95-year-old banned from driving for killing cyclist while on his way to golf club

Statistically, older drivers don't have as high a number of crashes as young drivers. But I do agree that older drivers should face a more thorough system than at present, showing they remain fit to drive. In fact, I'm not averse to the idea of retesting periodically for all drivers of all ages. 

I'll just leave this here. Now maybe 70 isn't the right age for a mandatory retest but 80 or 90?  Yet again driving appears to be a right not a priviledge.

Do drivers over 70 need to retake their driving test?

In short, no. However, drivers need to reapply for their licence at the age of 70 and every three years thereafter. There is no requirement to take a test but applicants must declare that they are fit and healthy to drive and their eyesight meets the minimum requirements for driving via self assessment.

without goingover the same subject of sentencing etc, My other observation here is that we have a driver in his 90s (and we are all aware that driving ability can drop away quite dramatically with age) who has been involved (caused) a fatal crash, had the poor judgement to leave the scene and yet has been permitted to continue driving for a further 18 months before this came to court and he gets a driving ban.

That is 18 months of us all being exposed to this danger, and in real terms a very high propotion of his remaing time on earth, any meaningful punishment should have kicked in at a first hearing, preferably a day or 2 after the incident

And no-one has questioned the driver who overtook, that he might have overtaken the old bastard when it wasnt safe to do so because the old bastard was about to overtake a cyclist. Being startled by the overtaking car and having shitty eyesight and reactions he then swerves into the cyclist. 

I was almost taken out by a dotard driving a Toyota Landcruiser yesterday on the Swaynesland Lane near Pains Hill in Kent.  He came over the lip of a steep incline, barely in control and at such speed that he almost had to choose between me and the pedestrians on the opposite side of the road who were a little taken aback by my choice of words.  

If the Government wants to raise money then mandatory 12 month driving tests for pensioners wouldn't be a bad start. Eyesight and reactions deteriorate quickly...

When they happily let off an ininsured driver of a 'Warrior' for killing a cyclist, it's not likely they will come up with a just sentence for an old bloke in a respectable golf club who 'didn't notice' that he had killed a cyclist and dragged the bike along the road- after all, you're bound to kill the odd one if they persist in cluttering up the roads.

This old fcuker took a life and then continued on to his game of golf as if nothing had happened. How does that not deserve a prison sentence?! 

I suppose there is some comfort in the conviction being for dangerous driving.

Why is he not under 24 hour house arrest if he apparently can't go to prison? Why can't his life be curtailed in any way?

Two points.

Taking someone's life due to poor driving should be an automatic lifetime driving ban.

Not stopping to render assistance should be an automatic jail sentence.

So he's fit enough to drive and play golf but not fit enough to take responsibility for his actions in killing someone and go to prison?

The law is an ass.

The BBC reports that "Judge Christine Laing QC told the court Mr MacKie's driving licence had been revoked so there was "no question" of him being able to drive again." Why the difference in this report?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-53505950

If he's fit enough to play golf, he's fit enough to do time. He must have known how bad his driving was but was too selfish to give up.

Should have added a four year golfing ban too - the driving ban alone is hardly likely to affect the defendant, and only crystallises what clearly should already have been the status quo.

I'm genuinely curious as to why he was convicted. His actions suggest he was oblivious to the presence of the cyclist. In other cases where the defendant has argued that they simply did not know the object on a bicycle they struck was a living cyclist, they got off.

One other thing disturbs me even more. The other motorist reports "seeing a sudden, jerk movement by the defendant’s vehicle that swerved to the left and hit the cyclist, like a reactive move." So it could be that the action was deliberate. I know this sounds implausible, but consider the age of the defendant. I'm certainly no expert, but it is very obvious that in some people with advanced age comes a sharp diminution of the filtering of innate prejudices. One starts to hear the unfiltered expression of unattractive racial or class prejudices, to the extent that it can embarrass close family and friends.

Is it possible that here we have the actions of a crusty golf club member with a haughty distaste for cyclists in his way, whose atrophied inhibitory pathways no longer restrain his ugly basal instinct.