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Cyclist's bike after fatal collision near Ladybank (Crown Office)Pensioner jailed after fatally striking cyclist with truck, dragging him for 30 metres along the road
A motorist who failed to brake or take evasive action before fatally striking a cyclist with his truck, claiming that he couldn’t see because the sun was in his eyes, has been jailed.
80-year-old Adam Fernie was found guilty of causing death by dangerous driving following a trial at Edinburgh High Court on Thursday.
He was sentenced to two years and eight months in prison and has been banned from driving for six years and four months. Fernie will also be required to sit an extended test before he is able to drive again.
In August 2019 66-year-old Iain Anderson, from Glenrothes, was killed in a collision involving a Nissan Cabstar flatbed truck while riding his electric bike on the B937 near Ladybank in Fife.
The force of the collision, which smashed the truck’s windscreen, was enough to push Anderson a further 30 metres along the road. He died at the scene from serious head injuries.
> Driver failed to brake or take evasive action before fatally striking cyclist, court told
According to an experienced accident investigator, no emergency braking was applied to Fernie’s van before it collided with the cyclist.
As well as causing death by dangerous driving, Fernie was charged with failing to stop after the incident, failing to give his name and address to any person with reasonable grounds for asking, failing to identify the vehicle’s owner, and failing to provide the identification mark of the vehicle.
The 80-year-old was also charged with driving his van in a dangerous condition. According to the prosecution, at the time of the collision, the truck included a seized brake, a loose handbrake cable, a missing wheel nut, a worn track rod ball joint, a noisy wheel bearing, a missing fuel filler cap, and a fractured fuel tank strap.
In February, the court heard that in the aftermath of the collision Fernie drove a further 100 yards up the road before finally turning around to attend the scene.
A bus driver, who captured footage of the incident on his dashcam and rushed to help the stricken cyclist along with another passer-by, claimed that he heard the motorist say that he didn’t see the bike rider “because the sun was in his eyes”.
Sentencing Fernie, judge Lord Weir noted that “the collision occurred on a straight stretch of road, in light traffic, and in fine weather” and “that a vulnerable road user like Mr Anderson ought to have been readily visible to following vehicles such as yours.”
Lord Weir also concluded that Fernie appeared to have difficulty in accepting full responsibility for the collision, with a social worker claiming that the 80-year-old made reference to the cyclist’s lack of helmet or high-visibility clothing as contributory factors to the incident.
However, Weir said that the motorist was “completely and inexcusably unaware of Mr Anderson’s presence on the road”.
David Green, Procurator Fiscal for Homicide and Major Crime, said: “Adam Fernie’s dangerous driving had terrible consequences, taking Iain Anderson’s life and leaving his family without a husband, father and grandfather. Our thoughts are with his family during what must be a very difficult time for them.
“This case highlights the potential repercussions of dangerous driving and the great harm it can cause.”
After obtaining a PhD, lecturing, and hosting a history podcast at Queen’s University Belfast, Ryan joined road.cc in December 2021 and since then has kept the site’s readers and listeners informed and enthralled (well at least occasionally) on news, the live blog, and the road.cc Podcast. After boarding a wrong bus at the world championships and ruining a good pair of jeans at the cyclocross, he now serves as road.cc’s senior news writer. Before his foray into cycling journalism, he wallowed in the equally pitiless world of academia, where he wrote a book about Victorian politics and droned on about cycling and bikes to classes of bored students (while taking every chance he could get to talk about cycling in print or on the radio). He can be found riding his bike very slowly around the narrow, scenic country lanes of Co. Down.
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34 comments
It's time that 'the sun was in my eyes' stopped being regarded as a defence. Driving without being able to see is dangerous, plain and simple. If you can't see, then stop, don't just guess what might be in front of you.
This is why I don't support making helmets or hi-viz compulsory, because scum like this will try to use it as mitigation when they've murdered a cyclist. I hope he never sees the outside of a jail again.
I totally agree.
I don't want to open the old helmet debate again, but once more than 50% of riders are wearing helmets/HiViz the remainder can be sen as irresponsible.
So should a socially aware cyclist not wear a helmet as a point of priciple?
Doesn't seem to stop people - it's often mentioned in media and IIRC in legal cases even when obviously irrelevant (e.g. perfect visual conditions / cyclist suffered catastrophic injury). As a lawyer you can even qualify this with "but though the Highway Code says you should of course this is not against the law..." - it's enough to plant a "cyclist was reckless / careless - maybe partly or wholly their fault" idea in the minds of the listeners.
The HC does not even say "Should" for Hi vis, and uses a qualified "Should" for helmets.
As you say the defense lawyer can still plant the idea of contributary negligence into the mind of the Judge/Jury.
Something not quite right here.
"Light-coloured or fluorescent clothing CAN help other road users
to see you in daylight and poor light, while reflective clothing
and/or accessories (belt, arm or ankle bands) can increase your
visibility in the dark.
You should wear a cycle helmet that conforms to current
regulations, is the correct size and securely fastened. Evidence
SUGGESTS that a correctly fitted helmet will reduce your risk of
sustaining a head injury in CERTAIN circumstances."
So what's different about this case to all the other "sun was in my eyes" defences successfully used by so many loophole lawyers? The law needs urgent revision so that such defences are not valid and cannot be used. It shouldn't be up to an individual judge to point out that this is illegal, it should be a firmly stated point of law, and completely inarguable, with no possible defence.
I'm sure the government's comprehensive review of road laws announced all those years ago will address this point.
I hate to say it, but maybe the difference is the condition of the drivers vehicle?
Maybe this has forced the hand of the PF in to action. Too much wrong in one go to be able to wash their hands?
