Motorist called “disrespectful” by coroner for refusing to answer questions after causing cyclist’s death

I aggree 100%, but the road is likely a 60mph speed limit and muppets iterpret it as reasonable according to it 

The Echo article says that she said she was driving at 18 mph on the approach to the bend.  Which is actually pretty reasonable, and as HLaB says, is a lot better than many motorists do on those sorts of roads.

What this incident illustrates, I guess, is that a two tonne metal box powered by an internal combustion engine can kill someone at any speed.

Clearly the road isn't suitable for motor vehicles!

Ironically, I've never cycled it, but I've cycled on both the A roads that parallel it, the A30 and the A303.

I’ve cycled along that very lane many times, but I’ve calculated the most recent occasion was, sadly, 53 years ago.   If I remember rightly, Joe Strummer and family lived in a farmhouse on the lane.

But where did 18mph come from ?
Still seems too fast for the road. What happened to stop within the distance you can see to be clear?

On a lane like that, the rule is double the distance you can see to be clear.

If it's accurate, the cyclist doing 15 mph, the motorist doing 18 mph, then stopping distances might be quite similar for each, factoring in ABS.

Which would mean potentially they were both failing to uphold that.

Solocle wrote:

On a lane like that, the rule is double the distance you can see to be clear.

Half, presumably? I.e. be able to stop in half the distance you can see to be clear, to allow for closing speed. I think people forget that an oncoming driver is also going to use some of the space they can see to be clear.  

I think that is just phrasing the same thing in slightly different words. ie if you can stop in 10m, then you need to allow 20m as the distance you can see to be clear.

Cyclists were travelling at 15mph, same accusation could be thrown there. Accident investigators estimated both speeds, (cyclists might even have had strava). Whilst it wouldn't be the first case of investigators getting things wrong, they also probably get them right more times. 

But it is still unclear which direction they were all travelling in.

I should be very interested in how the 18 was derived.

I doubt it was unclear to the Police and the coroner. However look at it this way. If the car was travelling at 18 mph and the cyclists at 15 mph into the same bend, then  I doubt the Police and coroner would be stating there was nothing that could have been done for either party, plus a 3mph closing speed would not have had the force to make a loud sound or have the cyclist going up and over the bonnet. Plus the witness in front wouldn't be stating he saw the car first and then heard the bang behind him, but would have been stating hearing the bang and then looking behind him. 

As for the 18 mph, braking tracks plus the eye witness accounts. The car woudn't have taken long to stop in the dry, but with a closing speed of 33mph....

"she would instead have been able to stop within the distance she could see to be clear!"

Sorry to be the pedent but this absolutely guarantees hitting another vehicle on a narrow lane using that thought process.

If you work on the stoping within the distance you can see (which maybe she was..), it doesn't take into account that if you encounter a vehicle coming in the opposite way doing the same thing, then all that braking distance you had planned on has now gone, and you'll hit the opposite vechicle midway in that space.

Absolutely not wanting to victim-blame but sadly - even when there are two lanes / road is wider - if as a cyclist you can't see round a corner currently you need to consider what your options will be if a vehicle suddenly appears.  Quite possibly going too fast or even in the wrong lane.

This of course can mean more problems as if you move left a vehicle behind you may think it's their cue to overtake (into a blind bend)...

Seems the victim was behind the witness/other cyclist as that person was quoted as he saw the car then heard the bang behind him. He must have been lucky to not be hit but might have been more into the turn manouvre where his colleague behind might have been further out to then take the apex. 

Of course that eaxctly the same consideration should have been given by the driver of the car. However we must also understand that with no licence or insurance, she had absolutely no right to be on the road in the first place. With the collision coming from behind your point is however actually irrelevant. She also claimed to be driving at 18mph, with the cyclist coming at 15mph. It is indeed unfortunate to have died from such an impact, if that was indeed her speed.

didsthewinegeek wrote:

Of course that eaxctly the same consideration should have been given by the driver of the car. However we must also understand that with no licence or insurance, she had absolutely no right to be on the road in the first place. With the collision coming from behind your point is however actually irrelevant. She also claimed to be driving at 18mph, with the cyclist coming at 15mph. It is indeed unfortunate to have died from such an impact, if that was indeed her speed.

We don't have all the info.  I'd assumed a head on collision (e.g. first cyclist got round the bend and passed the car as it entered the bend coming the other way and hit the second cyclist).  However it is not clear from this article or the original.

As AlsoSomniloquism has said although the licence and insurance points seem strange there could be reasons why this was suspected but then was not the case (or at least not sustainable in court).

It is a good idea on left-hand turns with restricted visibility to position towards the right hand side. E.g., of your own lane on 2-way road, or near the right of the road on a single-track. This obviously gives you significantly more visibility down the road and through the corner, giving both you and any motorist more time to take action.

You can quickly duck left again. On a single-track road, you can do that OR even exit the road right - lifting the bike up and just going straight and off the road to the right side of the corner may be the quickest and best escape route on some blind left-hand corners on single-track country lanes.

On the second charge, depends when the arrest happened, but maybe she hadn't recieved her license officially (she had only passed for 3 months) or it hadn''t been updated on records the Police had due to delays. (covid etc.)

So once she had the documentation, that was then dropped. 

As she was adamant she had done nothing wrong, I'm surprised she didn't want to talk at the inqury though. 

mctrials23 wrote:

They wouldn't act the same way if it was a car coming the other direction. 

Only because they know that another car hitting them might cause them an injury or - god forbid! - damage their vehicle.

They know that a cyclist will come off worse, so really couldn't GAF.

They seem to think that when it comes to small roads cyclists should get out of their way

There's no 'seem to' about it- they really do think that.

Yep. In Surrey on narrow roads with enough room to pass safely by slowing down and moving over to the left a bit, oncoming drivers do neither (it's as if a cyclist wasn't there) so I can only presume they couldn't care less if they kill or seriously injure someone.