Police kill cyclist

"Andy Howes" wrote in message ...
It's a wonder nobody has suggested that the cyclist had no lights ?? Just
to throw something else into the works !! It is impossible to come to a
conclusion unless you were a witness or you visited the scene and noted
things just as the police accident investigator would have done. This would
include damage to the vehicle and the cycle, the positions of the vehicles
on the road and any skid marks left, not to mention where debris might have
ended up. It's all very high tec this accident investigation and speeds can
be calculated from marks left in the carriageway.

Yeah, and when did the police last do any "high tec" investigation
into the death of a cyclist? Since "didn't see him" is treated as a
valid excuse rather than admission of guilt, the fine details hardly
matter.

I suggest everyone 'watch
this space' instead of accumulating a load of wild guesses.

My "wild guess" is bland exoneration and shrugged shoulders all round.
But I'd love to be proved wrong.

James

On Mon, 12 Jul 2004 20:35:08 GMT, Simon Brooke wrote:
in message 7tlucc.887.ln@ahahahooey, Trevor Barton
') wrote:

However, common usage of the word accident doesn't imply guilt on any
party, and although you might justifiably argue that most road
accidents are not accidents, your posting seemed to assume that the
car drivers
were responsible in your opinion. This is both unfair and unjustified
given the information you have.

In most car/bike impacts the car driver is indeed primarily at fault.
Whether it is reasonable to induce the fact that the police driver was
at fault in this in this incident is another matter.

I know that's often assumed here, and indeed I think it's probably
true too, but is it backed up by anything more substantial?

Certainly, the bike rider comes off worst always, or at least it'd be
hard to imagine an accident where that wasn't the case. Does that lead
to a perception that the car driver is usually primarilly at fault,
rather than a fact?

For example, anecdotally in this group we tend to hear a lot of stories
about some ******* driver nearly killing one of us, and far less about
one of us nearly causing an accident. That might be (a) because drivers
cause more cycle/vehicle accidents than cyclists, (b) because few people
like to own up to their own stupidity, or (c) there are more cars than
bikes, so statistically there is more likely to be fault on the car
driver's side over the entire population of accidents.

I dunno if (c) makes (statistical) sense?

--
Trevor Barton

On 13 Jul 2004 23:11:01 -0700, James Annan wrote:

"Andy Howes" wrote in message ...
It's a wonder nobody has suggested that the cyclist had no lights ?? Just
to throw something else into the works !! It is impossible to come to a
conclusion unless you were a witness or you visited the scene and noted
things just as the police accident investigator would have done. This would
include damage to the vehicle and the cycle, the positions of the vehicles
on the road and any skid marks left, not to mention where debris might have
ended up. It's all very high tec this accident investigation and speeds can
be calculated from marks left in the carriageway.

Yeah, and when did the police last do any "high tec" investigation
into the death of a cyclist? Since "didn't see him" is treated as a
valid excuse rather than admission of guilt, the fine details hardly
matter.

Your confusing the police with the courts. The police always do a "high
tec" investigation into any road death, the courts just ignore the evidence
and decide that not being about to drive the kids to school is too much of
a hardship.

Steve