A motorist who admitted causing the death of a cyclist by driving carelessly in Aberdeen has been ordered to carry out unpaid work.
Stephen Cocker, 51, lost control of his silver BMW while overtaking a bus and hit father-of-three Neil Jaffrey.
The 32-year-old died after the collision on North Anderson Drive in September 2014.
Cocker was told to carry out 225 hours of unpaid work at Aberdeen Sheriff Court.
He was also disqualified from driving for three years.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-36561871

What a crock of shit.

A cyclists life is cheap

Denied it at 1st appearance yet admitted it 2nd appearance.

Excuse my language but that is **** atrocious 225 hours is 6 weeks work. A month and a half of unpaid work for killing someone, the equivalent of a day more than most peoples annual leave allowance for a year.

So long as people keep getting let off for killing vulnerable road users the more it is deemed ok and the greater the divide becomes.

Does Scotland have that thing where if enough people protest the decision, the sentence can be reviewed?

As this is horseshit.

Nevermind that thread about buying handguns, If I ever need to bump anyone off I’m going to buy them a bike and then hit them with a car.

Does Scotland have that thing where if enough people protest the decision, the sentence can be reviewed?

Put me down as a protester if it does cos this is absolute bullshit!

It’s a UK wide defence now, plead guilty to “careless” not “dangerous” driving and you’ll walk… Solicitors simply doing their jobs…

The CPS just lack the stomach to chase a “causing death by dangerous driving” charge, of course you have to consider also, what benefit/purpose/outcome a custodial sentence would have each case…

What a four letter word, bet he laughed himself to sleep after sentencing.

Erm. Speechless!!

OK, I may have this wrong but this is my understanding of how the law works. You get punished for the action not the consequences?
So he made a mistake driving and skidded or whatever. On 9 out of 10 days it would just be a skid. On this day there happened to be a guy on the bike there.

He didn’t plan to hit/kill someone, he was just careless with his driving so that’s what he is punished for. Of course because he caused a death he ended up in court and because someone died he got a high sentence for that offence’s sentencing range. If he’d just skidded he probably wouldn’t have even been in court.

So…. if you follow that through then it’s kind of the guy on the bikes own fault for being out there and vulnerable. He should be in a big tank or suit of armour.

^ that is obviously bullshit but seems to be the way it works? So, the system needs changed…

Well. He was driving down the road and somehow managed to get his Beemer across the central reservation to kill a cyclist on another carriageway. Sort of thing that could happen anybody.

Guitarhero – yes, that’s about right.

It would be a bit like someone holding a gun (who was legally allowed to carry it with them, e.g. a policeman) and ‘accidentally’ shooting someone, and then only getting charged for accidentally firing a bullet, and not for killing someone.

Whatever the law or the reason for the sentence, it’s bullshit and certainly isn’t justice, in my opinion.

Its an accident he didn’t mean it yadda yadda ok so a tiny sentence (crock of shit but that’s the system)

BUT SURELY he should be banned from driving for life? He’s admitted he cant drive safely.

Well. He was driving down the road and somehow managed to get his Beemer across the central reservation to kill a cyclist on another carriageway. Sort of thing that could happen anybody.

While I agree it’s bollocks, there is a point to be had there.

When I was 18 I lost it my mum’s Laguna whilst going too fast on a back road in the rain. I was driving beyond my abilities, and ended up on the wrong side of the road whilst going quite quickly. Because no cyclists were there at the time, I didn’t kill anyone and didn’t go to jail. Had there been a cyclist there and I had killed them, would anything have been gained by jailing me for, say, 10 years?

That’s ridiculous. How the hell did he manage that on N/Anderson Drive. That’s a definite complaint to the Procurator Fiscal (not cps up here)

Scandalous decision.

Kenneththecurtain- Yes. It might stop **** driving like ****. You should have been banned!

So what is a suitable punishment? Death for the driver?

OK, I may have this wrong but this is my understanding of how the law works. You get punished for the action not the consequences?
So he made a mistake driving and skidded or whatever. On 9 out of 10 days it would just be a skid. On this day there happened to be a guy on the bike there.

It doesn’t quite work like that, you do get an element of the actual consequence factored in to the sentence, I forget the legal jargon.

In im 2 minds about it. I think your right in that you should be punished for the crime alone, BUT equally it should be that basic sentences for carelessness are strong enough deterrent to focus peoples minds, they arn not at the moment.

Currently people act selfishly all the time in every aspect of life because the risk of reprisal is so low, risk being chance of occurance (how often do you get it that wrong you crash?) and the consequences (negligible if you hit the barrier or another car). The risk of hitting a cyclist AND them dying is even less.

There is also the fact that if you are going to punish careless driving harder you need to jail everyone that has a minor shunt, as there has most likely to have been a lack of care for it to happen.

Whatever those thoughts, in this case hours of community service achieve nothing, its just not right.

Suitable punishment for me is some jail time and a ban for life.

If you beat someone over the head, you’ll get done for GBH if they live and murder if they die. Why should driving offences be any different?

Imnotverygood – because that would be a deliberate act, not an act of carelessness. There has to be an intention to hurt someone in those examples.

As the law sees it, anyway.

Again, I’m torn over the issue. This sentence seems light, but we haven’t seen the full evidence. You can do a huge amount of harm in a vehicle with even a fractional loss of concentration, jailing every driver and banning them for life automatically “could” be excessive in some circumstances. If someone sneezes, swerves, and kills me, well, shit happens. Someone kills me driving like an utter ****, they should never drive again after having a year or two to reflect on it at HM Pleasure.

