Driver tries to kill cyclist, hits building.

[Crankarm]

Definitely not. Î have never worked for them and have no desire to.

I do have a tiny bit of self respect you know

So if you are not a defence lawyer and you don't work for the CPS as a prosecutor what actually do you do?

Given that your comment that you do have a tiny bit of self respect not working for the CPS suggests to me you don't think much of them. Illuminating.

 

[spen666]

.... No one Spen is calling all motorists murderers or making wild or stupid allegations whenever there is an incident. .... And it is your lot who have turned "accidents" into a litigious money making battle ground....[\quote] Interestingly you claim no one is making wild claims about all motorists and then go on to make equally stupid wild and untrue claims about another group of people.

You would be frothing at the mouth if I suggested based on a couple of recent child grooming cases that all Asians are predatory paedophiles, yet you adopt a similar approach about "your lot" and personal injury claims. I have no idea who "your lot" are or what group you are making wild allegations about.

6our comments however back up the thinking some people have in making wild accusations about whole groups of people

Speak for yourself when you drive …… I would certainly never ever drive my car at some one. If I felt that threatened I would drive off. No way would I try and run some one over! In any case in the car I always put the central locking on as soon as I have got in and all the doors are closed. But we are not talking about minor driving indiscretions we are discussing some one who thinks it's acceptable to drive at speed at another road user and a very vulnerable road user at that who should be given a lot of space and care as they are passed.[\quote] I am not sure who suggested you drive your car deliberately at anyone. I certainly did not. Already we have an exaple of why the sort of campaign I suggest will struggle, namely because many people are not prepared to face up to the fact they are less than perfect.

We need all cycling bodies to come together to have a joint and co-ordinated campaign to change public opinion regarding driving behaviour and attitudes.

Hallelujah to this, but there needs to be political will. Government needs to make the CJS work properly at all levels for cyclists instead of it routinely failing us as it does now.

why do you think we need a public campaign, it is to change attitudes of everyone. The example I gave us of the anti racism campaign was exactly this, it changed public opinion leading to changes in political attitudes.

 

[oldstrath]

I did say that

You however are confusing an intent to cause serious harm with an intent to cause harm. Only the former is sufficient to ground a charge of attempted murder.


The fact you use a weapon to cause injury is not of itself evidence of an intent to cause serious harm. Why do you think there are 2 offences of grevious bodily harm?
S20 is causing GBH and S18 is causing GBH with intent

You are I think confusing the actus reus and the mens rea (actions and mental state/intention)

I did say that

You however are confusing an intent to cause serious harm with an intent to cause harm. Only the former is sufficient to ground a charge of attempted murder.


The fact you use a weapon to cause injury is not of itself evidence of an intent to cause serious harm. Why do you think there are 2 offences of grevious bodily harm?
S20 is causing GBH and S18 is causing GBH with intent

You are I think confusing the actus reus and the mens rea (actions and mental state/intention)

I'm not disputing your understanding of the law, but stating my complete bewilderment that the law can possibly compel people to believe that attempting to hit someone with two tonnes of metal is not evidence of a desire to cause that person a serious injury. I accept your apparent claim that this is the law, but frankly it seems bonkers.

As for calling any car driver who causes death by an 'accident' a murderer. Well, no, but motorists have been given the extraordinary privilege of using deadly weapons, in public places, with rather few constraints and so should be held to high standards and punished for falling from them.

 

[spen666]

I'm not disputing your understanding of the law, but stating my complete bewilderment that the law can possibly compel people to believe that attempting to hit someone with two tonnes of metal is not evidence of a desire to cause that person a serious injury. I accept your apparent claim that this is the law, but frankly it seems bonkers.

I am not making any claim. You are jumping from the fact there was an incident to decide there was intent to cause serious harm. There may well have been, but on what we know so far, there is no evidence the motorist intended to cause serious harm. We do not know what the motorist intended.

People are jumping to conclusions and throwing round stupid allegations like attempted murder without knowing what the facts are. It may well turn out to be attempted murder, it could turn out to be something else.

