Death by dangerous cycling set to become offence

[Nearly Sane]

Absolutely there is - there are the likes of IDS and others pushing for draconian laws to be brought in for cyclists, despite there already being an existing law in place that has been used on more than one occasion in the last couple of years to jail actual dangerous cyclists. And of course deaths involving cyclists are incredibly rare ... or rather they are incredibly rare when the party killed is not the cyclist.

Just look at the earlier media coverage of this case - which was thrown out.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/cyclist-sent-elderly-woman-catapulting-33197026
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13613217/Cyclist-killed-elderly-woman-crashing-River-Thames-towpath-court-hears.html

Look at the headlines - hardly unbiased reporting when you actually read the evidence of what was a tragic accident.

Not sure IDS and some unbiased reporting amount to an 'environment', and I'm not sure that linking it to the case you've raised is justified since I don't see we have enough evidence to do so.

ETA - for clarity, I don't think you can link the reporting of the case, and I'm not sure it qualifies as biased, with the fact that the case itself was brought as evidence of an environment. You seem to be implying that the case was brought out of bias.

[ProfessorDavey]

Not sure IDS and some unbiased reporting amount to an 'environment', and I'm not sure that linking it to the case you've raised is justified since I don't see we have enough evidence to do so.

There is a major campaign to bring in new laws specifically for cyclists when there is a dead or serious injury - yet in collisions between cyclists and pedestrians it is probably just as likely that the cyclist rather than the pedestrian will be the more injured (or worse) party. That, of course isn't the case for a collision between a car (or other motorised vehicle) and a cyclist or pedestrian where it will be almost inevitable that the cyclist or pedestrian will be injured more.

And in the tiny number of cases there have been quite a few where it was clearly the pedestrian at fault. If we are to bring in new laws to deal with dangerous cycling that cause death or serious injury to a pedestrian, should we not balance that we new laws to deal with dangerous behaviour from pedestrians that causes death or serious injury to a cyclist.

Well actually we need neither as there are existing laws to deal with these incidences.

Oh and just to clear on the statistics - in the 5 years from 2018 to 2022 there were just 9 deaths of pedestrians or cyclists involving collisions between one and the other (the stats don't tell us who was to blame). For comparison in the same period there over 2000 pedestrian fatalities involving other vehicles.

[Nearly Sane]

There is a major campaign to bring in new laws specifically for cyclists when there is a dead or serious injury - yet in collisions between cyclists and pedestrians it is probably just as likely that the cyclist rather than the pedestrian will be the more injured (or worse) party. That, of course isn't the case for a collision between a car (or other motorised vehicle) and a cyclist or pedestrian where it will be almost inevitable that the cyclist or pedestrian will be injured more.

And in the tiny number of cases there have been quite a few where it was clearly the pedestrian at fault. If we are to bring in new laws to deal with dangerous cycling that cause death or serious injury to a pedestrian, should we not balance that we new laws to deal with dangerous behaviour from pedestrians that causes death or serious injury to a cyclist.

Well actually we need neither as there are existing laws to deal with these incidences.

Oh and just to clear on the statistics - in the 5 years from 2018 to 2022 there were just 9 deaths of pedestrians or cyclists involving collisions between one and the other (the stats don't tell us who was to blame). For comparison in the same period there over 2000 pedestrian fatalities involving other vehicles.

I think 'major' is your personal view. The vast majority of people won't have heard of it. It is also your personal view that it's not necessary.

And again, I don't think any of that amounts to an environment. Nor that there is any link to the case itself being brought which is your implication.

[ProfessorDavey]

I think 'major' is your personal view. The vast majority of people won't have heard of it. It is also your personal view that it's not necessary.

And again, I don't think any of that amounts to an environment. Nor that there is any link to the case itself being brought which is your implication.

Given that there are a tiny number of pedestrian fatalities involving cyclists it is remarkable how many of them get massive press coverage. Strange that most of the thousands of pedestrian deaths involving cars, lorries, buses etc hardly blip on the radar of even the local press, let alone national level coverage of the type seen in this case.

