Taxi driver who killed cyclist and blamed fatal crash on being "blinded by sun" gets six-month suspended sentence

Best to have a lifetime ban with a very long prison sentence for getting caught driving while banned.

the little onion wrote:

should mean you can't drive for a long, long time. And never as a form of employment.

Doctors, teachers, etc - if they guilty of gross professional misconduct (often far short of causing actual death) it is usual for them to be prevented from continuing to work in the profession. Why is the driving profession sacrosanct? If this perp ever drives again it certainly should not be as a professional driver.

Sriracha wrote:

the little onion wrote:

should mean you can't drive for a long, long time. And never as a form of employment.

Doctors, teachers, etc - if they guilty of gross professional misconduct (often far short of causing actual death) it is usual for them to be prevented from continuing to work in the profession. Why is the driving profession sacrosanct? If this perp ever drives again it certainly should not be as a professional driver.

This times one million - in the regulated professions (technical terms, but things like teaching, nursing, medicine which have legally defined standards of competency with regards fitness to practice), you can be 'struck off' permanently, or for a very long time. Surely we could apply the same here?

It wouldn't stop them driving for other purposes once their 'normal' ban has expired, but it would limit what they could do, limiting their harm. E.g. a struck off teacher can in many circumstances work as a private tutor even if they lose their Qualified Teacher Status. Something similar could be put in place for taxi drivers, HGV drivers, etc.

You don't half make some assumptions about what other people have said sometimes. I didn't say that I wanted the driver to go to prison, however the judge could have sent a signal by imposing a longer suspended sentence, making the suspended sentence period longer, imposing a longer period of unpaid work and a much longer driving ban. That's not actually calling for "revenge of the hang-em-high kind", it's calling for killing people with motorcars to be treated as a serious offence rather than something, at this sentencing level, roughly equivalent to a shoplifting spree.

Not sure how all of that follows.

As has been said many, many times on here, if you want to kill someone then do it with a car. Traffic offences involving a KSI are treated much lighter than other offences because there is an acceptance of a level of collaterlal damage that doesn't occur in other walks of life.

I don't see a stiff sentence and proper ban as revenge, but as a deterent and an demonstration that driving needs to be taken seriously and involves a high level of concentration.

Hirsute wrote:

Not sure how all of that follows.

As has been said many, many times on here, if you want to kill someone then do it with a car. Traffic offences involving a KSI are treated much lighter than other offences because there is an acceptance of a level of collaterlal damage that doesn't occur in other walks of life.

I don't see a stiff sentence and proper ban as revenge, but as a deterent and an demonstration that driving needs to be taken seriously and involves a high level of concentration.

Do you think that all drivists who kill and maim set out to do so? Are they all intent on assassinating others at random? (Yes, I do know there are definitely some such).

DId you know that the vast majority of those who are intent on crime commit their crimes in the belief that they're going to get away with it? A punishment is no deterent at all to such folk.

Does potential punishment inhibit the careless from being careless? It seems doubtful because the nature of being habitually careless is that things-going-wrong are not usually being considered by such habitually careless folk.

But you're right to suggest that "driving needs to be taken seriously". However, as another poster mentions, many humans are not capable of doing that, even with something as inherently dangerous as a car. Many should never be allowed near something as dangerous as a car. It seems foolish of us as a society to know this yet let them have such a dangerous technology after the most rudimentary and never-repeated "test".

But the market rules. Can't be denying dafties their freedumbs and (more importantly, it seems) businessghouls their profits from dafty-supplying).

Cugel wrote:

Do you think that all drivists who kill and maim set out to do so? Are they all intent on assassinating others at random? (Yes, I do know there are definitely some such).

DId you know that the vast majority of those who are intent on crime commit their crimes in the belief that they're going to get away with it? A punishment is no deterent at all to such folk.

Does potential punishment inhibit the careless from being careless? It seems doubtful because the nature of being habitually careless is that things-going-wrong are not usually being considered by such habitually careless folk.

But you're right to suggest that "driving needs to be taken seriously". However, as another poster mentions, many humans are not capable of doing that, even with something as inherently dangerous as a car. Many should never be allowed near something as dangerous as a car. It seems foolish of us as a society to know this yet let them have such a dangerous technology after the most rudimentary and never-repeated "test".

But the market rules. Can't be denying dafties their freedumbs and (more importantly, it seems) businessghouls their profits from dafty-supplying).

What we need is not necessarily harsher penalties, but far more traffic policing so that drivers know that if they often use their phone or RLJ that they'll get caught. That will sharpen up the motorists attention and at the very least, if we have driving bans handed out like candy, will remove the worst drivers from the road.

