12 months, cyclist wearing hi viz (which they always want us to wear) driver didn’t see him until he was on her bonnet.

https://road.cc/content/news/259117-12-month-ban-pensioner-who-didnt-see-cyclist-she-killed-until-he-was-her-bonnet.

As both a driver and a bike rider..I can honestly hold my hands up and say that there have been times in my life when I havent given full attention / have been distracted momentarily while both riding and driving ..
In my opinion this has been an unfortunate accident with tragic consequences ..
What sort of sentence would you deem adequate OP

Too lenient – back driving in 12 months – no retest even. Wow!

My guess is she won’t be back driving in 12months.

What sort of sentence would you deem adequate OP

Something of sufficient consequence to indicate that killing people because of a “moment of inattention” is not acceptable. I don’t want her to drive again – a custodial sentence? I wouldn’t be against it.

Something of sufficient consequence to indicate that killing people because of a “moment of inattention” is not acceptable. I don’t want her to drive again – a custodial sentence? I wouldn’t be against it.

If you gave a custodial sentence for every “moment of inattention” literally every driver would be in prison. …and if you extended that to Cyclists then every Cyclists would be in prison too.

If you could rely on people to be focussed 24/7 then there would be no safety benefit to driverless cars.

Pondo ..while respecting your opinion can you honestly say that you have never once in your life had a moment of inattention?
Should ( god forbid ) you find yourself in the same predicament then I can only hope you stand by your comments ..

This is NOT an accident. an accident is unforeseen and unpreventable. this is perfectly preventable this is death by careless driving.

On the face of it, another shit decision by the judiciary in cyclist injury/death incident.

I’m sorry, this wasn’t “a moment of inattention” this would have been a considerable time of just not looking where they were **** going.
I understand people make mistakes, and when they do, they should pay the consequences, not a crappy 12 month ban.

Accidents do happen, it’s the ones where wilful neglect of an existing condition significantly contributes to such events that need to be addressed.

Mandatory eye tests (not at your regular optician) for all drivers and riders involved in road traffic accidents with the results sent to DVLA. Automatic suspension of licence until fault is established – the police regularly complain of this, they have to wait for DVLA to suspend the licence.

This is NOT an accident. an accident is unforeseen and unpreventable. this is perfectly preventable this is death by careless driving.

Careless driving: “Driving that falls below the standard expected of a competent driver”.

We *all* do this now and then. Yes it needs to be punished but lets not pretend it’s anything other than accidental.

And yes, it *is* unforseen and unpreventable. A few years back I pulled out onto a roundabout I know well. After I’d done it I realized I hadn’t looked right. Luckily nothing was about so no collision. Never done it before, never done it since. It was certainly unforeseeable. Preventable? I’d say not. I’m not a machine, I will make mistakes from time to time.

As both a driver and a bike rider..I can honestly hold my hands up and say that there have been times in my life when I havent given full attention / have been distracted momentarily while both riding and driving ..

Has it ever happened in flowing traffic on an A-road ?
Did it involve you having no idea at all of the existence of a brightly coloured, human-sized object already on the road in front of you in clear, bright conditions ?

A “moment’s inattention” is presented by defence lawyers (and now, apparently, judges) to imply a tiny fraction of time but in most of these cases it seems it’s many, many seconds of not bothering your arse

Judge said the offence resulted from “a second or two moments’ inattention from a lady with an impeccable driving record”

quickly followed by, “and it was just a cyclist”!
Spot on TJ

I understand people make mistakes, and when they do, they should pay the consequences, not a crappy 12 month ban.

Just ban transport then because anyone who claims to have made no mistakes in 12 months is lying.

I presume you don’t use the roads as anything other than a pedestrian?

I don’t think a custodial sentence would be unreasonable. Apparently the fear of killing someone while driving is not sufficient to make people act responsibly so perhaps the fear of some prison time would sharpen their focus more.

(I like to think that if I killed someone because of a moment’s inattention that you wouldn’t need to call for me to be banned – I’d never drive again anyway)

This is NOT an accident. an accident is unforeseen and unpreventable

And unintentional.

Selectively quoting definitions is probably not helpful. She should have been handed a driving ban. Which seems reasonable, prison no.

(I like to think that if I killed someone because of a moment’s inattention that you wouldn’t need to call for me to be banned – I’d never drive again anyway)

…and yet you do drive. And like all of us you have moments of inattention.

So basically you’re just playing Russian roulette with other people’s lives. You’re happy to drive in the hope you’ll be one of the lucky ones who’s mistakes have no consequences. but *after* you killed someone you’d quit.

Why not quit now and *save* the life you might end rather than waiting for someone to die and then quitting?

…and yet you do drive. And like all of us you have moments of inattention.

