Must Watch Vid

Vandiesel

Stumbled across this on Mod Culture and had to share http://youtu.be/dIbJeD5756o seems like justice slips through the net again!

Greenbeetle

Shocking stuff.

Vandiesel

I can't believe drivers get away with it so easily..

StillGoing

What did she get away with? As distraught as the cyclist is and as stupid as the driver was, there were no broken bones, no life changing repercussions and she will make a full recovery. The driver got 9 points on her licence and a fine of £100 according to the video. Fines are means based these days so the courts can't impose a fine that the guilty party cannot possibly pay. The driver hasn't killed anyone or changed someone's life forever so any defence argument for leniency when considering disqualification would be heard. Maybe she has dependents she needs to transport or her job is dependent on her having a licence. She's now one speeding ticket away from losing her licence for 12 months and let's be honest, the courts were never going to even consider imposing a custodial sentence for what is a traffic collision and not an intentional assault.

Some cyclists seem to think they are the victims all the time when there are others out there equally or even more harshly treated by the scales of justice. Try dealing with two families who have just lost a 12 month old and a 2 year old when they were stood at the side of the road waiting to cross and an idiot has gone through a red light, hit another car and careered into them. The courts found that driver not guilty of causing death by dangerous and only guilty to careless driving for failing to comply with a red traffic light and using her mobile telephone. No custodial there either.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... iving.html

Anonymous

Have not watched the vid but points and a menial fine sounds like getting away with it to me.

Means based or not (it should be 'not' IMO), £100 is nothing. You should not own a car and drive on the road if £100 is all you can afford for doing something really wrong.

9 points = Keep driving (perhaps uninsured if you can only afford a £100 fine and the premium rockets).

I do not really get the whole 'no bones broken thing'. I see it that the punishment should be for the actions, not the outcome.

If you get caught driving a little over the speed limit 3 times, thats 9 points and £150 worth of fines isn't it?

I have had 3 points and £50 fine twice............but no one died.
On the second occasion, no one apart from the copper in the van (long story) even noticed, and he probably had a speeding penalty himself!

Guessing whats in that video is worse that what the majority of drivers do every single day, so I would say she got away with it, without even seeing what 'it' is :roll:

Colinthecop

To save me watching it again,

Am I right in thinking she's gone up the inside of a car turning left, which has then turned left and hit her...?

StillGoing

Carbonator wrote:

Have not watched the vid but points and a menial fine sounds like getting away with it to me.

Means based or not (it should be 'not' IMO), £100 is nothing. You should not own a car and drive on the road if £100 is all you can afford for doing something really wrong.

9 points = Keep driving (perhaps uninsured if you can only afford a £100 fine and the premium rockets).

I do not really get the whole 'no bones broken thing'. I see it that the punishment should be for the actions, not the outcome.

If you get caught driving a little over the speed limit 3 times, thats 9 points and £150 worth of fines isn't it?

I have had 3 points and £50 fine twice............but no one died.
On the second occasion, no one apart from the copper in the van (long story) even noticed, and he probably had a speeding penalty himself!

Guessing whats in that video is worse that what the majority of drivers do every single day, so I would say she got away with it, without even seeing what 'it' is :roll:

You make some assumptions there.

Means based is in use and it matters not what you think about it and it applies to all fines issued by the courts. That could be for trivial matters such as no TV licence and more serious matters. If it wasn't in use, the courts would be inundated with unpaid fines warrants resulting in overflowing prisons for non-payment of fines. Means testing for fines means that the company director who commits an offence doesn't get away with the same £100 fine if their disposable income each month is £5k. You don't know anything about the driver's circumstances in life to be able to assume she's not trying her hardest to get by in life and what impact a £100 is going to have.

Plenty of people with little or no spare income drive cars and legally. Some people barely scrape by from month to month with no spare cash to speak of. Doesn't make them illegal to drive or prevent them from owning or using a car does it. The 9 points is a double fine if you apply some logic to it as her insurance will be heavily loaded when it comes to the time to renew it. If she wasn't insured, the video would surely have highlighted this fact too and would have been an automatic disqualification.

To punish her for the actions implies it was a deliberate act. It was a traffic collision and in terms of severity, what is classed as a minor one with no serious injury. A moments inattentiveness just the same as your speeding violations only you're fortunate you never ended up causing a collision. Then again, maybe you weren't being inattentive and intended driving in excess of the speed limit making you even worse. Getting caught twice suggests you've done it more than once or twice and just been caught twice, or are you just unlucky? Was this a mobile camera that caught you? If so how inattentive of you not to be observing the road ahead and to see that big white van with all those markings on it. Imagine if that was a small frail cyclist you hadn't seen eh?