# Saddened



## wafflycat (12 Jan 2008)

*Drink-driver, 20, jailed for crippling cyclist*

18 months for causing irreversible brain damage and the necessity for constant care.

Perhaps the Times editorial staff can now understand why we didn't find Matthew Parris's recent article to be at all funny...


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## tdr1nka (12 Jan 2008)

It makes no earthly sense does it?
Why, at the very least, there isn't a lifetime ban for hit & run driving I'll never understand. The article fails to indicate any other punishment other than the pathetic custodial sentence.

T x


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## Fab Foodie (12 Jan 2008)

wafflycat said:


> *Drink-driver, 20, jailed for crippling cyclist*
> 
> 18 months for causing irreversible brain damage and the necessity for constant care.
> 
> Perhaps the Times editorial staff can now understand why we didn't find Matthew Parris's recent article to be at all funny...


It's desperate, it really is.
How do we make the change though...bombard Parris and the Thunderer, with every cycling death and motorist atrocity 'till they take notice?


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## piedwagtail91 (12 Jan 2008)

he's deprived the cyclist of a normal life, so he should also forgo something for the rest of his life.
if i was in charge that would involve surgery.
just because it involves a car it shouldn't carry a lighter sentence, if he'd done the same damage with a length of scaffold pole he'd have got far longer even though the result was the same.


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## LordoftheTeapot (12 Jan 2008)

Then there's this...

http://www.thisisleicestershire.co....me=yes&more_nodeId1=132393&contentPK=19527003


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## tdr1nka (12 Jan 2008)

It simply beggers belief...

Tx


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## ash68 (12 Jan 2008)

hard to understand the logic in these short prison sentences.kill someone with a gun or knife and you'll get a lengthy prison term. Kill or cripple someone with your car/van/wagon and you get a slap on the wrist. Really can't see the thinking of the magistrates.The poor cyclist has a life sentence now, his crime, riding his bike on the roads in modern day Britain.As for the wagon driver, well I say hang the ba****d. Sorry but the law is an ass. A life for a life, may be old fashioned but I think in cases like these, it's well justified. Then and only then the roads may be safer for all of us. Rant over.


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## LordoftheTeapot (13 Jan 2008)

Easy to assume that the judges are also car drivers and are prejedice (Or something spelt like that)


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## piedwagtail91 (13 Jan 2008)

the sentences are more severe for theft,where no one is killed or injured. the laws need a good looking at to take the consequences of someones actions into account , not just the crime, into acount.


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## Rhythm Thief (13 Jan 2008)

ash68 said:


> As for the wagon driver, well I say hang the ba****d.
> <snip>
> A life for a life, may be old fashioned but I think in cases like these, it's well justified. Then and only then the roads may be safer for all of us. Rant over.



Hmmm. Nice to see a rational response to what seems to me to be a genuine accident. I take it you'd be happy for the death penalty to be applied if you ever have an accident because you became, say, epileptic without realising it? I have some sympathy for the lorry driver in this case. 
As for the guy who drove into Simon Doughty, he deserves everything he gets and then quite a lot more.


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## simon l& and a half (13 Jan 2008)

Lord of the Teapot said:


> Easy to assume that the judges are also car drivers and are prejedice (Or something spelt like that)



having seen judges in action (at Daniel Cadden's trial and appeal) I wouldn't entirely rule that out. Wafflycat (just switch the telephone off, missus) may have her own view, but I thought that the first trial stank to high heaven.


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## ash68 (13 Jan 2008)

to be honest rhythm thief I don't think I could live with myself If I'd killed someone. There always seems to be mitigating circumstances in every crime committed in todays world.Perhaps you're more tolerrant than me, perhaps your right and I'm wrong.I don't have all the answers, don't claim to. I simpathise with the famies of the victims in cases like these ,not the offenders. He may have a genuine case, but if you really buy his story that he had no idea there was something wrong with him and that that day was the very first time he had fallen asleep at the wheel, well you're a trusting bloke. 
Wonder if the victims families feel the same as you,somehow I doubt it.