Ah, sorry, was using the defendant definition of “a moment” there. Should’ve been more clear. If you were using the same definition then I say you’re wrong. I genuinely don’t think I’ve failed to look at the road ahead for more than 1-2 seconds and I pay attention when I am looking. Things don’t appear out of nowhere (another court favourite!) in front of me – thus far anyway

As usual, it is impossible to know what actually happened from the scant information given. I see 3 scenarios:

1. The driver was aware of the cyclist and then following “a second or two moments inattention” crashed into him. Completely unacceptable driving. When you see a hazard you concentrate fully until you’re safely past it, surely? Did the driver fall asleep at the wheel? Long ban/retest/prison IMO

2. The driver was not aware of the cyclist until hitting him. Again unacceptable. Should not be driving if totally lacking in hazard awareness. Long ban/retest/prison IMO

3. The cyclist was beamed down directly in front of the driver from the Starship Enterprise. Yup, bad luck. Could’ve happened to any one of us. Still could’ve braked though. 12 month ban?

Imagine if this was any other mode of transport. Imagine a tram driver knocking over a pedestrian through the town centre (even if the pedestrian was a phone zombie crossing the tracks), imagine if it was a forklift driver in a warehouse or a helicopter pilot coming in to land on an oil rig killing someone. There’d be investigations, interrogation of black box / dash cam etc, Health & Safety involvement, maybe RIDDOR…

But in a car? Just an accident, crack on. No issues, no attempt to fix any underlying problem, nothing much in the news. No requirement for dash cams or black boxes or a very serious retesting of a driver who (given her age) will last have been tested in about 1969. That’s just a disgrace – in literally no other walk of professional life are you allowed to take ONE test in the 1960’s and then never again in spite of the massive increases in power & capability of the vehicle you’re driving and in the amount of traffic on the roads.

Now imagine that a cyclist had caused that death, imagine if perhaps a racing cyclist overtook this guy, clipped him / knocked him into the kerb etc via a “moment of inattention”. Bet you the media would be all over it.

If you have seen it you will understand why humans make mistakes.

That gorilla clip relies largely on people NOT LOOKING for gorillas, as well as having to track a deliberately complex “distraction”

If you’re not looking for cyclists, or you find that just tracking a few cars on the road is too much for you, you need to stop driving

Either some top trolling going on here or a massive amount of victim blaming.

Soft squishy humans and high velocity unyielding heavy objects should not occupy the same space.

The problem is cars have taken over public spaces. Streets have become like rivers separating each side of the street, and not community space. Kids no longer play there.

Riding on the road is like walking through a shooting range and relying on the shooters aiming correctly, or in some cases actually looking before shooting.

With modern H&S regulations, there’s no way cars and cyclists and pedestrians would occupy the same space if the car was just invented.

The answer is obvious, but we’ll continue to ignore it.

Out of breath – that is avoidable therefore NOT an accident. Momentary innatention is NOT accidental. In the example you gave again – completely avoidable.

However – Jail time? What good would that do? Punishment? an eye for an eye makes us all blind. Rehabilitation? I very much doubt a short prison sentence would rehabilitate. Deterrence – its not a situation that can be deterred.

Life driving ban for sure but to me this simply shows how much tougher we should be on driving. Mandatory retesting, much harder testing, much more enforcement.

Let’s not forget she seems to have pleaded Not Guilty – so the sentence is higher than it could have been…

I don’t think it’s about not making mistakes, because nobody doesn’t not make mistakes occasionally. But not paying attention for a sufficient amount of time drive into another road user is a different category of mistake, and there should be consequences.

“That gorilla clip relies largely on people NOT LOOKING for gorillas, as well as having to track a deliberately complex “distraction””

Its got nothing to do with people not looking for gorillas, its to do with task loading. As soon as the brain has something it sees as important to deal with it ignores other things. If it has more than one thing it deems important it gets even worse.

@tjagain From oxford dictionary

“an unfortunate incident that happens unexpectedly and unintentionally, typically resulting in damage or injury.”

Sounds like what happened to me, so I think you’re wrong about it not being an accident.

or a massive amount of victim blaming.

I see not one syllable of victim blaming anywhere – would you care to point one out.

Too many people confuse the crime and the consequence when it comes to thinking of a suitable sentence. My mind always goes back the Selby train crash. Horrifically 10 people died because a stupid man drove when tired and drove off the road into a ditch. Only problem is the ditch he drove into had a train line in the bottom of it. Gary Hart (driver) was given a 5 year prison sentence. I’m not sure I have much of a problem with that….apart from (I can’t find the link now) 8 other people in the UK drove off the road into ditches because because they fell asleep at the wheel that month and non of them received as much as a caution. Exactly the same crime, exactly the same level of recklessness, all left the road for the same reason but different consequence so different penalty. That does not sit well with me. To demand a higher penalty because the consequence was higher just smacks of some sort of primitive revenge urge.

I don’t think it’s about not making mistakes, because nobody doesn’t not make mistakes occasionally. But not paying attention for a sufficient amount of time drive into another road user is a different category of mistake, and there should be consequences.

+1 and I’d be in favour of a longer ban plus annual retest for as long as they held a licence for in this instance.

Some poor form trolling on this thread, someone died

Everyone should have to retest, every 10 years.

I’m not so much in favour of jail time for accidents but you should be massively financially impacted by paying compensation to the family who have lost someone. Loss of earnings multiplied by years left to work, plus fine. If it bankrupts people tough it’s unlucky you should have run someone over.