However, we seem to have minimal road policing and laughable penalties.

He can very easily never get the privilege of driving back. That's not much to ask for. That said, he doesn't need rehabilitate. He needs a punishment. He didn't do this out of anger ffs.

Quote:

"...it is certain that no sentence the court can impose would be able to compensate for his life at all," the judge said

And yet the court also doesn't seem to even want to try 

I know this is the point, but it can be hard to hear "but enough about the victim, let's talk about you..."

I think the disconnect is between what we say we're expecting in the licence and in what people know as the reality of driving.  You could say the courts are working correctly by merely reflecting reality.  That actually driving consistently at a standard which would at least pass the driving test is rather the exception - and yet the death toll is rather low compared to the rest of the world.  (Drivers still "get away with" a lot - see design notes below).

And humans are individually variable too - better or worse; "always careful" drivers on a good day can make terrible choices and errors when tired, stressed, distracted, when they're late, when it's night or the sun is low in the sky...

That's why I keep banging on about "sustainable safety" etc.  I think if we're going to have mass motoring* we really ought to go a lot further in dealing with the reality of humans as fallible creatures.  Many not well-motivated to "do their best".  And some, frankly, not that smart - plus we all get old...

Fallible - but we understand many of the ways that people go wrong rather well and can design some of these out, and also design to reduce the consequences.

Car manufacturers know this (hence massive increases in vehicle safety features over time - although of course that has to feed back into "what can we sell...").  Designers know this (e.g. we have tons of clever engineering and human-centric design in things like motorways)...

* There seems zero chance of us not having mass motoring (albeit the Dutch and a few other places have managed to reduce the number of journeys driven by changing the pattern of driving).  And literally no appetite for seriously restricting or even banning driving apart from the odd road.cc'er.

chrisonabike wrote:

And humans are individually variable too - better or worse; "always careful" drivers on a good day can make terrible choices and errors when tired, stressed, distracted, when they're late, when it's night or the sun is low in the sky...

...  I think if we're going to have mass motoring* we really ought to go a lot further in dealing with the reality of humans as fallible creatures.  Many not well-motivated to "do their best".  And some, frankly, not that smart - plus we all get old...

..... Designers know this (e.g. we have tons of clever engineering and human-centric design in things like motorways)...

* There seems zero chance of us not having mass motoring....  And literally no appetite for seriously restricting or even banning driving apart from the odd road.cc'er.

Courts do differentiate between those killer-maimer drivists who could legitimately be described as having some sort of intent to be dangerous and those who are what you describe as "fallible" (i.e. the common or garden variety of incompetant-at-everything human). This differentiation used by courts is understandable.

Serious sentencing - even though it might be of the kind that the various pitchfork-weilding members of the RoadCC forum mob love the shrill for - is probably appropriate for the intentionally dangerous, especially those who show no indication of remorse or changing their ways. They really do need to be locked up for the safety of others, now and possibly always.

But, as you suggest, merely fallible humans who have been culture-canalised into using technologies they're not competant to use (cars being a widespread example) should perhaps be stopped from using that technology as the minimum punishment, with further penalties added (such as long term community service) partly to compensate victims and their families but also as one means to redemption - a means to continually feel their past crime but also to improve themsemselves out of such inclinations or potentials to commit another crime-of-carelessness.

A permanent ban from using inherently dangerous technologies (perhaps not just the car) because one is inherently incomeptant seems appropriate. It would even support a gradual move to better transport modes, since most of us are often incompetant drivists to various degrees and should probably be banned from driving*.

************

The real fix, as you also intimate, is to deal with the inherently dangerous technology and the modes in which its use is allowed. Alas, in Blightedland there's a long tradition of allowing the incompetant to wreak havoc. Some professions apply ethical standards and penalties for not meeting them (docs, teachers etc.) although they also close ranks to protect the incmpetant on just as many if not more ocassions. 

But mosty, Blightedland is staffed by incompetant yet hubristic cowboys, at every level from bricklayers up to politicians, policemen and judges. One could perhaps describe a sizeable portion of drivists (and possibly cyclists) as often operating in cowboy mode. 

* Yes, I too am probably one of the 99.9% of drivists who believe themselves to be better than the average. 

Cugel wrote:

Courts do differentiate between those killer-maimer drivists who could legitimately be described as having some sort of intent to be dangerous and those who are what you describe as "fallible" (i.e. the common or garden variety of incompetant-at-everything human). This differentiation used by courts is understandable.

Yes - the latter may even go to prison while the former tend not to.

