Motorist involved in fatal collision with cyclist banned – for driving home with a broken windscreen

Yes, according to the article you must drive at 60mph on that road "the 60mph Harwich Road" - ffs

UPDATE

https://www.gazette-news.co.uk/news/17268481.cyclist-killed-in-crash-was...

There we have it - wear a helmet and get hit at 60 mph and you just walk away.

Whilst I strongly think lights are a necessity at night, I strongly question whether 60 mph on this road enables a driver to stop within the visibility they have.

What was ther driver's eyesight like?

Not convinced by the police test - would they have stopped even if the PC was lit up ?

In the case involving my colleague David Irving the driver of the vehicle who ran him over wasn't prosecuted. He was immediately behind the driver who knocked him off, who was acquitted at trial because low winter sun m'lud

I was involved in a similar accident myself recently, i.e. knocked off my bike by a car running in to the back of me and throwing me down the road and tumbleing across the path of oncoming traffic to end up on the offside verge. Thankfully escaped any serious injury, and when the police were notified that my condition was non-life threating or life changing they were more concerned about the state of the driver than my condition.

Expecting the elder lady driver to be let off as "it would not be in the public interest" to charge her. Not even going to bother giving a statement if the police get in touch following up the incident as it'll be a complete waste of time. Police and judiciary don't care whether you live or die.

Waiting on Prince William being killed or put in to a veggie state while cycling as then something might get done.

I guess that it is all just conjecture following the reporting. As per above poster; "Cyclist dies, no one cares." Move on now!

Cyclist dies, no one cares. More on that story never.

To be fair, making allowances all around, Sunset was at 7pm, so if it was overcast and the cyclist had no lights it may well have been very very difficult to see the cyclist. If the old guy was the first to hit Terence, and at his advanced age, the shock (it says he stopped) may have meant he carried on home and then returned and (importantly) claimed responsibility to the police.  I think in reality it may not be reasonable to expect much more of the elderly gentleman.

This doesn't mean I think it's right in any way for him to have been cleared of responsibility for the cyclists death (allowing for the inadequacy of the journalism, the court's ruling may not have been that it was "impossible" to have seen the cyclist). I just think that all things considered his actions post event may have been reasonable. Perhaps his son did encourage him to return. The important thing is that he did.  My mother is elderly and recently hit a lump of firewood that fell off a truck in front. She carried on driving 10 miles to a garage to get her car checked. The guy in the garage wouldn't let her drive any further as the damage to the undercarriage was such that it made the car unsafe. I asked Mum (she range me from the garage) why she hadn't stopped to check the car and she wasn't able to give me a coherent explanation. She was in shock. I expect the court was able to extend that kind of allowance to the driver for his actions after the incident. Again, I don't thnk it is reasonable that he was cleared of responsibility for the cyclists death if he was the first driver, but I think the outcome is proportional to what happened after the accident.

I posted the update to the original roadcc story about a week ago.

I have subsequently found that no detailed records are kept of magistrate's courts proceedings, only the outcome of the case.

"Terence Smith, was cleared of any blame in relation to Shea’s death because it was proven it would have been impossible to have seen him."

We don't know if that was said in court or whether that is the journalist's view. Suffice to say the standard of journalism particularly in the online version of the paper is not very good.

It would have been dark at 8pm, perhaps that came into it ?

I drove along that road a couple of weeks ago. There is one dip where a slight amount of care is needed and the odd building entrance.

It is very unclear why the cyclist was hit.

So, was the windscreen broken before the incident took place which made it impossible to see the cyclist? If so is this not a manslaughter case? They tried to pin this charge on a cyclist with an unroadworthy vehicle, who incidently was found guilty of a lesser charge and was imprisoned in a young offenders institution!

I am still confused how it can be impossible for the driver not to see the cyclist when they are using the same road. Surely it is probable and possible that he was seen. If it was impossible was the cyclist invisible? From the Gazette News picture of the scene of the incident, the road is straight with open fields on either side. 

So, was Mr Smith the second person to hit Mr Shea? That would make some sense out of "impossible" to see if Mr Shea was knocked into Mr Smith's path with no time to react.

Whatever mitigation might be offered on behalf of Mr Smith, I still feel Mr Shea got the worse of it 

and, from the original story:

Quote:

Grahamd [980 posts] - 1 year ago - 15 likes  

You just know that this is likely to result in a suspended sentence with the driver surrendering his licence  wholly inadequate. In a world where equality is quite rightly everywhere so should sentencing be. 

To be clear, this is utter speculation on my part ...

but can you imagine the situation where the driver hits a cyclist, thinks "Crap!  Best scarper.", gets home, son makes him do the right thing and return to the scene of the incident.

Also, bafflling how "it would have been impossible to have seen him".

So, his son drove him back to the scene in a different car - that's still a hit and run. How can that be less serious than driving with an obscured windscreen??

The news article doesn’t really explain how the collision was so unavoidable.