Bazzer, I’m with you that this appears to meet the linguistic definition of an accident. This is an age old TJ hobby horse you won’t win. He’s been shown that definition more times than I care to mention over the years. If the driver had estimated she could get past the cyclist before a narrowing the road and took a chance that would not be an accident as it would be reasonable to expect that hitting them was a possible outcome. If a driver intentionally lost concentration with what was going on in front of them in order to look at a text that would not be an accident. If a driver looks left and right at a junction but fails to see something which they then hit that is an accident. Or the situation as described here. It does not mean they were at fault but it is still an accident. I think the problem is that some people (incorrectly) think the term accident removes the concept of fault. It can be an accident and still be someone’s fault.

Overload is a real thing and our vulnerability to suffer from it is enhanced by lack of experience, tireness, drink and also age. I look at my mother’s driving (just a little older that the driver here) and see a marked decline in her ability to handle overload despite still driving everyday.

Its got nothing to do with people not looking for gorillas, its to do with task loading. As soon as the brain has something it sees as important to deal with it ignores other things.

“nothing” – really ? What do you think would have happened if subjects were told “watch this clip and tell us how many gorillas you see” ?

If it has more than one thing it deems important it gets even worse

Yes, especially if one of the tasks is deliberately made complex like the ball-passing in the clip; it’s an extreme example to illustrate a point that I don’t believe can be extrapolated to normal driving. If I ever found myself in traffic that was as difficult to track visually as the players/action in that clip, I’d pull over and wait for it to calm down.

I genuinely don’t think I’ve failed to look at the road ahead for more than 1-2 seconds and I pay attention when I am looking.

Which is dangerously complacent and certainly what this woman would have said the day before this incident. Almost everyone *thinks* their observation is good. The evidence we see every day in other drivers is that our observation isn’t as good as we think it is.

The fact you can make that statement makes me think you should do some driver training ASAP. IAM/Rospa is a very cheap way to have an impartial third party confirm if your observation is as good as you think it is.

But not paying attention for a sufficient amount of time drive into another road user is a different category of mistake, and there should be consequences.

I’d agree with that. Everyone who crashes regardless of fault needs an immediate ban pending a prompt retest on top of whatever other action is taken.

My objection is to the idea of taking the subset of inattentive people who are unlucky enough to harm someone and picking on them. We’re all poor drivers, we all need to improve.

See, its no wonder the law is like it is, when even people on a bike forum think (in the loosest sense) like they do.

I’m not so much in favour of jail time for accidents but you should be massively financially impacted by paying compensation to the family who have lost someone. Loss of earnings multiplied by years left to work, plus fine. If it bankrupts people tough it’s unlucky you should have run someone over.

I’d be in favour of fines (especially for speeding etc) being means-tested but what you’re suggesting puts a “value” on people’s lives.

That’s really the wrong way of looking at it, there should be a baseline for “causing death by driving” and then tot-up penalties on top based on the consequences.

Even that isn’t ideal as highlighted above by the Selby train crash story (and mentioned on another thread about the Shoreham air crash pilot – the mistake was the mistake, the fact is it landed on a dual carriageway rather than out at sea so the consequences were far more severe but the sentence given was due to the mistake and not the consequences).

““nothing” – really ? What do you think would have happened if subjects were told “watch this clip and tell us how many gorillas you see” ?”

They would miss the ball passing and the people leaving and entering the room. That’s the point, once you have more than a couple of tasks it becomes impossible for the brain to keep up.

The point of it is that it is easy to miss things that you would think would be unmissable, like a cyclist in hi-vis

For instance if you saw kids playing with a ball on the grass by the side of the road, you might deem that to be a big threat to safety. Once you do that other observations suffer, there is science to back this up.

Edited to add, Easy to miss in “certain” circumstances.

Which is dangerously complacent and certainly what this woman would have said the day before this incident. Almost everyone *thinks* their observation is good.

What I said, and you quoted, has nothing to do with my observation. I pay attention and I look at the road; I consciously try hard to do those things consistently and I believe that I’m “good” at performing the tasks. Whether I observe (ALL the right) things and then act appropriately is open to question and of course the person least likely to comment objectively on that would be me.

I stand by my statement that things / incidents do not “come out of nowhere” and appear in front of me (and I think that is maybe quite a good indicator of the likelihood of being in a crash when looked at over an extended period). I do spout what you may consider to be shit on threads like this – particularly regarding inattention – but as said, I think I would hold myself to the “standards” and consequences I occasionally propose and so I take my own driving seriously. If things started taking me by surprise, I would be very concerned indeed.

I’ve seen and known enough IAM and roadcraft **** in action to stop me from accepting such as any sort of guarantee, though something like an IAM course is what I’d like to see for people “involved” in a crash or exceeding some points threshold. Yes, for everyone but you have to start somewhere and those whose lapses are demonstrably long enough to have a crash are a good starting point.

They would miss the ball passing and the people leaving and entering the room. That’s the point, once you have more than a couple of tasks it becomes impossible for the brain to keep up.

Yes, but as I said, that is a deliberately complex task. I wonder how many people could/did successfully count the passes, gorilla or not