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Inquest hears driver would only have seen cyclist for less than 2 seconds before fatal crash

James Corlett was attempting to cross country road in Nottinghamshire when motorist hit him

A coroner’s inquest has heard that a driver would have seen a cyclist for less than 2 seconds before a collision that claimed the rider’s life.

James Corlett, aged 35, was pronounced dead at the scene of the crash on Radcliffe Road, near Cropwell Butler in Nottinghamshire, despite the efforts of paramedics to save him, reports the Nottingham Post.

The inquest at Nottingham Council House into the fatal collision, which happened at around 2pm on 13 May, was told that a computer attached to Mr Corlett’s bike showed that he was travelling at 13mph and picking up speed as he sought to cross Radcliffe Road from a private service road.

Police collision investigator PC Stephen Farrell said that Mr Corlett, who was attempting to cross the road and reach the Fosse Way, would have been visible to the motorist who hit him for just 1.8 seconds.

He said that the driver had started to apply emergency brakes inside 1.5 seconds of seeing the cyclist.

PC Farrell said that although a ‘give way’ sign on the service road was not visible, he believed there was “unlikely to be confusion which traffic had priority.”

He added that analysis of tyre marks at the scene suggested that the car had been travelling at 44mph at the time of impact, on a road with a speed limit of 60mph.

The hearing was told that just prior to the impact, the motorist shouted at his vehicle’s passenger, “What's he doing?”

Following the collision, the pair, both trained first aiders, tried to help Mr Corlett, with the driver saying, “Oh my God, I have killed someone. We need to help him.”

Assistant Coroner Jonathan Straw, saying that was “no criticism of the driver in any way” and that “this was a tragic accident, tragic for all involved,” concluded that Mr Corlett’s death was due to a road traffic collision.

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

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48 comments

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mattsccm | 4 years ago
4 likes

Stop being inge minded. Cyclist screwed up. End. 

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Hirsute replied to mattsccm | 4 years ago
2 likes
mattsccm wrote:

Stop being inge minded. Cyclist screwed up. End. 

A bit tasteless given the outcome.

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FluffyKittenofT... replied to mattsccm | 4 years ago
3 likes

mattsccm wrote:

Stop being inge minded. Cyclist screwed up. End. 

 

I don't know what 'inge minded' means.  But while it sounds like this was largely an error by the victim, and personally I don't feel I have enough information to question the verdict, I do think that that Aliston case hangs over every one of these - constantly raising the thought of 'double standards'.  Probably more about the prejudicial way the media and police treated that case than it is about leniency to drivers in cases like these, though.

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Milkfloat replied to FluffyKittenofTindalos | 4 years ago
1 like

FluffyKittenofTindalos wrote:

mattsccm wrote:

Stop being inge minded. Cyclist screwed up. End. 

 

I don't know what 'inge minded' means.  But while it sounds like this was largely an error by the victim, and personally I don't feel I have enough information to question the verdict, I do think that that Aliston case hangs over every one of these - constantly raising the thought of 'double standards'.  Probably more about the prejudicial way the media and police treated that case than it is about leniency to drivers in cases like these, though.

 

I must have missed the bit where they said that the car was missing it's legally required brakes and the driver had time to shout "get the f*** outta my way" twice.

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FluffyKittenofT... replied to Milkfloat | 4 years ago
2 likes

Milkfloat wrote:

FluffyKittenofTindalos wrote:

mattsccm wrote:

Stop being inge minded. Cyclist screwed up. End. 

 

I don't know what 'inge minded' means.  But while it sounds like this was largely an error by the victim, and personally I don't feel I have enough information to question the verdict, I do think that that Aliston case hangs over every one of these - constantly raising the thought of 'double standards'.  Probably more about the prejudicial way the media and police treated that case than it is about leniency to drivers in cases like these, though.

 

I must have missed the bit where they said that the car was missing it's legally required brakes and the driver had time to shout "get the f*** outta my way" twice.

