Death of a pedestrian

ericonabike

Thought I'd take a look here to see what was being said about the conviction yesterday of a cyclist for killing a pedestrian, and the derisory fine that he received. Have I missed it? Nothing? If a car driver had behaved in the same manner (get out of my way, I'm not stopping...) the boards would have lit up with indignation and outrage. So why no reaction when one of our own is guilty?

Personally I felt ashamed by it. It brought back memories of an earlier post here, when someone was complaining that 'despite his shouting and sounding an air horn' a group of pedestrians were still impeding his 20mph progress on a cycle path. Yes I know that far more cyclists are killed by car drivers, but that can be of little comfort to the deceased's fsmily.

I would like to see some formal repsonse, perhaps from CTC or British Cycling, that condemns what happens and sympathises with the bereaved family. How about you?

nicklouse

http://www.bikeradar.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12576847

always_tyred

I agree

http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtop ... t=12576847

dondare

This was debated at length. One problem is the obvious bias of all the reporting, both of the accident itself and of the trial, which perhaps painted the cyclist blacker than he deserved.
All illegal behaviour should be condemned rather than excused, whether by cyclists or anyone else. I do not agree with some remarks attributed to the CTC some laws are intended for motorists and that cyclists can be safer if they disregard them, and it is unfortunate that this case has been linked to the CTC apparently condoning illegal and anti-social behaviour by cyclists. But the problem is media bias and public attitude rather than silly remarks by naive CTC spokesmen.

robmanic1

Well put dondare, as usual you've summed it up in an intelligent and non-patronising, non knee-jerk sentence.

The threads were not defending the cyclist per se, rather debating the fact that the press in this country are so anti-cyclist and so keen to create paper-selling headlines that they chose to ignore the facts in favour of sensationalising what was already, a very tragic story.

ericonabike

I've now looked at the thread in General and am pretty unimpressed. Many of the comments are far worse than anything the Mail would print. My point was that a girl died following a collision with a cyclist, who shouted 'get out of my way I'm not stopping'. And yet the instinctive reaction of many of you was to blame the girl and empathise with the cyclist. Just like a car driver would do on hearing of an incident involving a driver and a cyclist [shouldn't have been there, probably drunk, brought it on themselves...]. I agree with the poster who said 'Reading this thread has left a pretty bitter taste in my mouth'.

It's been a while since I last visited here and what I've found doesn't encourage a return any time soon.

number9

My point was that a girl died following a collision with a cyclist, who shouted 'get out of my way I'm not stopping'.

wrong, that shout was never made and not corroborated by a single witness, it simply appeared in the prosecution case.

Surf-Matt

Eric - I have to agree with you.

Another person posted up about running over a little girl - everyone here (almost) blamed her mum for letting her run out and the cyclist here just seemed concerned about himself and his bike.

If I see pedestrians in the way, I brake or steer around them. I never shout at them - sound my bell at the most if needed. If I crashed into one, whatever the circumstances, I'd apologise profusely and make sure they were okay.

It seems the cyclists here (many of them) hate motorists and pedestrians yet I'm sure most drive and walk.

The MTB section is SO much more down to Earth and sensible. The Commuting section so often depresses me with narrow minded attitudes and nothing but moaning and bleating.

A girl was killed by a cyclist who was too arrogant to try and avoid a group of girls. How anyone but the cyclist can be blamed is beyond me. And the £2200 fine is ludicrous. He should now be in prison.

number9

Eric - I have to agree with you.

eric made a claim about the cyclist's behaviour that is utterly fallacious.

It seems the cyclists here (many of them) hate motorists

name three.

Surf-Matt

number9 wrote:

Eric - I have to agree with you.

eric made a claim about the cyclist's behaviour that is utterly fallacious.

It seems the cyclists here (many of them) hate motorists

name three.

I can name at least a dozen. But I have other things to do.

I didn't say WHAT I agreed with - it was Eric's sentiment about the attitude of many cyclists here, not the letter of the law.

dondare

ericonabike wrote:

I've now looked at the thread in General and am pretty unimpressed. Many of the comments are far worse than anything the Mail would print. My point was that a girl died following a collision with a cyclist, who shouted 'get out of my way I'm not stopping'. And yet the instinctive reaction of many of you was to blame the girl and empathise with the cyclist. Just like a car driver would do on hearing of an incident involving a driver and a cyclist [shouldn't have been there, probably drunk, brought it on themselves...]. I agree with the poster who said 'Reading this thread has left a pretty bitter taste in my mouth'.

It's been a while since I last visited here and what I've found doesn't encourage a return any time soon.

You're missing the point a bit. The news reports have all been very biased and the public reaction seems to be very anti-cyclist. No-one here is really saying that a drunk girl who stood in the road and got knocked over deserved to die or that a reckless cyclist who killed should not be punished. It's a case of understanding what happened and seeing things from the point of view of the rider rather than the outraged public.