In some circumstances e.g. they were way over the speed limit, high on drugs, were banned / had never passed a test, taking no responsibility for their actions AND had previous driving offenses - the courts feel they can clearly identify them as a wrong-un, so may sentence them to several years (recall - the mythical maximum - now lifted - was 14 years.  I don't think anyone ever managed to win all the points).

I think we need BOTH the negative feedback AND the "work with the current situation" harm-minimisation measures.

So yes, a bit more serious sentences (of course it's more about the chance of conviction but the laughable penalties don't help).  And a bit more policing; if possible a push on ensuring that those already banned actually have a chance of being detected.

Although the "anti- (crap and dangerous) drivers" measures probably need time-consuming work changing public opinion.  This is definitely not a priority for most people it seems and for some (remarkably) anything that threatens to challenge bad driving is bad!

BUT - given we currently operate a "lifetime membership club for drivers" with a very inclusive membership policy (except for some with disabilities... and of course children) how about ALSO having some more of those Dutch style 'elf and safety measures?  So separate the drivers from the vulnerable road users where they're fast / there's lots of them, and mitigate potential consequences more widely (ideally always also increasing convenience for vulnerable road users)?

All that works best as part of a balanced program of "driven journey reduction" in conjuction with massively improving public transport and taking space (and funding) from the least space-efficient - e.g. motor traffic - to facilitate more cycling and walking...

chrisonabike wrote:

BUT - given we currently operate a "lifetime membership club for drivers" with a very inclusive membership policy (except for some with disabilities... and of course children) how about ALSO having some more of those Dutch style 'elf and safety measures?  So separate the drivers from the vulnerable road users where they're fast / there's lots of them, and mitigate potential consequences more widely (ideally always also increasing convenience for vulnerable road users)?

All that works best as part of a balanced program of "driven journey reduction" in conjuction with massively improving public transport and taking space (and funding) from the least space-efficient - e.g. motor traffic - to facilitate more cycling and walking...

I'll give 'ee this: you're tenacious with the "seprate infrastructure" memeplex. 

But you seem still to have this blind spot concerning root causes, not to mention the vast array of harms that current motorised vehicle use causes that are 100 or 1000X the harms they cause to cyclists. Installing billions of quids worth of (probably poorly-designed) cycling infrastructure will do nothing to prevent the huge car-harms caused other than those to car-pranged cyclists.

If you want to "separate the drivers from the vulnerable road users" you'll have to provide a private road for every motorist, since most road harms are motorist-on-motorist, motorist-on-passengers and even motorists-on-peds/cyclists on their infrastructure (AKA pavements). Even in their private roadways, inept drivers will still maim and kill passnegers, themselves and anyone nearby when they manage to leave their private road inadvertently to mount the cycle path or pavement.

Cycling infrastructure - even if there were the billions to build it and the designers weren't useless at it - will not reduce carmageddon by noticeable amounts. As another poster mentions, a serious investment (of probably 1/1000th of the amount for ubiquitous cycling infrastructure) in road policing would have a noticeable effect.  As would new legislation to reduce the inherent danger of current car design (auto speed reductions, car-tech prevention of use of distractions such as phones, etc.).

***********

The car-tech to police drivers as they drive is interesting. Despite my lobbying for no-car, the ladywife has, er, persuaded me that we should keep having a car. ......

The thing is a full e-car with various built-in stuff that sound alarms and even wrests control of steering and brakes from the driver when the car detects that the driver is not paying attention. Tailgating is prevented, with auto slowing/braking to prevent a shunt into the car in front. A wander towards the white lines of a road results in a warning beeping then an auto steer to centralise the car in the lane. Failure to keep hold of the steering wheel sounds a warning. Etc..

****************************

These driving standard auto-police devices are far from pefect but do illustrate just how much a car could police driving. Imagine a car that prevents use of mobile phone or other eye and attention-grabbing driver-opportunities; an auto speed limiter triggered by roadside speed limit signs; a device making sure that the driver's eyes are always looking through the car windows, in the mirror periodically and so forth, with warnings and perhaps refusal-to-go responses if a driver isn't paying attention to driving.

Imagine a device that detects driver sun-blinding and stops the car until the driver uses the windscreen shade and his polarised sunglasses.

We humans are generally bad at complex tasks like driving. Rather than save us from the consequences of crashes with seat belts and air bags, perhaps the car safety devices should stop us from crashing in the first place?

Cugel wrote:

I'll give 'ee this: you're tenacious with the "seprate infrastructure" memeplex. 

Just consistent I hope.

