it is. Off you go."
Why didn't he see? Probably because he looked cursorily for the wrong thing in the wrong place, but that's OK it seems.
At a guess, two moving objects on a converging course that maintain the same bearing to each other will inevitably collide, and thus the driver of a car that rolls up to a roundabout without stopping will not see the cyclist hidden behind the A pillar unless he moves his head to look properly.
This. For a standard 90 degree motorway slip junction you have to haul your sedantary carcass off your comfy leather armchair to look around the A-pillar. My motorway junction exit (J1 M27) forms part of one of the local TT courses and its really easy to not see a cyclist if you don't look properly. Despite it being the fastest route to work when I cycle I avoid it - I've had too many near misses as a driver there because drivers exiting the motorway don't expect much traffic to be approaching from the right (it joins 2 B-roads) and therefore try to run it.
"Bridges said when he got out of the car, Brown was not wearing a helmet. “I saw a helmet over on the grass, four to five feet away"
What kind of bullshit is this? I'd urge the prosecution to rephrase this to "you hit him so hard that the force of him hitting the road caused his helmet to sail through the air".
“I feel that he’s come from off the cycle path. He’s come from the back of my car. He’s pulled onto the roundabout instead of carrying on to the cycle path. I was not able to see him doing the checks I did.”
You 'feel'. So you don't know. Your wife sat in presumably a worse position saw him as did the car behind!
"Tucker, defending, conceded that his client had previous convictions for drink driving, but said he had grown into a family man who had started his own window cleaning business"
Yep he's growing nicely. Drink driver, killer, what next?
If he can't explain why he didn't see the cyclist riding legally on the roundabout, his licence should be removed until suchtime as he can.
“Bridges said that at the end of the slip road he slowed for the roundabout and looked both left and right, but failed to see Brown, who was wearing high visibility clothing....
I was not able to see him doing the checks I did.”
Translation: Bridges gave a perfunctory glance, saw no threat to him in his BMW, then killed a man.”
Fuck's fucking sake
Yeah, this ^
Kade Scrivens got 7.5 years but this guy gets no jailtime. Why does there need to be some special "aggravating" factors to give a proper appropriate sentence for killing someone?
250 hours of community service is not exactly going to send a message to other drivers to look properly and not kill people!
Stole car, drove 3x the speed limit, killed five of his mates - 4.5 years custodial
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-42829783
Granted he's only 15 but if he'd killed my son I wouldn't see that as justice, as backed up by the comments from one of the families.
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