85-year-old driver who drove on for three miles after killing cyclist escapes jail

If only we were organised enough to have an "agenda"
I do appreciate what you're saying and getting both the balance and tone of our news right is very important to us.

that reflect the remit we set for road.cc from the start to be a site that covers all aspects of riding on the road in Britain – 'from competing to commuting and all points in between'. Oh, yes, and it has always been a part of what we are about never to come across in what we are saying as sanctimonious cyclists - if we our editorial tone was going that way I'd be worried, we'd much rather take the piss out of stuff than get on a moral high horse. Taking the piss on incidents where people have died though is not an option - so there we'd rather go for a straight recital of the facts.

Of course we prioritise our stories but only on the basis of what the strongest stories on the day are… and that can change as more news happens. We are though always mindful of the mix of stories we're running.

If you look at the balance of news on the site I'd say sport related stories makes up about a third, our view has always been that the race scene is already comprehensively covered by a whole plethora of sites - commuting and campaigning and general stories about being a cyclist in the UK aren't.

The other thing I'd point out is that the web isn't print or TV - there is no silly season in cyberspace, especially on a special interest site like this. Even the race oriented sites don't struggle to fill their pages when there is no racing. The struggle for most websites isn't finding stories it's fitting all the ones they find in – even on a quiet day.

At different times of the year the balance swings more towards different parts of our competing to commuting remit simply because that's where the strongest stories are, but we are always looking for what's going on in other areas of cycling to try and balance that up.

During late autumn and winter there may be slightly more stories about court cases (as at other times there are more race ones). I think that reflects the fact that contrary to what people might believe there are more incidents involving cyclists being killed on the roads in the spring and summer which in turn tend to come to court in autumn and winter.

As for the Confused.com story - IMO that was the PR equivalent of the swan-eating immigrant story - our response was simply pushing back at that. Given the way that cycling is generally portrayed in the mainstream media that would seem to be the responsible thing for a cycling website to do rather than let a multi-million pound company and its PR machine get away with peddling a load of tosh to the media unchallenged. That's how attitudes are changed. We would have posted that story at whatever time of year we'd gotten the press release.

I'd also say our response was a pretty considered one compared to most - we were the only people to read the release and accompanying stats closely enough to see that Confused hadn't even presented the stats from its own research correctly. That's got to be news?

Tony, I'm not saying that you never covered those stories before or shouldn't cover them now.

In fact if you read my comment it wasn't just about court cases, although that's part of it, it was about a general shift towards commuting and campaigning. That was where I used the word balance, not in terms of the actual reporting. I know it is the off-season but this is not just a recent development.

In terms of that overall balance, the general tone and your point about just reporting the news that is there, I would refer you to the recent Confused.com story.

That's the cycling equivalent of swan-eating immigrants, and there've been others, if not quite so blatant.

I've worked in journalism and media for 25 years and run the TV newsroom of one of the world's major press agencies. I know how the silly-season works and I know a beat-up when I see one.

Story selection is done to reflect an agenda - not everyone will like it. I just don't see that you can say it is the same as always - there have definitely been changes IMHO.

At the end of the day if it works for the site as a business then it's your choice to make, I'm just giving my opinion.

As Bez observes this old man killed someone.

Nevertheless, I can't help agreeing that locking up an old man of 85 is going to achieve nothing of any value. He's been banned from driving, and really the lesson (from what I've read here) is that he shouldn't have been driving in the first place.

Never mind the recent plan to take away from GPs the ability to sign people off as long term sick, what we should really take away from them is the ability to accredit people to drive. There needs to be a far more robust approach to taking away the keys from people who simply shouldn't be driving.

Going off at a slight tangent, wasn't this charity ride being personally supported by Alastair Campbell? I seem to recall a link.

Nearly became a victim of this problem last week, Subaru Imprezzo Sport near missed me overtaking on clear wide road, no oncoming traffic, the flat cap and silver hair just did not seem to fit the vehicle type, one expects boy racer, he was not fast, just too close, to my suprise there he was parked outside village shop some 3 mls down the road. He did not think he had been too close to me, he looked somewhat puzzled by my assertion. I think he just did not see me, eyesight/medication? who knows?

Not surprisingly, I'm going to have to disagree with you abudhabiChris and steph-hent.

First off Chris we've always covered stories like this and the campaigning side of cycling, as far as we are concerned these things are likely to be important to all cyclists. You might notice them more at this time of the year because there is less race news about but they are always on the site.

It is also worth saying that a news site can only report the news there is not the news we'd like there to be and of course given the limits on our time sometime we have to make judgements. Today it was this, or a short piece on Victoria Pendleton thinking about a career in fashion once she stops cycling… well, she's been offered some work experience by Sir Paul Smith. If it was just the traffic we were after we would have run the Vicky P story, but in my opinion this is a stronger news piece. Maybe we'll run it tomorrow…

When it comes to court cases involving drivers accused of killing cyclists we don't cover all of them by any means today we could but haven't reported on the cases of the Portsmouth bus driver accused of killing a woman cyclist on a roundabout because he forget to check the blind spot in his mirror and the van driver acquitted of causing the death by careless driving of a 74-year old cyclist. The latter case is almost a reverse of this one the cyclist was killed after he'd stopped driving due to deteriorating sight and hearing both of which were probably major contributing factors in the incident that caused his death. We only report on those cases that are either following up on coverage we may have given to the original incident as in this case (I've added in a link to our original piece) or when we think the outcome or aspects of the case such as the sentence or verdict are of interest - you could make the argument for that being so here also.