Cugel wrote:

But you seem still to have this blind spot concerning root causes, not to mention the vast array of harms that current motorised vehicle use causes that are 100 or 1000X the harms they cause to cyclists. Installing billions of quids worth of (probably poorly-designed) cycling infrastructure will do nothing to prevent the huge car-harms caused other than those to car-pranged cyclists.

I'm not advocating for "installing billions of quids worth of (probably poorly-designed) cycling infrastructure" though?  I'm advocating for the interventions that other places in e.g. Europe have made.  (You're right that it's not cheap - probably on the order of billions of Euros - which would be a little less than our yearly (motor) transport budget...)

Very definitely including "cycling infra".  But noting that much of that "cycling infra" is actually rather small and cheap - and is as much "excludes or makes slightly less convenient for motor vehicles infra" like modal filters.  Or taking a lane away from motorists, or making a street one-way for drivers.

Rather than a blind spot regarding root causes I'd say I just wish to propose a change which is actually possible in the real world *.  We know this and even the general "how" - because it has happened, multiple times **.

I would ask for an explanation of how those who say "just make the cars go away" or "just arrest or somehow stop all the Bad Drivers" (presumably as opposed to the merely occasionally inattentive) are going to actually achieve that in practice?

Where does the political will and public support come from (mostly absent currently - apparently we can't even begin reducing the amount by which we subsidising the total cost of motoring)?  Also querying that since cycling is even now very safe and yet almost nobody cycles how simply postulating that roughly the current numbers of drivers are somehow swapped for "better" ones changes the numbers cycling/walking as opposed to driving?

*   I tried wishing on a star for all the excess cars to disappear, and typing all the bad drivers away, but it didn't work...

** I can simply point to all the places which have improved their streets (Netherlands in toto, parts of Scandinavia, Seville etc.) and say "voila!  They got from their (separate, different) starting points to something better - they are different countries with different laws and policing, what could be the common factors?"

You're "wishing on a star" yourself for adequate, well-designed, fundable and space-possible cycling infra in Blightedland. Such stuff is not only close to ineffective in encouraging cycling (for reasons you yourself have listed in various posts) but very, very unlikely to be implemented, as a story just now popping up about cancellation of such in North Tyneside illustrates. WHen it is implemented, it often turns out to be inadequate to outright dangerous to cyclists using it.

It would, in contrast, be a very easy move for a government to implement effective road policing to detect or prevent a great deal of already illegal road behaviours. Such policing could easily pay for itself with fines and savings to the NHS alone.

A clutch of right wing gutter newspap "war on motorists" articles and the cries of various drivist yobs would likely be drowned out by a roar of approval from the great majority of the population ..... as we've seen with LTNs, 20mph limits in Wales, smoking bans everywhere and any other such changes to the general good and better welfare for all.

As with every other ill, at every level of society, prevention is better than cure - especially when the cure is not just ineffective but, at bottom, equivalent to sticking an elastoplast on to a gaping wound.

Cugel wrote:

You're "wishing on a star" yourself for adequate, well-designed, fundable and space-possible cycling infra in Blightedland.

True!  But I'm (just) optimistic (reasons below).

Cugel wrote:

Such stuff is not only close to ineffective in encouraging cycling (for reasons you yourself have listed in various posts) but very, very unlikely to be implemented, as a story just now popping up about cancellation of such in North Tyneside illustrates. WHen it is implemented, it often turns out to be inadequate to outright dangerous to cyclists using it.

Not true - mostly!

The "doesn't encourage cycling" and "often turns out to be ..." just ain't the case in the various places I listed.  Otherwise you'll need to explain how despite all the terrible dangerous infra which doesn't encourage cycling they still have lots of people cycling (and have acquired them from nowhere in e.g. Seville...)

The UK?  Well, historically I can't fault you for being critical.  The last 5 - 10 years though stuff is appearing in the UK of "good enough" quality.  Still 2nd or 3rd rate, with odd features... bits of Edinburgh's CCWEL, some of the London stuff etc.  I can only agree that key pieces like "actually forms a network of routes" and "tackles junctions" are still causing planners to furrow their brows and "careful and considerate" motorists to wave their tyre irons...

Certainly it's hard to see much push though (taking space / money from motoring to allocate to other modes).

Cugel wrote:

It would, in contrast, be a very easy move for a government to implement effective road policing to detect or prevent a great deal of already illegal road behaviours. Such policing could easily pay for itself with fines and savings to the NHS alone.