[Nearly Sane]

Given that there are a tiny number of pedestrian fatalities involving cyclists it is remarkable how many of them get massive press coverage. Strange that most of the thousands of pedestrian deaths involving cars, lorries, buses etc hardly blip on the radar of even the local press, let alone national level coverage of the type seen in this case.

Man bites dog effect.

[ProfessorDavey]

Man bites dog effect.

And you don't think that if there was huge campaigning (including from major newspapers) to change the law to deal with all these 'reckless' dog-biters that it wouldn't be reasonable to describe the environment around dog biting as ... err ... febrile.

[Nearly Sane]

And you don't think that if there was huge campaigning (including from major newspapers) to change the law to deal with all these 'reckless' dog-biters that it wouldn't be reasonable to describe the environment around dog biting as ... err ... febrile.

There isn't 'huge campaigning' so it isn't reasonable.

[ProfessorDavey]

There isn't 'huge campaigning' so it isn't reasonable.

There is - led mainly by Matthew Briggs, whose wife was killed. While it is completely understandable that someone so affected by an extremely rare incidence to want 'something to be done' (despite the fact that the cyclist in question was convicted and jailed) the role of legislators etc is to act in the broader public interest. Hard cases make bad laws so to speak.

But the campaign has been successful enough to get senior politicians on board and for both major parties to propose changes in legislation in their manifestos. That's one hell of a huge and successful campaign to 'deal' with perhaps a one in every two years incidences that can (and have been) dealt with under existing laws.

[ProfessorDavey]

Imagine the following scenarios - by the way scenario 1 is very common, scenario 2 exceptionally rare.

1. Car driving at 25mph in a 30mph zone - pedestrian steps out in front of car and is killed.

2. Cyclist cycling at at 25mph in a 30mph zone - pedestrian steps out in front of cyclist and is killed. How tragic for both the pedestrian and awful for the driver having that happen to them.

What would be the media response. In case 1 it would be all about a tragic accident, how the driver was carefully driving at way less than the speed limit and couldn't do anything. In case 2 it would be all about reckless speeding cyclist placing poor pedestrian in terrible danger. Tragic for the pedestrian and 'something must be done' about these cyclists.

But also some basic physics - the force imparted to a pedestrian from a collision with a car at 25mph (assuming the car weighs about 1500kg) will be about 15 times that of the force imparted to a pedestrian from a collision with a bike at 25mph (assuming the bike and rider weighs about 100kg). So to put this in context - a bike travelling at 25mph (that's pretty fast for most cyclists) will impart the equivalent impact force in a collision as a car travelling at less than 2mph!!

[Nearly Sane]

There is - led mainly by Matthew Briggs, whose wife was killed. While it is completely understandable that someone so affected by an extremely rare incidence to want 'something to be done' (despite the fact that the cyclist in question was convicted and jailed) the role of legislators etc is to act in the broader public interest. Hard cases make bad laws so to speak.

But the campaign has been successful enough to get senior politicians on board and for both major parties to propose changes in legislation in their manifestos. That's one hell of a huge and successful campaign to 'deal' with perhaps a one in every two years incidences that can (and have been) dealt with under existing laws.

It's not a huge campaigning. Just because a campaign has some success does not make it huge, nor the environment febrile. Again I doubt there are more than a few people aware of it.

I think you might have been better adding the case to the thread linked to below rather than this one?


https://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=21666.msg885914#msg885914

Given my involvement in both, I've asked the rest of the mod team to consider approaches.

[Nearly Sane]

Imagine the following scenarios - by the way scenario 1 is very common, scenario 2 exceptionally rare.

1. Car driving at 25mph in a 30mph zone - pedestrian steps out in front of car and is killed.

2. Cyclist cycling at at 25mph in a 30mph zone - pedestrian steps out in front of cyclist and is killed. How tragic for both the pedestrian and awful for the driver having that happen to them.

