"Cyclist arrest after Camden tourist death"

Doug wrote:

Of course. As I keep on pointing out I cannot kill motorists but they
can kill me, an essential difference.

You could bore them to death easily you ****.


--
Dave - the small piece of 14th century armour used to protect the armpit.

Doug wrote:


Let me get this straight. If a driver kills two cyclists at the same
time and one of the cyclists is competent and the other is not, the
driver should only be guilty of killing the competent cyclist if at
all?

Do you get bonus points for two at the same time?



--
Dave - the small piece of 14th century armour used to protect the armpit.

On 20 Mar, 07:34, Doug wrote:
Just to show how unbiased I am I report this very rare event. Of
course, a charge of involuntary manslaughter carries a maximum life
sentence but causing death by dangerous driving has a maximum of only
14 years. Odd that! Obviously you are much better off killing someone
with a car than with a bicycle.


The maximum sentence for involuntary manslaughter is indeed life, but
It would need to be a most blatant and extreme case to get this
sentence. Typical sentences, even for severe cases, would be very much
less than 14 years, and in cycling cases would be reasonably
commensurate with causing death by dangerous driving.

http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/s_to_u/s..._manslaughter/

Toom

On 20 Mar, 17:03, Toom Tabard wrote:
On 20 Mar, 07:34, Doug wrote:

Just to show how unbiased I am I report this very rare event. Of
course, a charge of involuntary manslaughter carries a maximum life
sentence but causing death by dangerous driving has a maximum of only
14 years. Odd that! Obviously you are much better off killing someone
with a car than with a bicycle.

The maximum sentence for involuntary manslaughter is indeed life, but
It would need to be a most blatant and extreme case to get this
sentence. Typical sentences, even for severe cases, would be very much
less than 14 years, and in cycling cases would be reasonably
commensurate with causing death by dangerous driving.

http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/s_to_u/s...voluntary_mans...

Toom

That will **** Doug off, a cyclist getting treated the same as a
motorist in the sentencing stakes.

On 20 Mar, 17:03, Toom Tabard wrote:
On 20 Mar, 07:34, Doug wrote:

Just to show how unbiased I am I report this very rare event. Of
course, a charge of involuntary manslaughter carries a maximum life
sentence but causing death by dangerous driving has a maximum of only
14 years. Odd that! Obviously you are much better off killing someone
with a car than with a bicycle.

The maximum sentence for involuntary manslaughter is indeed life, but
It would need to be a most blatant and extreme case to get this
sentence. Typical sentences, even for severe cases, would be very much
less than 14 years, and in cycling cases would be reasonably
commensurate with causing death by dangerous driving.


Just found this from Doug on another thread,

"My take on this is that we live in a
car-centric culture which is unwilling to regard a motor vehicle as an
offensive weapon when used deliberately as such. Don't forget a
significant majority throughout the justice system, including the
police and juries, are car users and therefore biased as such. Even
the sentences handed out for killing people on our roads are derisory
compared to other forms of killing."

Here we have a cycle used as an offensive weapon, can we look forward
to a derisory punishment or will the cyclist get more severe
treatment?

NM wrote:
On 20 Mar, 17:03, Toom Tabard wrote:
On 20 Mar, 07:34, Doug wrote:

Just to show how unbiased I am I report this very rare event. Of
course, a charge of involuntary manslaughter carries a maximum life
sentence but causing death by dangerous driving has a maximum of
only 14 years. Odd that! Obviously you are much better off killing
someone with a car than with a bicycle.

The maximum sentence for involuntary manslaughter is indeed life, but
It would need to be a most blatant and extreme case to get this
sentence. Typical sentences, even for severe cases, would be very
much less than 14 years, and in cycling cases would be reasonably
commensurate with causing death by dangerous driving.


Just found this from Doug on another thread,

"My take on this is that we live in a
car-centric culture which is unwilling to regard a motor vehicle as an
offensive weapon when used deliberately as such. Don't forget a
significant majority throughout the justice system, including the
police and juries, are car users and therefore biased as such. Even
the sentences handed out for killing people on our roads are derisory
compared to other forms of killing."

Here we have a cycle used as an offensive weapon, can we look forward
to a derisory punishment or will the cyclist get more severe
treatment?

According to Doug, one death is too many, so I'm pleased to hear Doug agrees
that cycling should be banned.


--
Dave - the small piece of 14th century armour used to protect the armpit.