All motoring offences need clamping down on, with fines, points and bans with no get out options. If people are made to realise that a licence is a privilege you can lose by being a dick, and it will massively inconvenience you without it, then more severe offences may reduce.

The problem is that the police and CPS are reluctant to push for Dangerous Driving in more cases. Careless driving should cover momentary inattention and distraction.

DD has a fairly simple definition, doesn’t even require much in the way of intent, perhaps just recklessness.

the way he/she drives falls far below what would be expected of a competent and careful driver, and it would be obvious to a competent and careful driver that driving in that way would be dangerous

But seems to have to pass a threshold in terms of prosecutions of sustained severe recklessness, usually with some kind of additional factor – drink, drugs, road rage etc.

This is a general point about charging decisions – don’t know the exact circumstances of the decision to overtake the bus here. However, in general, the decision to overtake a moving vehicle is one where ‘careful and competent’ drivers should be completely focused on the risks.

Maybe I’ve just been incredibly lucky, but despite all the “fractional losses of concentration” and sneezes I’ve had while driving, I’ve never managed to drive right over the central reservation of a dual carriageway and hit someone head-on on the other side.

Lucky, sarcastic and smug. What a charmed life you’ve led!

You’ve managed to prove that what this guy did falls well outside the kind of circumstances I was alluding to.

The murderer will now have to get a bike to get to his unpaid work, best get a camera some idiots on the roads round there, cant even overtake a bus safely………..

Not sure about this one tbh. The ruling seems to be based on the fact he basically wasn’t doing anything too mental. No excess speed… There’s no explanation given for the loss of control mind which seems weird, surely that’s absolutely the critical point?

Although it’s awful, the guy didn’t set out to kill someone. He will have to live with it for the rest of his life

Yes he was driving like a dick, and probably should have been banned for life

It is true that it’s harder to prove dangerous driving than it is to prove careless driving. But that’s why the offence of causing death by careless driving (which can result in up to 5 years imprisonment) was introduced a few years ago, to sit below the offence of causing death by dangerous driving (up to 14 yrs I think).

I’ve had a sit down talk with my Mrs and told her that if ever I get killed whilst commuting (commute by bike pretty much every day) too not bother pushing for a conviction and to just let it go. I wouldn’t want her to suffer the further pain of a court case after my death knowing what the likely outcome would be. Its not worth it.

Denied it at 1st appearance yet admitted it 2nd appearance.

normal for that to happen in a lot of cases and its a wise choice particularly in this case due to the way the courts work up here. he will have been advised that by his solicitor.

Theres no way the car ends up in that position if your not doing anything silly…..

You’re completely wrong, trail_rat. In fact

there was no “excessive speed” involved in the accident and no explanation had been given as to why Cocker lost control of the car as road conditions were “unremarkable”.

[img]http://ichef-1.bbci.co.uk/news/555/cpsprodpb/6BD1/production/_90010672_cyclist.jpg[/img]
Going from the picture, I’m going with the driver being victim of a supernatural event, while doing the speed limit (which from the image I’m assuming was 85mph, right ?)

Theres no way the car ends up in that position if your not doing anything silly…..

Saw a car rolled onto its side from an impact at about 20mph a couple of months ago. Clipped the front end of a parked car. So I’m not sure we can read much about the speed from this pic.

Where on Anderson Drive is that? And anyone know which way he was driving north or south?

Have to say it isn’t a nice road to cycle, but that doesn’t excuse the driver.

He’s not even on north anderson drive anymore and is facing the wrong way and on his side.

Yet he was traveling south on nad and has crossed the north caridgeway into another side road crossing 2 central reservationd

racked with regret, sorrow and deep remorse

what happened that day will live with him for the rest of his life

He lives with this moment every waking minute

He was unable to face driving again at all for, oooh, almost 36 hours

one of the above is made up – any guesses?

because that would be a deliberate act, not an act of carelessness

I understand the logic of this, but what if someone deliberately decides to be careless?

Because that’s what happens in so many incidents. The incident itself is through carelessness, but the driver has made a conscious decision that they;re willing to risk someone else’s life so they can get where they’re going a bit faster.

Exactly ben – and choosing to be careless with anything other than a car and killing somebody you’d be facing a manslaughter charge, the sentencing for which is somewhat harsher. It seems that choosing to be careless whilst driving is so much the norm that we have to have a whole different set of offences and sentencing.

I’d love to know the full details, that road is normally very busy so there must have been eye witnesses. But to flip your car into the other carriageway and then some must take a bit of doing.

Does make you wonder mind as I often use Anderson Drive as part of one of my running routes albeit not that exact section. And I used to cycled the section from the Haudagain to Clifton Road. Glad I no longer cycle that route.

Kenneththecurtain- Yes. It might stop **** driving like ****. You should have been banned!

That’s kind of my point – people don’t get banned (or even punished) for the type of incident I described. Had a police car been following me at that moment I imagine I’d have been pulled over and given a stern talking to, and maybe they would have told my mum – I’d be surprised if it went any further than that.

I would wager that the majority of drivers have been involved in some sort of bump/scrape/loss of control/crash at some point in their driving careers, but they don’t get charged because the consequence is generally a scratch to a bumper or, as in my example, a sudden need for fresh undercrackers.

That doesn’t make it right, and I’m not claiming that this guy wasn’t being an arse, but it must be difficult to pin a massive sentence on someone if you can’t prove that what happened was anything other than an accident.

EDIT: I should add that I used to cycle to work at Dyce, not a million miles away from there. The standard of driving is (or was) horrible in that region. The judge could perhaps have used this case to clamp down on **** driving, but it appears that opportunity was missed.