 

You want to go over all that again?  Want to cite, again, all the examples of drivers with bad tyres or bad brakes or speeding or otherwise breaking the law who got treated more leniently by far? 

Want to explain why the non-road-legal brakes were relevant to the case, and how they make it different from the thousands of cases of motorists being let off for being surprised at such unexpected events as 'the sun being in the sky'?

 

And, really, you think there are no cases of motorists sounding their horn or shouting anything before running into someone?  Even in this very case right here the driver had time to comment on the cyclist being there (and at no point did I say the driver should be blamed in this case, so why are you misrepresenting what I said?).

 

Want to try, and fail dismally, to cite anything comparable in unscientific idiocy to the attempted police 'reconstruction' of the Aliston case, for a motorist case?

 

Oh, and if you'd mind demonstrating that the cases of motorists running into and killing people each get the same extent of media coverage as the Aliston case, that would be good too.  If you can't, maybe you should just apologise for your misguided attempt at a snark?

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FluffyKittenofT... | 4 years ago
3 likes

Linked newspaper report also has an item about a pensioner being killed by being knocked down by another pensioner on a mobility scooter.  Slightly surprised the Daily Mail types aren't going berserk about that one.  I guess mobility-scooter users don't rank quite as highly as cyclists on their hate-list.

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Hirsute | 4 years ago
4 likes

" The investigator makes an assumption that the junction has priority for the motorist when there's no signage, why"
Because the cyclist came from a private side road. A car from the side road would giveway to a cyclist on the main road in that instance.

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Mybike | 4 years ago
1 like

To me it sound like the cyclist ran a stop sign

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CyclingInBeastMode replied to Mybike | 4 years ago
0 likes

Mybike wrote:

To me it sound like the cyclist ran a stop sign

Well you'd be wrong, go look at the incident location on google maps.

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AlsoSomniloquism replied to CyclingInBeastMode | 4 years ago
1 like

CyclingInBeastMode wrote:

Mybike wrote:

To me it sound like the cyclist ran a stop sign

Well you'd be wrong, go look at the incident location on google maps.

At a guess it is here with the cyclist coming out of the private road on the right which is only marked with end of road markings essentially. No indication of which way the car was coming from but there are curves either side which would make seeing a car coming harder on the way to the junction. Interestingly there are warning signs about horses on approach from either direction only. 

 

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Hirsute replied to AlsoSomniloquism | 4 years ago
0 likes

AlsoSomniloquism wrote:

CyclingInBeastMode wrote:

Mybike wrote:

To me it sound like the cyclist ran a stop sign

Well you'd be wrong, go look at the incident location on google maps.

At a guess it is here with the cyclist coming out of the private road on the right which is only marked with end of road markings essentially. No indication of which way the car was coming from but there are curves either side which would make seeing a car coming harder on the way to the junction. Interestingly there are warning signs about horses on approach from either direction only.

That's what I thought too.

The road marking meets the description of diagram 1009A

Edge of the carriageway at a road junction, exit from a private drive onto a public road, or the start of a cycle lane

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2016/362/schedule/11/part/4/made?vie...

 

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FluffyKittenofT... replied to Mybike | 4 years ago
0 likes

Mybike wrote:

To me it sound like the cyclist ran a stop sign

The report doesn't say anything about a 'stop sign'.  The fact that it does say the 'give way' sign was no-longer visible surely implies there is no 'stop sign', just a no-longer-visible 'give way' sign (wonder why it's no longer visible?  Overgrown foilage or faded road markings?)

Aren't "stop signs" pretty much exclusively a US thing, anyway? 

Avatar
AlsoSomniloquism replied to FluffyKittenofTindalos | 4 years ago
0 likes

FluffyKittenofTindalos wrote:

Mybike wrote:

To me it sound like the cyclist ran a stop sign

The report doesn't say anything about a 'stop sign'.  The fact that it does say the 'give way' sign was no-longer visible surely implies there is no 'stop sign', just a no-longer-visible 'give way' sign (wonder why it's no longer visible?  Overgrown foilage or faded road markings?)