Surf-Matt

Any proof that she was drunk then?
And does it matter in the slightest bit if she was?

Yes the media do seem to be on a bit of a witch hunt with cyclists but with the attitudes of some on here, I'm not in the slightest bit suprised.

whome

Cyclist have a responsibility (as a road user) to avoid pedestrians and certainly shouldn't be deliberately aiming at them (as the prosecution and reporting of this incident has implied).

What were the "remarks attributed to the CTC" - I haven't seen those?

robmanic1

If we believe everything the papers say then this guy should be paraded through the streets and publicly castrated, BUT we aren't privy to all the facts and can only make judgements on what we believe to be true based on what we read and, more importantly, what we choose to believe actually happened.

True that due to the defensive attitude many of us now adopt after much unjustified hatred towards us, we may be quick to blindly leap to the defense of any of our own accused of anything, but from reading through the threads, the feeling I get is not one of automatic defense of the cyclist but a fare cross section of opinions for and against. I think we're all pretty balanced on here (there are exceptions).

number9

I can name at least a dozen. But I have other things to do.


Guffaw!

the_hundredth_idiot

The initial articles suggested she had been drinking (two cans of Stella, suggested the Mail's article before it was amended, which is more than enough for your average 17 year old girl to be somewhat wobbly on her feet). Clearly a report in the Mail is not proof, but then there's no proof that he shouted "Get out of my way!", was riding on the pavement and so on.

And it does matter. It doesn't change the fact that this was a tragic accident in which a young girl died and doesn't for a second mean that the girl "deserved" to die BUT if, as a cyclist, I was pootling along in the road and I run over and kill a drunken pedestrian who stepped out in front of me, how would I want it reported and how would I feel?
a) crazy maniac cycles on pavement and kills girl
or
b) tragic accident in which drunken teenager dies.

If the guy was cycling like a maniac on the pavement then I agree he does deserve a greater punishment but the reporting of the accident is inconsistent and seems more aimed at whipping up anger at cyclists (whipping up anger being the Mail's stock trade) than simply reporting an awful accident.

number9

Wot 100th idiot said.

dondare

We don't know that she was drunk; in fact we don't know anything for a fact considering how unreliable witnesses are and how bad the papers are at getting their facts right, but it was reported that one of her friends said that she'd had two cans of Stella. It was also reported that she first stepped out of Howard's way but then went forward again; and it has been pointed out that people are more likely to bang their heads when they fall if the're drunk. Those cans of 2 cans of Stella might have been significant.

clanton

IIRC at some point it was said she'd had "2 or 3 cans of Stella" and they were walking from a park after having had some drinks.
At the end of the day no-one on this forum is privy to all the facts of the case and in fact everyone is making their own judgement on incomplete information. The only thing I can be sure of is that there are discrepancies in the media coverage!

dang65

clanton wrote:

At the end of the day no-one on this forum is privy to all the facts of the case and in fact everyone is making their own judgement on incomplete information. The only thing I can be sure of is that there are discrepancies in the media coverage!

What's actually happening is that most people are saying exactly what you said... that there are discrepancies and we don't know the facts.

I think that a lot of the statements "in favour of" the cyclist come from people (myself included) who are trying to understand how this may have happened and are seeing it from a cyclist's point of view. It's not really a matter of justifying what he did, but of understanding how it might have happened and feeling that the portrayal in the media is not taking that into account at all. He wasn't drunk, he wasn't speeding, he wasn't on the pavement, but he was stupid enough to go for a gap which was likely to close at any time. And that had tragic consequences.

ericonabike

As long as you all show the same depth of understanding and empathy when a motorist makes a mistake...

cee

ericonabike wrote:

As long as you all show the same depth of understanding and empathy when a motorist makes a mistake...

http://www.bikeradar.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12576833........

Does this answer any questions you may have had regarding levels of empathy and understandng?

clanton

dang65 wrote:

clanton wrote:

At the end of the day no-one on this forum is privy to all the facts of the case and in fact everyone is making their own judgement on incomplete information. The only thing I can be sure of is that there are discrepancies in the media coverage!

What's actually happening is that most people are saying exactly what you said... that there are discrepancies and we don't know the facts.

I think that a lot of the statements "in favour of" the cyclist come from people (myself included) who are trying to understand how this may have happened and are seeing it from a cyclist's point of view. It's not really a matter of justifying what he did, but of understanding how it might have happened and feeling that the portrayal in the media is not taking that into account at all. He wasn't drunk, he wasn't speeding, he wasn't on the pavement, but he was stupid enough to go for a gap which was likely to close at any time. And that had tragic consequences.

Yes - what I was trying to say (but probably not very well) is that judgement should be reserved for those who do know exactly what happened.

dang65

ericonabike wrote:

As long as you all show the same depth of understanding and empathy when a motorist makes a mistake...

