The family shouted at the jury : “Were you not listening?”

[Lemond]

It's funny, where I cycle there are no streetlights - but quite a few runners and unlit cyclists. I don't have any trouble spotting them with my measly 220 lumens - even on fast 40 mph descents. So here you are, trying to tell me that this motorist was unable to see an unlit cyclist with 4000 lumens of headlights on a road with considerably better sight lines. It rather sounds like she wasn't paying attention - or her lights were defective. Both are offences.

Quite right. Both are offences. But they are both offences that this particular driver in this particular instance wasn't found guilty of committing.

 

[spen666]

You are claiming that the legal system is both better than and superior to a code of ethics. A moment's reflection should be sufficient to understand both are wrong. Would you prefer someone not to run you down - and leave you to die through fear of getting caught or through an understanding that it is wrong?

Erm, Please don't invent things I am saying.

I have said nothing of the sort.

I have stated what the legal position is and why.




I have simply sad you are not arrested in this country for immorality, you are arrested for breaking the law. It is a rather sad reflection on you if you can manage to twist that into the post you come up with.


I have at no time expressed a view on whether I think it is morally right or wrong what is alleged to have happened in this case.

 

[Wobblers]

Quite right. Both are offences. But they are both offences that this particular driver in this particular instance wasn't found guilty of committing.

She wasn't investigated for either offence. They just took her excuse at face value. The other witness is dead, so whatever account there is of this event is intrinsically biased. A point that you have bent over backwards to ignore.

Neither can you account for the fact that she (claims to have) mistaken running over a human being for some animal. That is a rather difficult thing to do, if you're paying attention, even if he was wearing dark clothes. I, in common with most others, manage to avoid dark clothed pedestrians on unlit streets with little difficulty. Something else you have ignored.

Nor does any of this excuse the fact that she did not stop, and left someone, possibly to die. Saying that stopping is dangerous is another fatuous excuse - her car was equipped with lights and hazard warning lamps. Plenty of people break down in far worse places without consequences. In any case, it would seem advisable to stop merely in order to check that her car was still safe to drive - not doing so seems rather irresponsible.

So, do you have any other feeble excuses for me?

 

[Wobblers]

Erm, Please don't invent things I am saying.

I have said nothing of the sort.

I have stated what the legal position is and why.




I have simply sad you are not arrested in this country for immorality, you are arrested for breaking the law. It is a rather sad reflection on you if you can manage to twist that into the post you come up with.


I have at no time expressed a view on whether I think it is morally right or wrong what is alleged to have happened in this case.

So why bring it up in the first place? It's odd, you seem reticent to express any views on any thread, but that doesn't stop you from trying to derail them. Why is that? It is also rather hypocritical to complain about me trying to "twist your post" since you seldom do anything but. Indeed, you did just that with me, by equating morality with sharia law.

 

[spen666]

So why bring it up in the first place? I.

Erm, I did not bring that up as I said in the post you quoted.

 

[Pale Rider]

She wasn't investigated for either offence.

She was arrested on suspicion of death by dangerous and given police bail.

She was investigated, her car was impounded and examined, the coppers made their usual examination of the crash scene and, as usual, toxicology was taken from the dead person.

The evidence strongly suggested the cyclist was very drunk, there was no evidence of her driving other than her own account.

That was probably assessed as plausible, so the most likely sequence of events was the cyclist wobbled into her path.

You can only follow the evidence, which no one in this thread - apart from @Lemond - has attempted to do.

 

[Pale Rider]

Where is the evidence of any wobble?

There isn't any, but inferences have to be drawn.

He was so drunk as to be incapable of standing, let along riding a cycle.

She was sober and said she was driving responsibly.

She would say that wouldn't she?

But her car will have been torn apart, had she mounted the nearside kerb the tyre may have punctured, or there might be a fresh scrape on the alloys.

Many cars have a secret black box which records some info, speed, for example.

Lots of things can be deduced by point of impact, the amount and type of damage to the car.

All this stuff - and more - will have been closely looked at before the decision to charge or not was made.

Such an investigation takes a lot of time, and if I recall the lass grumbled a bit about being on police bail for months.

 

[Wobblers]

There isn't any, but inferences have to be drawn.

He was so drunk as to be incapable of standing, let along riding a cycle.

She was sober and said she was driving responsibly.

She would say that wouldn't she?

But her car will have been torn apart, had she mounted the nearside kerb the tyre may have punctured, or there might be a fresh scrape on the alloys.

Many cars have a secret black box which records some info, speed, for example.

Lots of things can be deduced by point of impact, the amount and type of damage to the car.

All this stuff - and more - will have been closely looked at before the decision to charge or not was made.

Such an investigation takes a lot of time, and if I recall the lass grumbled a bit about being on police bail for months.

None of which suggests a wobble. Neither does her testimony, in which she states that she thought she hit an animal. In other words, she didn't see him. Perhaps you should take a look at the Michael Mason thread before you assume the competency of police investigations - they are not always as thorough as we'd all like to think.

 

[Pale Rider]

Was any of that done?

I cannot know exactly what the coppers did in that investigation, but I can say from similar circumstance investigations I do know a little bit about, it's the sort of stuff that is routinely done.

You can get a good flavour of investigations by attending a road traffic collision inquest, which are open to the public.

The investigation is usually only outlined for a few minutes by one officer, but it's easy to see how much work must have been done to reach that point.

 

[Wobblers]

Erm, I did not bring that up as I said in the post you quoted.

Erm, no. I originally pointed out that it can hardly be considered moral to drive off leaving someone in the road without finding out whether or not they're alive or need help. You then made an irrelevant comment about how the legal system does not consider issues of morality - complete with fatuous comparison with Sharia law (well done!). So, yes, you did bring up irrelevant comments about the law and morality.

 

[Pale Rider]

So supposition then?

Bit more than that, but hey, the coppers might have nicked off on holiday for a few months for all I know.

Likewise the jury in the thread title.

They could have decided it on best of three arm wrestling.

We will all have to decide for ourselves how the respective decisions were most likely to have been made.

 

[Origamist]

Cyclists' Defence Fund: "An incomprehensible travesty of justice"

http://www.cyclistsdefencefund.org.uk/an-incomprehensible-travesty-justice

 

[mr_cellophane]

Juries make their decisions on two points; The evidence presented and their own experiences. Drivers experience is that they can text and drive safely and cyclists drop off the kerb with out looking.
Perhaps we need juries to explain why they chose a verdict rather than just Guilty/Not Guilty.