Aren't "stop signs" pretty much exclusively a US thing, anyway? 

Nope, red hexagon and solid white line in this country as well indicates vehicles must stop fully before continuing. 

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vonhelmet replied to AlsoSomniloquism | 4 years ago
0 likes
AlsoSomniloquism wrote:

FluffyKittenofTindalos wrote:

Mybike wrote:

To me it sound like the cyclist ran a stop sign

The report doesn't say anything about a 'stop sign'.  The fact that it does say the 'give way' sign was no-longer visible surely implies there is no 'stop sign', just a no-longer-visible 'give way' sign (wonder why it's no longer visible?  Overgrown foilage or faded road markings?)

Aren't "stop signs" pretty much exclusively a US thing, anyway? 

Nope, red hexagon and solid white line in this country as well indicates vehicles must stop fully before continuing. 

Octagon! The only octagonal sign by design, so that it can be identified even if obscured.

And yes, they are definitely present in the UK. I grew up in a town with one at a junction at the bottom of a steep hill with no visibility either way on the road you were joining.

Avatar
CyclingInBeastMode | 4 years ago
3 likes

Expect the unexpected, isn't that what judges/police are telling cyclists all the time with pedestrians stepping out, why isn't this being applied to motorists?

He had time to shout just like Alliston, which he was lambasted over because if he was shouting then apparently he'd have time to brake, so why wasn't the motorist able to brake in time, was it anything to do with excessive speed. Police stating impact speed was 44mph without actually saying what the speed before impact is rather snide if you ask me! The impact speed suggests that the driver was in excess of 60mph does it not?

The pedestrian in the Alliston case did something similar to the cyclist here, yet the tone and investigation is a complete reversal. The statement by the investigator said "no criticism of the driver in any way" Maybe driving slower under the MAXIMUM posted limit given the reduced distance to see at the junctions and observing to the periphery would have meant being able to stop or swerve, given the time the driver had to shout in the car which takes two seconds to say the seeing the cylcist 1.8s before appears to me to be BS.

Smells like the usual moton investigation of another moton.

Either way it's yet another minor road with a speed limit that is far in excess of what it should be.

 

Avatar
Legin replied to CyclingInBeastMode | 4 years ago
8 likes
CyclingInBeastMode wrote:

Expect the unexpected, isn't that what judges/police are telling cyclists all the time with pedestrians stepping out, why isn't this being applied to motorists?

He had time to shout just like Alliston, which he was lambasted over because if he was shouting then apparently he'd have time to brake, so why wasn't the motorist able to brake in time, was it anything to do with excessive speed. Police stating impact speed was 44mph without actually saying what the speed before impact is rather snide if you ask me! The impact speed suggests that the driver was in excess of 60mph does it not?

The pedestrian in the Alliston case did something similar to the cyclist here, yet the tone and investigation is a complete reversal. The statement by the investigator said "no criticism of the driver in any way" Maybe driving slower under the MAXIMUM posted limit given the reduced distance to see at the junctions and observing to the periphery would have meant being able to stop or swerve, given the time the driver had to shout in the car which takes two seconds to say the seeing the cylcist 1.8s before appears to me to be BS.

Smells like the usual moton investigation of another moton.

Either way it's yet another minor road with a speed limit that is far in excess of what it should be.

 

Really, are you serious? As stated a tragedy for all involved. I think the general advice is to stop at main roads to check they are clear; at no point do you acknowledge the accident may have been due to a mistake by the cyclist. It's interesting that you are keen for the same erroneous judgment from the Allison case to be repeated rather than corrected.