I think they've already got enough people on their side!

Surf-Matt

Fact - a girl was killed by a cyclist.

Fact - that does not happen if someone is "pootling" along - it takes a fair whack to kill someone with a bike.

Fact - he went for a gap in a group of people at a speed high enough to kill someone.

That's plenty for me.

always_tyred

dondare wrote:

ericonabike wrote:

I've now looked at the thread in General and am pretty unimpressed. Many of the comments are far worse than anything the Mail would print. My point was that a girl died following a collision with a cyclist, who shouted 'get out of my way I'm not stopping'. And yet the instinctive reaction of many of you was to blame the girl and empathise with the cyclist. Just like a car driver would do on hearing of an incident involving a driver and a cyclist [shouldn't have been there, probably drunk, brought it on themselves...]. I agree with the poster who said 'Reading this thread has left a pretty bitter taste in my mouth'.

It's been a while since I last visited here and what I've found doesn't encourage a return any time soon.

You're missing the point a bit. The news reports have all been very biased and the public reaction seems to be very anti-cyclist. No-one here is really saying that a drunk girl who stood in the road and got knocked over deserved to die or that a reckless cyclist who killed should not be punished. It's a case of understanding what happened and seeing things from the point of view of the rider rather than the outraged public.

Look, the media bias thing is correct, but I don't think it was the right case to argue that point, since it appears that the cyclist in this case pretty well deserved the invective.

Clever Pun

Surf-Matt wrote:

Fact - a girl was killed by a cyclist.

Fact - that does not happen if someone is "pootling" along - it takes a fair whack to kill someone with a bike.

Fact - he went for a gap in a group of people at a speed high enough to kill someone.

That's plenty for me.

that's coincidence imo hitting someone at 17mph (for the sake of argument) wont kill people 100%of the time...

dondare

I knew a cyclist who killed a pedestrian.
It happened in Byng Place but before those awful cycle lanes were put in, so the cyclist was exactly where a pedestrian would expect him to be. The cyclist, an old man, just stepped into the road without checking, forcing the cyclist to brake abruptly. The cyclist failed to disengage his pedals and toppled over sideways, knocking against the old man who then fell and hit his head on the kerb, sustaining fatal injuries. So, at the time of the collision the cyclist was stationary, but it was still enough to lead to the pedestrian's death.

sc999cs

Surf-Matt wrote:

Fact - that does not happen if someone is "pootling" along - it takes a fair whack to kill someone with a bike.

The poor girl hit her head on the ground. You read about people being punched, falling and hitting their heads on the ground, and being killed as a result. A punch is a lot slower than 17mph and contains a lot less energy than a bike hitting someone at that speed. Didn't the government road safety campaign claim there was an 97% survival chance for an impact with a car travelling at 20mph and 10% chance if hit at 40mph (only link I can find http://www.martinfrost.ws/htmlfiles/may ... limit.html)?

This was a case of incredibly bad judgement by the cyclist (or at best lack of anticipation and foresight) and tragedy in that the girl hit her head and died as a result. If she'd fallen differently then maybe she would have survived. I don't know - my heart just bleeds for her parents - as it does for the thousands of other families devastated by members of their families being killed on the roads. However we do have a problem in our society that it is almost seen as socially acceptable to kill each other, as long as we do it in a motorised vehicle.

Steve C

ellieb

ericonabike wrote:

I would like to see some formal repsonse, perhaps from CTC or British Cycling, that condemns what happens and sympathises with the bereaved family. How about you?

Er.. I'm not entirely sure what the CTC has to do with it: Unless you expect the AA to apologise every time a cyclist is killed by a car driver or the Ramblers Association to issue a statement every time a pedestrian steps out into the road without looking.

Whatever happened in this incident and whoever was at fault, I agree that the girl lost her life and the guy on the bike lost £2000, which seems an unfair outcome.

However as someone who is a cyclist I don't feel either a collective or personal responsibility for what happened. This particular incident is all about the individuals concerned.

dang65

clanton wrote:

Yes - what I was trying to say (but probably not very well) is that judgement should be reserved for those who do know exactly what happened.

That's not how the law works though, is it? Or the media, or the mob. The judgement is based on witness statements and expert knowledge, possibly with help from a CCTV camera (though they always seem to catch the moments before or after something happens). Eyewitnesses are notoriously unreliable, as has been shown in experiments many times. I'm not sure how expert knowledge could have helped much in this case, and the CCTV camera showed the cyclist riding correctly on the road just before the incident.

The judgement was based purely on the fact that the cyclist went for a gap rather than stopping or going round the outside. He may have done that deliberately and arrogantly, or he may have made a bad estimate of the space he had. I still haven't heard any quotes from the cyclist or his defence. He was found guilty though, so I guess he either pleaded guilty or his defence was not credible?