As to questions of balance I would say that our coverage of the court proceedings is a straight recital of the facts - there is no comment either way in the piece above as to the justness or otherwise of the sentence.

In my opinion this was a tragedy from whatever angle you view it from - let's not forget that that Gareth Crockett was undertaking his charity challenge in memory of a close friend who had died of leukaemia the year before. Would sending a frail old man to jail have achieved anything - not in my opinion, but others obviously think differently and as long as they keep to the rules of the site they have the right to say so. One observation I would make in this case is that although Mr Edwards didn't have the option of taking his wife to her hospital appointment by tube - most hospitals do operate some form of dial-a-ride service to get people to their appointments and from personal experience I know that cancer patients are a priority.

To come back to balance again, one of the other reasons we cover stories like this is because so often the reporting of them is so skewed by the mainstream media - though I wouldn't say that was the case here.

As for "a little claque developing" well I'm not so sure about that, perceived injustice makes people angry.

Here at road.cc we are not of the view that cyclists can do no wrong, and that all motorists are evil, but we would point out that the facts suggest that right or wrong they don't to much harm either, and that they are the usually innocent victims in incidents involving motor vehicles… we'd also be the first to say that is not always the case in incidents involving cyclists and pedestrians.

The bottom line of my long ramble is, if it's a newsworthy cycling story we will continue to cover it as best we can and with due regard to balance and a proper recounting of the facts.

The only thing that this sad case highlights is that the UK has nothing in place to protect other road users and elderly drivers. Until doctors have the power to remove an individuals licence on medical grounds, or a medical certificate is required on application for a licence the better. I was reading a story recently of an individual who was jailed for 6 years for killing a cyclist when he took an epileptic fit while at the wheel. It turned out that he had not declared this to the DVLA that he was unfit to drive.

Everything round driving seems to revolve around honesty to the DVLA (health wise) and insurance companies health and endorsements). Sadly this is abused, and until caught there seems to be an attitude that the car/van/lorry whatever can continue to be driven. How many times in this forum have we read about drivers causing accidents and there has been underlying medical issues that only come to light afterwards, yet have been known to the driver.

I'm not familiar with Bryngrwan but I don't think it's on the tube line... I can imagine that if my wife was dying of cancer and needed regular medical attention that might affect my judgement about whether I should give up my licence.

It must be lovely to be perfect in every way and able to pass judgement with such ease.

Why am I being so provocative... glad you asked.

Road.cc guys I know it's the off season but you're becoming a bit like the Daily Mail for cyclists.

As a regular, usually daily, reader of the site for several years the tone and balance seems to have changed to be much more about commuting and campaigning.

I'm not suggesting these things don't have a place, I just think the weight has shifted too far.

And a little claque is developing which seems to revel in being fed a regular diet of stories about evil motorists and demanding they be strung up by their gearsticks. If we had letters to the editor I'm pretty sure the green ink would run dry.

If it's ever discovered that Henri Paul crashed because Diana was urging him to run over every cyclist he saw we'll know exactly what happens when matter and anti-matter coexist.

I've said this before but thankfully, the one saving grace is that in the event he lives to 95 and tries to drive again, who would insure him? "Hello, I'm 95 years old. I'd like to buy some insurance." "any endorsements on your licence?" "er......"

This is precisely the reason anyone over the age of 75 should NOT be allowed to drive, you hear of this kind of thing and driving the wrong way on a motorway etc, a lot these days. Shouldn't be on the road.

The driving laws in this country are waaaaay overdue for a massive overhaul imo.

If the guy is a diabetic then he is issued with a 'restricted' licecnce for either 1 or 3 years, this not withstanding extra requirements once you're over 65. Any deteriation in his diabetis, ie lack of control, then he should have notified the DVLA.
Damn fool magistrates- this guy is at the end of his life and he kills someone who is still starting out on his. He should have been sent down.

I am struck more by just how sad this whole sorry story is. Any decent person, in the position of the person responsible, would hit rock bottom at the thought of this. I totally understand the calls for harsher sentencing, but I suspect he's punishing himself quite enough as it is.

Isn't it time the Judiciary held the DVLA accountable for incidences such as this where it is clear that the person responsible shouldn't be driving anymore. That way, they would not be able to issue a licence and then 'forget' about who they've issued it to. They would have to monitor them throughout and make sure they are testing people again once they got to certain ages. I'm sure it would then see a drastic overhaul in how the whole licencing system is run as they wouldn't want to incur huge fines each time something like this happens!

He should definitely be required to re-take the driving test (which, I assume, he would fail) before being allowed to drive again. Would this be part of the procedure?

So why should the Polish lorry driver have gone to jail ?

http://road.cc/content/news/47708-lorry-drivers-good-character-sees-him-...

But nobody seems to think an 85 year old man whose wife has just died of cancer should rot in prison ?

Just noticin...

there is something seriously not right with our legal system...

Quote:

An 85-year-old motorist who continued to drive for three miles...only became aware of what had happened when his wife Mabel, a passenger in the vehicle, told him about it.

That begs the question of what on earth was said for the previous 2.9 miles?! Silence before she turned to him and said "oh by the way you've just run over 5 cyclists"?