A cyclist was killed not to far from here, "sun in the eyes" was the mitigation. The driver got community service.
Given how poorly maintained this vehicle was, I can imagine the windscreen being filthy. Low sun only usually causes a problem if the glass is not clean.
Low sun was not an issue, this was a driver clutching at the only straw he saw may have had a chance of saving his ass! The only problem is you cant argue with science and it was proven in court that the sun would have been behind the driver at the time of the collision.
I was hit from behind by a driver at 40 mph as the sun was in his eyes; no action at all was taken against him. The police couldn't care less and when I got to A&E the nurse did not believe what I was telling them because I survived, kept refering to it as being clipped, which was really upsetting.
He was driving northwards. Seriously - the judge issued a statement afterwards to clarify this and other points. Complete and utter lying scum who I hope never departs prison.
https://www.judiciary.scot/home/sentences-judgments/sentences-and-opinio...
Good find, we need more judges like this, who see through the lies and act accordingly.
Also the driver who was driving a truck that:
" included a seized brake, a loose handbrake cable, a missing wheel nut, a worn track rod ball joint, a noisy wheel bearing, a missing fuel filler cap, and a fractured fuel tank strap."
complains about the completely legal clothing of the victim.
The bit about the sun in the drivers eye was also clearly a lie and shouldn't have mattered anyway even if true.
He did not have the best of a case did he?
Spot on, proven in court that the driver was lying as sun would have been behind him at the time of collision. The fact that the defence QC distanced himself from the "sun in my eyes" line of defence at sentencing speaks volumes - he possibly sensed professional suicide had he continued to argue against science!
The difference in this case is that it was proven to be impossible for the sun to be in the drivers eyes. At the time of day and and direction of travel, it was proven that the sun would have been almost directly behind Mr Fernie. Yet, Mr Fernie and his defence repeattedly tried to argue, in court, that he was blinded by the sun. Takes a special kind of moron to argue with the science. It speaks volumes that, at sentencing, Mr Fernie's QC distanced himself from the claim of "sun in my eyes" as a defence, probably sensing the impending professional suicide if he continued to argue the point for his indefensible client.32 months for taking a life is never enough, especially considering he is set for release in July 2023 having served just half his sentence - a failed "justice" system if ever I've seen one!
This was an appalling case. The driver was in a vehicle that was in an unfit state, to say nothing of the driver's unfit state to drive. Someone died and a family is traumatised because of the inability of one person to appreciate the risks they were taking at getting behind the wheel of a dangerous vehicle while clearly not having adequate driving ability in the first place.
RIP to the victim.
Driver got everything coming to them. Good riddance.
32 months in prison, out in 16 to continue with his life is not, in my eyes, "everything coming to them". He is known locally to have been involved in a previous serious road accident, yet escaped prosecution. He is also known locally to drive vehicles without proper insurance, tax and MOT, a 6 year driving ban and extended re-test will do little to deter this vile human being.
Judge Lord Weir said that the motorist was “completely and inexcusably unaware of Mr Anderson’s presence on the road”
A Judge who sees the facts, sees through the usual excuses and understands the responsibility of being in control of a motor vehicle, we need more like them.
"I didn't see him because the sun was in my eyes, and he wasn't wearing a helmet and hi-viz"
If the sun was in his eyes (ha!) I can't see why wearing a helmet and hi-viz would have made the slightest difference. Is fluorescent yellow somehow brighter than the sun?
It's highly salient in a few environments (court, the media sometimes) and can protect from insinuations after the fact. Except when it doesn't. Might be that it looms large in the mind's eye?
Driving is a privilege, not a right; maybe it should be withdrawn from this driver. How many other drivers of this age are also on the roads, when they shouldn't be?
Hit 70, and get proper regular testing every year, or two.
If you are serious about reducing levels of poor driving and removing offenders from the roads ask the insurance companies for advice. They, after all, are the ones who pay for the carnage.
And older folk are conspicuously the wrong target. They have fewer 'accidents' and theirs tend to be less serious and cost far less. Young drivers, especially young males, in contrast, have twice as many collisions and they are more serious, much more often resulting in death and serious injury.
The remedy for this conundrum? I don't know and I suspect the politicians don't know either. But knee-jerk blaming of a specific group based on relatively isolated incidents is not the way forward. It's an easy answer to a complicated problem.
I agree that driving is a privilage, I would also suggest every driver is re tested every two years regardless of age, and subject to a compulsory eyesight test every year.
Maybe not two years but I definitely advocate the same amount of time as a FLT or HGV needs renewing. I mentioned on the L crank plate thread that Black Belt Barrister used something similar as his April Fools video, and the amount of people who accepted the joke but said they actually dreaded the governement wanting regular re-tests was scary.
Time and time again we read about someone using "the sun was in my eyes, I never saw them" as their excuse (usually after killing or nearly killing someone). I was under the impression that if the sun is in your eyes, to the degree that you really can't see that the road is clear in front of you, then you bl00dy well slow down or even stop. You don't just plough on regardless, assuming the road is clear. That is right, isn't it? I didn't just imagine that guidance...?
And at very least, if you are stupid enough to carry on driving then hit something/someone, with such an imact it pushes your windscreen into the cab of the vehicle, you then stop immediately....not in the case of Mr Fernie who continued driving and only stopped when a motorist travelling in the opposite direction pulled their vehicle into the path of his, forcing him to stop....guess the sun wasn't "in his eyes" by that point.
He will be 89 years old when he has to take a retest - what's the point?
There is none, especially as I definitely don't want him to be in control of a car ever again.
The point in banning for life is that it sends out a message that this is totally unacceptable rather than the far weaker message that it is worth 6 years and 4 months. Admittedly it won't make any difference to this driver.
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