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## Rhythm Thief (13 Jan 2008)

I always sympathise with the victims and their families in such a case, but in my view, the two cases mentioned in this thread are poles apart. In the first one, an innocent cyclist has been injured as a result of a driver's selfish, inconsiderate and very stupid actions. Entirely predictable and really not an "accident" in any sense of the word. In the lorry driver case, an innocent family have died (which is, obviously, tragic), but I don't think the lorry driver was as culpable as the guy in the first case. It's entirely possible to have sleep aponea and not realise it; if you're lucky, you find out before something like this happens. I don't say that the lorry driver deserves no punishment at all, but I think "hang him" was a rather thoughtless and OTT response, whether tongue in cheek or not.


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## ash68 (13 Jan 2008)

Accept that the two cases are different. But the defence always seems to be "well it's never happened before, I didn't know I had a problem". Admittedly it could be true,but I'm sorry I just don't buy it.I just cannot believe that this was the very first time he had any symptoms or any clue that he had this illness.Perhaps it had happened before and he'd been lucky to get away without causing an accident. I've no proof of that, but he's not going to admit otherwise is he.We all have to be accountable for our actions.I can see your point of view and fully understand why you disagree with mine. Guess we'll just have to agree to disagree mate.


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## Rhythm Thief (13 Jan 2008)

Fair enough Ash. Can I buy you a drink to show there's no hard feelings?


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## ash68 (13 Jan 2008)

cheers mate, a pint of guiness, ice cold off course.I've put one behind the bar for you later as well , mate.


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## ColinJ (14 Jan 2008)

A man my family knew in the midlands back in the 1970s loved hot cars and fast driving. He was doing that one day when he came across an old man on a bike, knocked him down and killed him. He lost his license for a year and was fined a hundred pounds or so.

A year later, the guy gets his license back and to celebrate he treats himself to a new sports car. So off he goes for another little blast down the local country lanes. He hurtles round a bend and mows down an old man and his grandson who just happen to be in his way. Both are killed instantly... 

The driver claimed not to have been speeding, but somehow the car left the road after the impact, went through a hedge, shot out across a ploughed field and then turned over. The driver was unhurt. He was prosecuted, had his license taken away for another year or two, and received another fine. Two days later he was overheard complaining at the _"ridiculously unfair"_ punishment that he'd suffered. It wasn't his fault that _"two idiots were standing in the road"_ when he went round the bend! 

When he got his license back, he got himself another expensive sports car and was often seen tearing around the neighbourhood. Fortunately, somehow he didn't claim any more victims...

*Yes - lock 'em up!* !


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## spindrift (14 Jan 2008)

What do you have to do to get a life ban?


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## sheddy (14 Jan 2008)

Do summat bad enough to get a life sentence. As we know all drivers are exempt


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## wafflycat (15 Jan 2008)

Another one. And use of my pet hate phrase..

http://www.northantset.co.uk/news/Cyclist-killed-in-horror-accident.3670474.jp

As usual, it's the cyclist colliding with the vehicle. Funny how the vehicle is never the thing doing the colliding with the cyclist...


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## MartinC (15 Jan 2008)

People on construction sites are better protected from lorries than the general public. Why? Is it time that bodies such as the CTC should challenge the HSE's policy decision not to involve itself with work related incidents?


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## mikeitup (15 Jan 2008)

spindrift said:


> What do you have to do to get a life ban?



run somebody famous over?


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## freakhatz (17 Jan 2008)

It is tragic.

Simon Doughty's book 'Long Distance Cycling' is a classic and must have contributed to 'the quality of life' of many, myself included. 

Whereas Bowman?

MEN article:
Judge Hamilton, who called his driving selfish and senseless, told Bowman, of Assheton Road, : "No sentence this court can pass could in any way restore the quality of the victim's life which has been destroyed forever."

Comments here


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