On 20 Mar, 15:54, Doug wrote:
On 20 Mar, 11:56, ashley filmer wrote:



On 20 Mar, 08:24, Doug wrote:

On 20 Mar, 08:17, Derek C wrote:

On Mar 20, 7:59*am, Doug wrote:

On 20 Mar, 07:53, Derek C wrote:

On Mar 20, 7:34*am, Doug wrote:

Just to show how unbiased I am I report this very rare event. Of
course, a charge of involuntary manslaughter carries a maximum life
sentence but causing death by dangerous driving has a maximum of only
14 years. Odd that! Obviously you are much better off killing someone
with a car than with a bicycle.

"A 27-year-old cyclist has been arrested after the death of a tourist
who was knocked down by a pedal bike in London.

Scotland Yard said the man was arrested on suspicion of involuntary
manslaughter and bailed.

Marian Anderson, 56, from Denmark, was hit while crossing a road in
Camden on 21 February. She died in hospital from head injuries on 1
March.

Police said she was with her daughter, who is in her mid-20s, at the
time. The cyclist involved stopped at the scene.

The incident happened in Lidlington Place, at the junction with
Eversholt Street.

Ms Anderson was taken by ambulance to University College Hospital
before being moved to the National Hospital for Neurology and
Neurosurgery in London, where she later died.

The man was arrested on Friday after attending a police station in
central London, Metropolitan Police officers said.

The arrest was on suspicion of involuntary manslaughter by
recklessness and negligence.

He was bailed until a date in May pending further inquiries.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/8577612.stm

At least the cyclist had the decency to stop after the collision with
the fatally injured pdestrian, unlike some other reported cases of
cyclists colliding with pedestrians, although we don't know if he was
forced to do this by damage to his bike? *Hopefully that will stand in
his favour if the case comes to court.

Yes, compare it to the numerous hit and run drivers who kill so many
people each year. It makes cyclists look quite saintly by comparison.
I wonder if that is why they are so despised by motorists?

Yes but a cyclist has a much better chance of getting away with a hit
and run accident, because he (or she) has no registration number that
can be reported by witnesses or captured on CCTV.

Quite often there are no witnesses to a hit and run.

As a motorist, the only cyclists I despise are those who ride
recklessly or incompetently, ignore the Laws and Rules of the road and
don't use lights at night. I am a cyclist myself and passed my cycling
proficiency test as a teenager. I don't do any of the above things,
and suspect that you don't either, except possibly when taking part in
Critical Mass events.

My policy is to abide by even inappropriate traffic laws where they do
not conflict with my safety, bearing in mind that I can't kill drivers
but they can easily kill me. I would like the laws to be changed to
favour vulnerable road users instead of treating them like any other
traffic.

--
UK Radical Campaignswww.zing.icom43.net
A driving licence is a licence to kill.

I have seen this 'favouring vulnerable road users' assertion many
times Doug. What you are asking for is that a cyclist is treated like
a pedestrian. This difference is (and this is the important bit), when
you as a cyclist are on the road, you move at speed like any other
vehicle.

No I am slower than a car and with a much lower momentum and therefore
much less dangerous..

Doug, I don't want to be the one to state the obvious, but you have
reported the death of a pedestrian who was run over by a cyclist in
this very thread. You might carry less mass and momentum, but you only
have to knock a pedestrian off balance for them to fall and hit their
head on the pavement or road, and you then become just as culpable for
their injuries than any other vehicle on the road or pavement.


You as a cyclist expect to be given as much room as a car,
and demand to be treated as an equal road user - but then go further
by demanding unfairly that any incidents where you and a car are
involved are treated as the car drivers fault.

Of course. As I keep on pointing out I cannot kill motorists but they
can kill me, an essential difference.

Imagine for a minute you are cycling along on the pavement, you decide
to hop onto the road to get across to the other pavement. Without
looking (due to lack of any form of compulsory training), you do so as
a car is approaching. They swerve to avoid you and either end up on
the pavement on the other side, or in the path of another vehicle
coming the other way. We hear regularly about idiots dropping house
bricks off bridges onto vehicles travelling below, so to say that the
actions of a soft pedestrian could not harm the occupants of motor
vehicles is not a very robust one.

This is compounded by
the fact that whilst there is the cycling proficiency test (which we
take as 11 year olds), it is not a compulsory part of cycling on the
road, so the standard of cycling can vary greatly from the 'wheeled
pedestrian' to someone who has a great deal of experience, uses the
primary, confident, competent as a solo or group rider etc etc. To
allow this to happen would offer over riding bias and goes against the
notion of 'innocent until proven guilty'

Let me get this straight. If a driver kills two cyclists at the same
time and one of the cyclists is competent and the other is not the
driver should only be guilty of killing the competent cyclist if at
all?