As for calling any car driver who causes death by an 'accident' a murderer. Well, no, but motorists have been given the extraordinary privilege of using deadly weapons, in public places, with rather few constraints and so should be held to high standards and punished for falling from them.

This is very different from being a murderer. I fully agree with what you say, and that iswhy we need to change public opinion to make people realise this. Throwing round insults like murderer do more harm than good to this aim

 

[oldstrath]

I am not making any claim. You are jumping from the fact there was an incident to decide there was intent to cause serious harm. There may well have been, but on what we know so far, there is no evidence the motorist intended to cause serious harm. We do not know what the motorist intended.

People are jumping to conclusions and throwing round stupid allegations like attempted murder without knowing what the facts are. It may well turn out to be attempted murder, it could turn out to be something else.

If she intended to hit the cyclist with her car (and frankly it's hard to see why else she would have driven in such a way as to demolish half a building) then to me that is evidence of intent to do serious harm. Sorry, physics, not human laws, but if the law wants to pretend there is room for doubt then, to me, the law appears silly and contrary to all sense.

 

[MattE72]

Although she lives in a fairly posh bit of SW London, not S Wales

I should take offence at that but it's so true! Although highly unlikely that a South-Walian grandmother would be in a Q7. Unless it was stolen.

 

[Beebo]

How many seats does a Q7 have?

Here's a picture just for you Mickle.
You will note the airbags have gone off and the fire brigade have removed the roof.

 

[vickster]

That'll be costly to fix if the insurers refuse to pay out!!

 

[deptfordmarmoset]

Here's a picture just for you Mickle.
You will note the airbags have gone off and the fire brigade have removed the roof.

Passive safety = active danger.

 

[Cubist]

Has she tweeted about it yet?

 

[procel]

However, don't let your change of position stop you spouting nonsense.

I assure you there’s no change of position. Perhaps you’re reading opinions which I didn’t mean to write. I thought the original post was clearly about the single principle rather than an assessment of the whole of the law: that’s why I wrote “essential to the principle” rather than “essential to the law”. I won’t insult or patronise your comprehension: instead I am genuinely sorry I couldn’t write my argument more clearly.

40 years ago, the position regarding racist crimes was similar, but by a sensible and concerted campaign, the anti racists won over public opinion.

Interesting comparison, could you expand? I’m not sure I get whether you’re talking narrowly or broadly. If narrowly, do you mean the fight for the 1976 RRA and the one (iirc) criminal offence in it: incitement to racial hatred? Do you have figures for willingness of juries to convict for that offence over time?

If more broadly, do you mean wider social attitudes to motor car use?

Its not about calling all motorists murderers ... We need all cycling bodies to come together to have a joint and co-ordinated campaign to change public opinion regarding driving behaviour and attitudes.

The forum search tool top right shows up only three users (@Crankarm, @glenn forger and @jarlrmai) calling for a charge of attempted murder in this particular case (I don’t agree with them) and no one at all calling all motorists murderers. The vast majority of the use of the word on this thread is by you.

Note though that the most common international example of a successful campaign on those broad social attitudes was an extremely emotive one called “Stop The Child Murder”. Which experience also goes to show that your implication is right, mind, that civil/criminal liabilities are a pretty minor part of what makes the streets safer for the vast majority of collision victims.

 

[benb]

Surely mens rea can be inferred by the person's actions. In the same way that we can deduce that someone who tucked a whole trout into their jacket at the supermarket meant to steal it, we can deduce that a person driving a motor vehicle at a cyclist intended to cause them serious injury; there being no other likely outcome, other than death, of doing so.

So while we cannot see into the driver's head, the very fact they drove their car deliberately at the cyclist (I suppose I ought to say allegedly) proves that their intention was to injure that cyclist.

 

[Cyclopathic]

Was the hair salon wearing a helmet???

 

[jarlrmai]

 

[neveragainPLS]

"with perfect lycra-clad legs."
I have never worn such things, I'll have you know, nor had a 9 page thread about me!
Gosh, all the misinformation I've just read, also not sure what I can say without effecting the case, cos I do have a few things to add!

But if anyone can lend me a bike I sure do need one to get around.