What would be the media response. In case 1 it would be all about a tragic accident, how the driver was carefully driving at way less than the speed limit and couldn't do anything. In case 2 it would be all about reckless speeding cyclist placing poor pedestrian in terrible danger. Tragic for the pedestrian and 'something must be done' about these cyclists.

But also some basic physics - the force imparted to a pedestrian from a collision with a car at 25mph (assuming the car weighs about 1500kg) will be about 15 times that of the force imparted to a pedestrian from a collision with a bike at 25mph (assuming the bike and rider weighs about 100kg). So to put this in context - a bike travelling at 25mph (that's pretty fast for most cyclists) will impart the equivalent impact force in a collision as a car travelling at less than 2mph!!

And again man bites dog.

[ProfessorDavey]

It's not a huge campaigning. Just because a campaign has some success does not make it huge, nor the environment febrile. Again I doubt there are more than a few people aware of it.

I suspect there are loads of people aware of the campaign given the huge amount of publicity that the original case and any subsequent one gets. This is exactly the kind of campaign the right wing press (e.g. Mail, Express, Telegraph) loves to get behind - and that is exactly what they did.

I think you might have been better adding the case to the thread linked to below rather than this one?


https://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=21666.msg885914#msg885914

Given my involvement in both, I've asked the rest of the mod team to consider approaches.

Yes -would be better added to that thread. I'd forgotten we had two threads on related topics, thought there was only one.

[Gordon]

Moderator:

Posts that were originally in a 'single issue' thread have been merged into this thread.

[Nearly Sane]

Just to flag that in terms of a 'febrile environment' of cyclists having to be in the wrong, there's an earlier thread on this from 6 years ago. Damn slow fever.


https://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=15944.msg743448#msg743448

[ProfessorDavey]

Just to flag that in terms of a 'febrile environment' of cyclists having to be in the wrong, there's an earlier thread on this from 6 years ago. Damn slow fever.


https://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=15944.msg743448#msg743448

Just because the media attitude toward cyclists has been negative for many years doesn't imply that it isn't febrile. And given that deaths are very rare you'd only expect that febrile environment to tip into full-on anti-cyclist fury every once in a while. Which is what happened in the Oxford case ... although ... as it turned out the evidence showed that the cyclist had done absolutely nothing wrong.

[Nearly Sane]

Just because the media attitude toward cyclists has been negative for many years doesn't imply that it isn't febrile. And given that deaths are very rare you'd only expect that febrile environment to tip into full-on anti-cyclist fury every once in a while. Which is what happened in the Oxford case ... although ... as it turned out the evidence showed that the cyclist had done absolutely nothing wrong.

If it's taken 6 years for the law not to be passed, it's not a febrile environment.

[jeremyp]

So the presiding judge isn't compelling but random bloke on the Internet is absolutely right. K'

I think you have lost sight of the original point. You claimed:

Have to admit that I struggle to understand why it's not covered by current laws
 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-69016715

PD pointed out that, in at least one case, a cyclist riding dangerously and killing a pedestrian did get convicted. This implies that the offence is covered by existing laws. Otherwise how was a successful conviction obtained?

The fact that it was difficult to obtain the conviction and a judge said so is irrelevant to PD's rebuttal of your point.

[Nearly Sane]

I think you have lost sight of the original point. You claimed:

PD pointed out that, in at least one case, a cyclist riding dangerously and killing a pedestrian did get convicted. This implies that the offence is covered by existing laws. Otherwise how was a successful conviction obtained?

The fact that it was difficult to obtain the conviction and a judge said so is irrelevant to PD's rebuttal of your point.

Discussions move on. This point was about PD saying he was right and the presiding judge was wrong about the law. So where's the problem with my post as regards that?

[jeremyp]

Discussions move on. This point was about PD saying he was right and the presiding judge was wrong about the law.

No it wasn't. You tried to make it that, but it wasn't the point.

[Nearly Sane]

No it wasn't. You tried to make it that, but it wasn't the point.

So you don't think discussions can move on. OK 

[ProfessorDavey]

Discussions move on. This point was about PD saying he was right and the presiding judge was wrong about the law. So where's the problem with my post as regards that?