If the drivers actions are found to be directly responsible for their
deaths, then he should feel the weight of the law.
If their own actions are found to have contributed to their demise,
then this should be taken into account when sentencing.
I don't think any sane person would or could assert that justice is
dealt in any other way. This goes for car drivers, lorry drivers, bus
drivers, motorcyclists, cyclists. I don't really know what you are
demanding here because justice would not be served if all judgments
always found the controller of the larger vehicle to carry a greater
portion of blame for this reason alone. By your reasoning, the death
of this lady has to automatically be the cyclists fault because he is
the vehicle operator.


As a motorcyclist who is in a group which only make up 1% of the
traffic in the UK, but account for 21% of the KSI's, I should demand
this also as a high proportion of these are caused by SMIDSY *- but I
don't because I as a car driver and cyclist am able to see it from all
angles - each incident should be judged on its own merit, and someone
should not automatically be seen to be guilty because of the type of
vehicle they are controlling.

Ah, as I thought, so you are a car driver then. Typical! That explains
so much!

I also stated that I am also a hybrid riding cyclist as well, but you
only saw the word 'car' in my description, and everything else I can
claim to be obviously became irrelevant.


With all that said, the bottom line is at the moment if you drive a
car and hit someone, irrespective of who's fault it is, you will feel
the weight of the law enforcement agencies bearing down on you. You
will be automatically breath tested, and asked for proof that all
certification, licensing, and insurance is valid before any
investigation is taken further. This is irrespective of whether
someone has stepped off the pavement in front of you without looking
first, or you took aim and mounted the pavement to deliberately chase
them down!

Yes but in the end the motorist could typically end with just a slap
on the wrist when the vulnerable victim is made to take the blame for
their own death, while the well-protected motorist continues to drive
in their lethal machine totally unharmed, apart from the usual
feelings of shame and guilt for which they are much pitied by other
motorists on this newsgroup.


Can you provide any examples where such miscarriages of justice have
taken place ?
An accident is an accident unless it can be proven that the person in
control of the vehicle has deliberately used it as a weapon to harm
others.
Fortunately, instances of this actually happening seem to be as rare
as that of cyclists killing others with their actions so we can
perhaps write it down as the press whipping the mob into a frenzy!

--
UK Radical Campaignswww.zing.icom43.net
A driving licence is a licence to kill.

You obviously feel fairly strong about this, but the reality is that
there are people out there who do make mistakes on or in all forms of
transport, and whilst we can mitigate to reduce the numbers and
severity, the risk of collision will always be present when vehicles
turn their wheels under either human or motor power.

On 20/03/2010 16:16, The Medway Handyman wrote:
Doug wrote:


Let me get this straight. If a driver kills two cyclists at the same
time and one of the cyclists is competent and the other is not, the
driver should only be guilty of killing the competent cyclist if at
all?

Do you get bonus points for two at the same time?

www.geta****inglifeu****.com

On Sat, 20 Mar 2010 11:35:23 +0000, Tom Crispin
wrote:

On Sat, 20 Mar 2010 01:17:19 -0700 (PDT), Derek C
wrote:

Yes but a cyclist has a much better chance of getting away with a hit
and run accident, because he (or she) has no registration number that
can be reported by witnesses or captured on CCTV.

Can you cite any cyclist in Britain that has got away with killing a
pedestrian?

The motorist killer of cyclist Adrianna Skrzypiec seems to have got
away with it.
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standa...hit-and-run.do


"Members of local cycling group Greenwich Cyclists have placed a
white-painted bicycle at the scene of the crash as a road-side
memorial."

Touching - a nice little wankcry.


--

"wearing helmets can sometimes increase the chance of a cyclist being
involved in an accident."

That august body The CTC

(They've already had a slap for lying by the ASA)

JMS wrote:
On Sat, 20 Mar 2010 11:35:23 +0000, Tom Crispin
wrote:

On Sat, 20 Mar 2010 01:17:19 -0700 (PDT), Derek C
wrote:

Yes but a cyclist has a much better chance of getting away with a
hit and run accident, because he (or she) has no registration
number that can be reported by witnesses or captured on CCTV.

Can you cite any cyclist in Britain that has got away with killing a
pedestrian?

The motorist killer of cyclist Adrianna Skrzypiec seems to have got
away with it.
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standa...hit-and-run.do


"Members of local cycling group Greenwich Cyclists have placed a
white-painted bicycle at the scene of the crash as a road-side
memorial."


I hope no one trips on it or injures themselves against it.