You keep saying that - but in fact nobody has any idea whether it would be easy (never mind affordable) or not!  Or how that would actually be done politically (or in the machinery of government).  Because AFAIK it's never happened anywhere, never mind in multiple countries.  And nobody has any idea whether it would in fact make the roads much safer or people drive less or cycle more or any of the other goals - because it's never happened.

Otherwise, I agree (prevention / it would be good if we could get enforcement and fines to pay for fixing the system etc.)

Cugel wrote:

If you want to "separate the drivers from the vulnerable road users" you'll have to provide a private road for every motorist, since most road harms are motorist-on-motorist, motorist-on-passengers and even motorists-on-peds/cyclists on their infrastructure (AKA pavements).

Motorists are not "vulnerable road users".  Luckily things like the "Sustainable Safety" program aim to improve safety for all road users, including drivers and their passengers.

Are you (like our sometime American visitor) confusing "stop 100% of all road injuries, ever" with "improve"?  Perfect the enemy of good?

The Dutch have nowhere near "complete separation" of different types of road users but - by concentrating on stuff like "full separation where there's maximum need / benefit" (even of motorists travelling in opposite directions) and by effectively making separate networks (which may share general space, or even cross at points) both safety AND convenience are enhanced.

Yet again - the benefits of this path are that it generates its own support (the convenience bit) - as opposed to "just make people walk" or "just force people to drive less / put police on every corner".  (We do still need a fair few police though...)

Rendel Harris wrote:

Quote:

"...it is certain that no sentence the court can impose would be able to compensate for his life at all," the judge said

Again this? Any judge who makes this type of fatuous statement when sentencing should be summarily dismissed as not having any understanding of the purpose or mechanism of the law. Sentencing is supposed to impose condign punishment for the severity of the offence and to provide a deterrent for others. Of course there is no level of sentence available that could compensate for the taking of another person's life, in what way is that an excuse for the imposing of risibly lenient sentences for doing so?

I always take these judicial comments as a recognition that the often the family of the victim will also be in the room hearing the sentence. Trite as it is, it's a human response to them. Rather than signalling a misunderstanding of the role, I think recognising that no sentence could compensate for their loss underlines that that is not and can not be the purpose of sentencing.     

There may well be an element of that but I'm afraid such words too often precede pathetically weak sentences for me to believe that there isn't also at least an element of "so there's no real point in a stiff sentence" involved as well.

The judges abide by detailed sentencing guidelines. It's not so much "there's no point using the maximum sentence" as "the guidelines don't indicate that I should use the maximum". I'm not saying that I think this sentence is adequate. I'm just saying it's not necessarily the individual judge (though of course they have to apply the rules), but the sentencing framework that they work within. Here's the guideline for death by careless: https://www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/offences/magistrates-court/item/causing-death-by-careless-or-inconsiderate-driving/   Looks like they assessed him as culpability C, mitigated by no previous convictions, aggravated by vulnerable victim, reduced for guilty plea etc.  

I'd argue that culpability B would be more appropriate, specifically "Unsafe manoeuvre or positioning". "Driving for commercial purposes" is also an aggravating factor alongside, as you note, the fact that the victim was a cyclist. We can't know if the judge has decided it's culpability B or C as the sentence is the lowest allowable for B and midrange for C. It would help if the judge had to provide a detailed public explanation of the reasoning for sentencing rather than just some (in my opinion) weasel words about "no sentence can bring the victim back so..."

quiff wrote:

I always take these judicial comments as a recognition that the often the family of the victim will also be in the room hearing the sentence. Trite as it is, it's a human response to them. Rather than signalling a misunderstanding of the role, I think recognising that no sentence could compensate for their loss underlines that that is not and can not be the purpose of sentencing.     

This is why I think that causing someone's death by careless/dangerous driving should result in a lifetime ban. It at least provides the grieving family/friends with a modicum of relief that the driver won't be allowed a second chance to put another family through the same ordeal.

The purpose of sentencing may not be to compensate the family but it should give them a sense that justice has been done. Surely they have a right to expect that. Had the cyclist been killed by a gun then the charge would be manslaughter and if this sentence had been the result I would expect the family to be incensed by it. As others have said, prison may not be the answer (he stopped at the scene and seemed to show genuine remorse although pleading guilty to dangerous driving would have confirmed that) but a lengthy driving ban would not have gone amiss (just as if it ahd been a gun I would expect the firearms licence, or whatever is needed to own a gun, to be revoked).

For what it's worth, I'm not trying to defend the sentence, and I do agree with all the calls for longer bans. 12 months' disqualification is the minimum for this offence, and it gets increased if they've had previous bans - how many chances does someone need?