Stop lying NS.

I pointed out that the quote you claimed was from the presiding judge was not from him at all. It was from IDS - hardly an unbiased source, given that he is the leading parliamentary mouthpiece for a change in the law. I (and I suspect you) have no idea what the judge said, because we have no direct opinion from him.

However what we do know is that in this case the cyclist in question was successfully charged with an offence, successfully prosecuted of that offence and jailed.

And if you read the reports manslaughter was also an option (although the evidence in this case didn't meet the threshold) and the maximum sentence for manslaughter is life.

And I am aware of at least one other case in the last couple of years where the current law has been used successfully to prosecute and jail a cyclist who caused the death of a pedestrian. And given that there are only a handful of deaths involving collision between a cyclist and a pedestrian (and some will involve the death of the cyclist and some will be the fault of the pedestrian) then that seems to be a very high incident to successful prosecution rate.

[Nearly Sane]

Stop lying NS.

I pointed out that the quote you claimed was from the presiding judge was not from him at all. It was from IDS - hardly an unbiased source, given that he is the leading parliamentary mouthpiece for a change in the law. I (and I suspect you) have no idea what the judge said, because we have no direct opinion from him.

However what we do know is that in this case the cyclist in question was successfully charged with an offence, successfully prosecuted of that offence and jailed.

And if you read the reports manslaughter was also an option (although the evidence in this case didn't meet the threshold) and the maximum sentence for manslaughter is life.

And I am aware of at least one other case in the last couple of years where the current law has been used successfully to prosecute and jail a cyclist who caused the death of a pedestrian. And given that there are only a handful of deaths involving collision between a cyclist and a pedestrian (and some will involve the death of the cyclist and some will be the fault of the pedestrian) then that seems to be a very high incident to successful prosecution rate.

And I answered your post. I don't have a reason to suspect that IDS is lying about this. If he was then I suspect the judge might speak up about his opinion being lied about. And you remain random Internet bloke.

[ProfessorDavey]

I don't have a reason to suspect that IDS is lying about this.

Why - he's hardly someone who holds dear to the truth is he. And he is clearly biased as he is a vociferous anti-cyclist campaigner.

So over to you - not interested in what IDS says that the judge said. If the judge actually said something of that nature then presumably there will be a record of his actual words. Come back when you've found them.

But non-the-less - even if the judge actually said something of this nature the evidence speaks a different story. From what I can see the likelihood of a cyclist being prosecuted, convicted and jailed for an incident which resulted in the death of another road user is greater than that for a driver of a motorised vehicle.

[jeremyp]

So you don't think discussions can move on. OK

I think moving goalposts is disingenuous.

If you want to discuss the difficulty of convicting dangerous cyclists of cycling dangerously, fine. But you were bringing it up in a desperate attempt to refute PD's obviously true point.

Let me be a bit more constructive: you could have accepted PD's point and then explicitly moved things on by saying something like "OK the law does exist but it's really hard to apply as evidenced by ....".

To move things on, an offence of death by dangerous cycling is probably too narrowly focused. Deaths of pedestrians from cyclists are not that common but there are several hundred injuries every year. If you are a cyclist cycling dangerously and knock somebody over and break their arm, don't you deserve some sort of punishment?

Edit: it was difficult to find stats but this article summarises them quite well

https://www.cyclinguk.org/briefing/cycling-and-pedestrians

[Nearly Sane]

Why - he's hardly someone who holds dear to the truth is he. And he is clearly biased as he is a vociferous anti-cyclist campaigner.

So over to you - not interested in what IDS says that the judge said. If the judge actually said something of that nature then presumably there will be a record of his actual words. Come back when you've found them.

But non-the-less - even if the judge actually said something of this nature the evidence speaks a different story. From what I can see the likelihood of a cyclist being prosecuted, convicted and sentenced for an incident which resulted in the death of another road user is greater than that for a driver of a motorised vehicle.

I suspect he's telling the truth because as covered the judge could just say he's not, and is unlikely to allow his name to be used in that way. As already pointed out.