Cyclist hit on beach road this morning 29/3/2006

Zebee Johnstone Wrote:
In aus.bicycle on Mon, 3 Apr 2006 08:42:17 +1000
Peter Signorini wrote:

This would make it an accident, resulting from negligent actions. Any
incident that was caused by deliberate actions is not negligence. It
would
result in criminal prosecution for either assault, criminal damage to
proerty or murder. It surprises me how some people don't grasp the
concept
here. Accidents are unintended incidents, negligent or otherwise
(check the
dictionary, derived from the latin for 'happenings'); deliberate
actions
step into the realm of crimes.

Most actions are deliberate.

I think it might be better expressed as "actions intended to produce
the result".

Which is why carelessly meandering into a lane is an accident,
deliberately sideswiping isn't.

But only a court can really determine which it was if the driver
doesn't claim intent.

"mens rea", the difference between manslaughter and murder as I
understand
it. As wikipedia puts it ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mens_rea )
"the act will not make a person guilty unless the mind is also guilty"

Which is why manslaughter exists as a crime. Can't just go around
killing people, but there's a really big difference between being a
careless twonk and deliberately setting out to kill.

The fun bit is working out where to draw the line. Is someone who gets
inside a ton or two of lethal weapon - such as a large
bull-bar-equipped
4WD - and allows themselves to be distracted such that they give
steering inputs to that weapon and it collects a pedestrian standing
on the footpath, what are they guilty of? They must have known the
consquences of failing to steer correctly in an area where they can
expect
a ped on the path, but they certainly didn't intend to steer
incorrectly.

If they had been on a bicycle instead of in the tank, then the outcome
of the bad steering would have been different, must they be held to a
higher standard if the consequences of a bad action are worse? Do we
care more about culpable negligence in a nuclear plant compared to a
place that makes cardboard boxes?

Keeps lawyers and philosphers in business that does!

Of course the real intractable problem is the car culture. We, as a
society, accept situations concerning cars that we won't accept with
other things, and there's no way that will change without massive
societal upheaval, as massive as the introduction of the things in the
first place.


Zebee

think of it in 4 levels:

1. the pure accident (eg a normally heathly person has heart attack at
wheel of car and hits cyclist);
2. the negligent accident (eg a driver is driving into the sun, does
not see cyclist and hits cyclist);
3. the criminally negligent accident (eg a driver is ****ed and hits
cyclist);
4. the deliberate event (eg a driver deliberately hits a cyclist);

(You might divide events into more or less catagories - 4 works for me
on a Monday morning.)

Only in the last category is the injury to the cyclist deliberate (ie
the driver had the mens rea, to use some legal latin). But in the 2
middle categories, the driver is clearly responsible, even if there is
no mens rea.

The law deals with these events on a sliding scale - from a finding of
accidental death in the Coroners Court for a pure accident up to a
murder conviction in the Supreme Court for the deliberate running down
of a cyclist.

Where does a speeding driver fall in the above categorisation? -
probably in category 2 or 3 depending on the speed and any other
relevant factors.

Where does a drunk driver fall in the above categorisation? Probably
in category 3. If the drunk driver kills someone, is he a murderer?
Legally, no. Unless he intended to.

SteveA


--
SteveA

Which, unfortunately illustrates the main point. Safety for pedestrians
and cyclists cannot be ensured by legislation, or education, or silly
tv advertising campaigns.

It can only be ensured by taking control of cars away from drivers when
they are going to cause an accident.

Consider: the car deviates from the roadway at high speed. Since it has
onboard position tracking which is linked to the roadway map, and
roadway edge detection, the car computer knows that it is in trouble.
So the brakes are automatically applied and the car stops.

The only way to make the roads safe is to take control away from the
drivers.

I'm starting a research project to create this technology. I'll be
chasing funding and ways to raise funds. Any ideas gratefully received.

On 2006-04-03, AndrewJ (aka Bruce)
was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:
Which, unfortunately illustrates the main point. Safety for pedestrians
and cyclists cannot be ensured by legislation, or education, or silly
tv advertising campaigns.

It can only be ensured by taking control of cars away from drivers when
they are going to cause an accident.

Consider: the car deviates from the roadway at high speed. Since it has
onboard position tracking which is linked to the roadway map, and
roadway edge detection, the car computer knows that it is in trouble.
So the brakes are automatically applied and the car stops.

Good thing there is never equipment failure then, eh?

Or, alternatively, what happens when a truck in front brakes and
swerves, the car you are driving is in the line of fire, and you
decide to head for the barrier and accelarate to get out of trouble?
Oh, the brakes applied automatically. Damn, looks like the truck will
get me afterall.

