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Broken bike (CC licensed image by garryknight, www.flickr.com)Pharmaceutical consultant who killed cyclist while driving on wrong side of road cleared of careless driving
A pharmaceutical industry consultant has been cleared of causing death by careless driving after she hit a cyclist while overtaking on a bend.
Dr Helen Measures, 51, was overtaking two other cyclists and on the wrong side of the road when she hit Denisa Perinova, 21 on the A415 near Henley-on-Thames on July 15 last year.
The court heard that Ms Perinova was riding with her boyfriend, Ben Pontin, and lost control of her bike when she saw Dr Measures’ Mini heading toward them.
Dr Measures’ car hit Ms Perinova at up to 50mph, flinging her 15 yards into the entrance of a nearby field.
Mr Pontin said he saw Dr Measures make a “stupid manoeuvre” on a curve in the road, leaving him just a “tiny gap”. He felt his girlfriend’s wheels touch his bike and when he looked round she had been hurled into the entrance of a field.
“I just couldn’t believe the person driving had overtaken at that point,” he said.
Ms Perinova’s helmet was smashed. She was taken to Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading and later transferred to a specialist neurological unit at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford. She died a week later from her injuries.
It was her first ride on a bike that Mr Pontin had recently bought her.
"I would expect cyclists to remain upright"
During the trial Dr Measures claimed that Ms Perinova had fallen into her path. Sandra Beck, prosecuting asked her, “You are relying on other road users avoiding you when you are on their side of the road?”
“I can’t help it if a cyclist, with all due respect, falls over as I’m approaching them and comes into my line of travel,” Dr Measures said. “I would expect cyclists to generally remain upright as the first cyclist did.
“You do not make a manoeuvre if you don’t think it is safe to do so. Had everyone stayed upright, there would not have been an issue,” she said.
Dr Measures admitted she had not seen the oncoming riders as she decided there was “sufficient room” to slow down and pass.
She said she was “surprised” to see Mr Pontin and Ms Perinova coming toward her as came round the bend at 40 to 50mph, but felt they had room to get past.
“I had to make a decision of what to do. I felt the safest decision was to continue straight ahead because they were in single file. If I had been concerned, I would have stopped suddenly.”
The jury deliberated for three hours before returning a ‘not guilty’ verdict.
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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103 comments
on a more constructive note, i have now emailed a complaint about the conviction!
She's actually managed a successful Lance Armstrong defence.
"I've done nothing wrong. Oh, and by the way, Cancer."
.......
I guess the only solution is to slash every cars tyres in an act of self defence.
.....
Genuinely terrifying.
"If I had been concerned, I would have stopped suddenly.”
think that says it all myself - makes a not very rational change from the "guilt will always be with me" defence
seems to have echoes of case in Queensland Au where a cement truck driver was acquitted after running down a young man, Richard Pollett, - his defence was he believed the manoeuvre was safe
The legal system doesn't appear to work.
The same, or worse, happens in Spain with law regarding weak users (cyclists) versus strong users (car drivers). I can't believe this is also happening in UK with no social reaction. Society should claim their right to use public roads as well as their right to live when using them.
My theory is that (maybe for both countries) car/truck and petroleum industries have huge influence into government so anything that may affect to their economy is avoided. For instance, if law is enforced, many people will not buy powerful/expensive cars because they will not need/use so much horsepower.
Yep. Clearly visible on linkedin.
A Doctor with an expensive lawyer, paid for by her employer.Was this case going go any other way??
Right. I would mind reading what Cycling Silk might have to say about this case.
I guess I'm clinging to the faint hope that the prosecution bungled somehow, rather than the alternative that a random sample of the public are evil cretins.
If she fell off the bike in front of her how was she hurled into the air so far?
Also as Dr Stupid ventured onto their side of the road surely that puts her at fault? You should not overtake unless clear & safe to do so. This was not a clear & safe time as she couldn't see round the bend.
It would be interesting to hear what the other cyclists witnessed & have to say about what happened? This doesn't seem quite right... something is missing. From the quotes she doesn't seem to show any remorse at all. Its horrific to read.
I don't get it, if she couldn't see the cyclists she sure as hell wouldn't have seen an oncoming car. I would like to think the blame for the resulting collision would land on her shoulders, although I guess it would've been the other cars fault for being on the road.
Do the law-makers not see verdicts like this and despair at how ridiculous they are?
Is there any way of finding out who she consults for and making them aware that they are employing somebody who is completely moronic and does not give a shit about anyone but herself?
Or would that be construed as harassment and liable to attract a jail sentence?
-
Yup.
http://uk.linkedin.com/pub/helen-measures/11/550/b66
"Specialties:Therapeutic areas of experience include oncology and HIV."
...and terrible driving decisions.
Goes to show that public opinion needs to change. Just like attitudes to drink driving, the public has to realise that overtaking on blind bends and the brow of a hill is dangerous and wrong. They also need to understand that cyclists are traffic and need to be overtaken with care and a reduced speed.
How this change in attitude happens I'm not sure.
As cycling grows in popularity it will happen naturally to a certain extent, but perhaps there is a need for a public information campaign.
We can start to affect it by sharing the items on Facebook & Twitter. When your friends & family like or comment then it goes out to a wider audience.
I'm sure that most of the car/lorry-cycle accidents are not intended and the driver isn't malicious in any way. But, in the cases where the driver is at fault it's usually a case of the driver being too fast or just not taking care. All they needed to have done was SLOW DOWN and be a little more considerate to other road users - whoever they are and whatever they're doing.
Shocking. Couldn't be bothered to wait a few seconds until she was round the corner and had a clear view of what was ahead. Let's just hope that next time she overtakes on a blind bend, it's a ruddy great bulldozer that she gets "surprised" by.
Drivers generally tend to choose the softest thing to hit. So if a bulldozer looms round the corner the expected behaviour is to swerve left and hit the cyclist they were overtaking. Luckily in the few times this has happened to my (not with an actual bulldozer though) I've anticipated it and avoided being hit by braking hard.
The Telegraph article has this;
Does the author really think a helmet designed to withstand a 12mph drop onto concrete is able to protect you in a 50mph impact with a vehicle?
Does anyone know if there is a way to appeal this verdict?
More information here: https://www.gov.uk/appeal-against-sentence-conviction/crown-court-verdict
seriously!?!
What the hell does a driver have to do in order to be found guilty of manslaughter? If he had killed another car driver I am 100% certain he would have been found guilty.
She.
At least read some of the article.
And the jury actually took that on board as a defence?
FFS
Always the same problem. The jurors put themselves in the drivers shoes instead of the cyclist's, think 'that could be me' - and give the driver the benefit of the doubt.
Completely agree. And frankly that is a very, very depressing state of affairs.
... and show some patience. Do you really *need* to overtake on a bend. No. So why are you doing it?
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