Avatar
CyclingInBeastMode replied to Legin | 4 years ago
1 like

Legin wrote:
CyclingInBeastMode wrote:

Expect the unexpected, isn't that what judges/police are telling cyclists all the time with pedestrians stepping out, why isn't this being applied to motorists?

He had time to shout just like Alliston, which he was lambasted over because if he was shouting then apparently he'd have time to brake, so why wasn't the motorist able to brake in time, was it anything to do with excessive speed. Police stating impact speed was 44mph without actually saying what the speed before impact is rather snide if you ask me! The impact speed suggests that the driver was in excess of 60mph does it not?

The pedestrian in the Alliston case did something similar to the cyclist here, yet the tone and investigation is a complete reversal. The statement by the investigator said "no criticism of the driver in any way" Maybe driving slower under the MAXIMUM posted limit given the reduced distance to see at the junctions and observing to the periphery would have meant being able to stop or swerve, given the time the driver had to shout in the car which takes two seconds to say the seeing the cylcist 1.8s before appears to me to be BS.

Smells like the usual moton investigation of another moton.

Either way it's yet another minor road with a speed limit that is far in excess of what it should be.

 

Really, are you serious? As stated a tragedy for all involved. I think the general advice is to stop at main roads to check they are clear; at no point do you acknowledge the accident may have been due to a mistake by the cyclist. It's interesting that you are keen for the same erroneous judgment from the Allison case to be repeated rather than corrected.

At no point have I said the driver was at fault, all I'm saying is that in similar scenario a cyclist was asked to act/react to a far higher standard than the motorist in this case. Why is that? If the motorist had time to shout out what he did and then brake then he had time to stop surely, that's precisely what the police state that Charlie Alliston should have done despite the secondary action of the deceased moving back into his path with even less time/distance than the motorist had here. Why is there a huge discrepency in expected reaction/thinking time for different road users in very similar scenarios with same outcome, why was the cyclist at fault in one case and a motorist completely absolved in another when we can see quite clearly the similarities?

The seeing the cyclist within 2 seconds is debatable if you look at the location, the investigator gives no beforehand speed, just an impact speed, why? The investigator makes an assumption that the junction has priority for the motorist when there's no signage, why?

Equity within the law and by investigators is all that is being asked, currently, this and other cases highlight that is simply not happening.

 

Avatar
AlsoSomniloquism replied to CyclingInBeastMode | 4 years ago
1 like

CyclingInBeastMode wrote:

Expect the unexpected, isn't that what judges/police are telling cyclists all the time with pedestrians stepping out, why isn't this being applied to motorists?

He had time to shout just like Alliston, which he was lambasted over because if he was shouting then apparently he'd have time to brake, so why wasn't the motorist able to brake in time, was it anything to do with excessive speed. Police stating impact speed was 44mph without actually saying what the speed before impact is rather snide if you ask me! The impact speed suggests that the driver was in excess of 60mph does it not?

The pedestrian in the Alliston case did something similar to the cyclist here, yet the tone and investigation is a complete reversal. The statement by the investigator said "no criticism of the driver in any way" Maybe driving slower under the MAXIMUM posted limit given the reduced distance to see at the junctions and observing to the periphery would have meant being able to stop or swerve, given the time the driver had to shout in the car which takes two seconds to say the seeing the cylcist 1.8s before appears to me to be BS.

Smells like the usual moton investigation of another moton.

Either way it's yet another minor road with a speed limit that is far in excess of what it should be.

Whilst I know your disgust on some of the Alliston case, there is nothing here to state the driver wasn't braking when he shouted out. They state he had less then 2 seconds and most of that would be reaction time unfortunately. They also said just before the impact was the exclamation so reaction time and braking would have been occurring anyway. And 44mph estimate at impact is probably a measurement of brakes marks to stop area. As it takes approx  6 -7 seconds to stop completely from 60mph with hard braking so there would be no way he could have been above 60 to get to 44mph in less then a second. 

Of course that assumes all the Police measurements are initially correct which I also know is a bugbear. 

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