Contrived situation true, but humans (some of us anyway) were blessed
with more intelligence than that possessed by control systems of the
current time.

The only way to make the roads safe is to take control away from the
drivers.

In other words, I think yanking control away from a driver in critical
sitations is a stupid idea, worthy of mention in the RISKS digest.

--
TimC
Probably best see a real doctor and not take too much diagnostic advice
from a bunch of sysadmins who consider the body a meat computer that
needs debugging. -- Anthony de Boer on possible nerve damage in ASR

On 2006-04-03, TimC (aka Bruce)
was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:
On 2006-04-03, AndrewJ (aka Bruce)
was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:
It can only be ensured by taking control of cars away from drivers when
they are going to cause an accident.

Consider: the car deviates from the roadway at high speed. Since it has
onboard position tracking which is linked to the roadway map, and
roadway edge detection, the car computer knows that it is in trouble.
So the brakes are automatically applied and the car stops.

Good thing there is never equipment failure then, eh?
....
In other words, I think yanking control away from a driver in critical
sitations is a stupid idea, worthy of mention in the RISKS digest.

Tee hee hee. See april 1 version of risks here (in particular, look
at item number 1):

http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/24.22.html

--
TimC
I hereby declare that from now on, the singular of "people" is "peopum".
-- Kibo

giantvaude wrote:

On the main paths around my area (Eastern Freeway,
Gardners Ck and Dandenong Ck around Box Hill and Vermont areas).
Especially in the tighter sections, plenty of cyclists ride too fast
considering that kids, dogs and granny's are to be expected on the
track also.

I'm sure the gov't response to that problem would be a Multinova.

Theo

AndrewJ wrote:
Which, unfortunately illustrates the main point. Safety for
pedestrians and cyclists cannot be ensured by legislation, or
education, or silly tv advertising campaigns.

It can only be ensured by taking control of cars away from drivers
when they are going to cause an accident.

Consider: the car deviates from the roadway at high speed. Since it
has onboard position tracking which is linked to the roadway map, and
roadway edge detection, the car computer knows that it is in trouble.
So the brakes are automatically applied and the car stops.

I suppose the onboard computer is aware there is an out of control B-double
heading towards the car on the wrong side of the road, and the driver is
taking drastic avoidance action?

Theo

AndrewJ wrote:

Which, unfortunately illustrates the main point. Safety for pedestrians
and cyclists cannot be ensured by legislation, or education, or silly
tv advertising campaigns.

It can only be ensured by taking control of cars away from drivers when
they are going to cause an accident.

Consider: the car deviates from the roadway at high speed. Since it has
onboard position tracking which is linked to the roadway map, and
roadway edge detection, the car computer knows that it is in trouble.
So the brakes are automatically applied and the car stops.

The only way to make the roads safe is to take control away from the
drivers.

I'm starting a research project to create this technology. I'll be
chasing funding and ways to raise funds. Any ideas gratefully received.

I believe there is already research in the face-recognition area where
they are looking at what happens to people's facial expression when they
lose concentration on driving. The idea is that an alarm will sound to
alert the driver and if no action is taken/response is seen, the car
will stop or something.

This is more likely to be used in fleet vehicles rather than personal
use vehicles (unless legislation is passed to make it compulsory)
because if only x% of the population will have a car accident because
they lost focus, an individual is likely to say "it won't be me" and not
pay the extra expense, whereas a corporation is likely to realise that
it means x vehicles per 100 of their fleet will be involved in an
accident over a period of time, and they will likely benefit.

Er, so not sure how your funding would go, unless you had a much more
solid idea.

Tam

No technical system can be perfect, but it can do a better job than a
high proportion of drivers.

Can such a system be aware of the truck ? Yes.

Theo Bekkers wrote:
giantvaude wrote:

On the main paths around my area (Eastern Freeway,
Gardners Ck and Dandenong Ck around Box Hill and Vermont areas).
Especially in the tighter sections, plenty of cyclists ride too fast
considering that kids, dogs and granny's are to be expected on the
track also.

I'm sure the gov't response to that problem would be a Multinova.

For the viewers at home, Theo means a speed camera. In WA they call
them by the brand name of the camera.

"Theo Bekkers" wrote:

I suppose the onboard computer is aware there is an out of control
B-double heading towards the car on the wrong side of the road, and the
driver is taking drastic avoidance action?

There is a lot of high-tech transport research going on into just this
field. Who knows if it will prove to be of any benefit before petrol gets to
be more money than us mear mortals can afford to spend on travel.

http://www.netspeed.com.au/cr/bicycle/its.htm

Still not sure just what is meant by mirror symmetry. And can all these
processes happen quicker than I can see and act?

--
Cheers
Peter

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