Manslaughter of a cyclist

The other side of the road looks like it is a shared use path though (even though it’s way too narrow for a shared path!)

https://goo.gl/maps/y5ZdrrUWLtQ3nAKf9
(spin the camera around here to see the red fence)

I think it’s just incredibly poorly signpostsed, seems to just end with no signs or warning or anythihng.

can understand why the cyclist was on the pavement, but it is very much a pavement and not a cycle path

The pavement on the other side of the road IS a sparsely signposted shared use pavement. Perhaps there are signs further up that just gave up? Perhaps the original plans stated shared use path along the road (not which side)?

EDIT HH beat me to it with his google route touring.

General rule within the law is to turn a blind eye to pavement riding unless it is outright insane like pulling wheelies through a crowded shopping centre. An elderly cyclist on a shopper doing 8-10mph along a pavement, let them be.

Yep

National Police Chiefs’ Council guidance on cycling on pavements.

“The guidance states: ‘The introduction of the fixed penalty is not aimed at responsible cyclists who sometimes feel obliged to use the pavement out of fear of the traffic, and who show consideration to other pavement users.

Shouting “get off the f*cking pavement” and waving your arm a bit isn’t grounds for manslaughter tbh. It’s normal interaction between humans.

This is just the po-po getting a conviction because they can. It’s not great either way. I suspect (and hope) the sentence will be lenient.

My god you’re a horrible bastard.

Anyway the legality of the cycling is irrelevant,causing a death by either pushing or forcing the change of direction deliberately into a busy road is unacceptable.

She should’ve got in her car before killing the cyclist.. would’ve got away with it then

She honestly wouldn’t, someone dies and it is very throughly investigated. Motorists are prosecuted as a result of collisions with pedestrians and cyclists all the time. When they aren’t or are acquitted its because of the evidence that can be brought before the court.

There’s no prizes being given for what will happen when the case gets seen by more, if the pedestrian gets a lenient penalty tomorrow…

Coming to a road near you, teenage groups “having a laugh,” pushing cyclists on pavements into the road.

I had a look at maps earlier – there was a shared use sign on that side a while earlier up the one way system. A cycle route (new and properly marked) is visible up a side street just after the sign (presumably where the shared route was meant to lead).

However there was nothing to say the shared route had ended on the main road or had to cross to the shared route on the other side. Presumably that is why the police say the designation was unclear.

I don’t think urban one way systems help – just turns car traffic into an unthinking flow that ceases to expect pedestrians doing odd things. Would be much safer as a single lane and wider ped facilities and a general calming of interactions. But none of that excuses the behaviour.

You can’t prosecute a pedestrian with dangerous walking though, whereas the driving offenses sit in parallel with the manslaughter ones to allow a driving ban as part of the punishment.

Judge can disqualify for manslaughter.  The Death by Driving offences were created because it was proving too hard to get convictions for manslaughter from driving offences.  Its widely assumed because enough people on a jury could see themselves making the same sort of mistake.  Presumably, this case means that most of the jury believed they would not have acted this way to this cyclist themselves.  I’m glad that there are enough of them to outnumber the chevychases.

MOAB – the case you linked above is eyebrow raising but putting it here is whataboutery.  if you happen to know Alan Myles then he might want to know for his discussions with the PF that, as far as I recall s3 and s170 of the RTA do not have a timebar in Scotland, and if they do then the timebar is from when the prosecutor first becomes aware not when the incident happened.  Just because you work for COPFS doesn’t mean you never make legal mistakes!  There is a right to ask the Lord Advocate to review a decision not to prosecute.

There’s no prizes being given for what will happen when the case gets seen by more, if the pedestrian gets a lenient penalty tomorrow…

define lenient – there’s no sentence for manslaughter I’d want on my record.

My guess is 200 hours community service, probably suspended on account of age and disability.

Can you suspend Community Service?  Perhaps you meant a suspended prison sentence.  That wouldn’t surprise me because of the factors you highlight – assuming she’s a first offender etc.  BUT I also wouldn’t be surprised if its not suspended – the Judge will have heard all that the Jury heard and have a pretty good impression of how she views what happened and would normally have background reports (but 1 day later would be phenomenally quick for that) which will also give a social worker’s view on the impacts of custody as well as the attitude to offending.  Any attempt to justify (cyclist shouldn’t have been there etc) it and I’d expect she’s not going home tomorrow.

Coming to a road near you, teenage groups “having a laugh,” pushing cyclists on pavements into the road.

fortunately the majority of teenagers are smart enough not to think “oh they got away with it so I will too”.  Some might even be smart enough to be able to distinguish the characteristics which differentiate different offenders, eg. a 49 yr old with cerebal palsy acting in an angry impulse v’s a teenager having a laugh.

She actually admits that she made “light contact”.
Previous article.

Shouting “get off the f*cking pavement” and waving your arm a bit isn’t grounds for manslaughter tbh. It’s normal interaction between humans.

It’s really not a “normal interaction” her actions caused a collision that wouldn’t have happened otherwise.

From an earlier linked piece:

She said she “may have unintentionally put” out her hand to protect herself. Ms Grey believed she had made light contact with Mrs Ward.

“Light contact” we all know she shoved her, it wouldn’t be a debatable point if that camera had been angled a couple of degrees further to the right.

This is just the po-po getting a conviction because they can. It’s not great either way. I suspect (and hope) the sentence will be lenient.

I’m not totally sure it is, pissing off to do her shopping after shoving an old lady into traffic means she more than failed the “attitude test” had she stayed there feigning distress at witnessing an RTA they may not have looked tha the CCTV that shows her behaving like an arsehole.

The more worrying thing has been posted above – the police not prosecuting dangerous drivers in hit-and-runs.

It’s all worrying, I’m not keen on trying to define a hierarchy of road traffic death injustices, none of it is positive…

I’m not going to comment on the severity of sentence deserved for the ped. My mother is 77 this year though and exactly the sort of cyclist who still keeps on riding but would pop onto a pavement like at. I can’t imagine how I’d feel if her story ended in that manner.

However…and please don’t read this as excusing the guilty…..town planners need to take some significant responsibility for the consequences of their actions. Roads and pavements are occupied by actual real life people. People are predictable – and whilst they are sometimes dicks, they are predictable dicks. Conflict and confusion can be engineered out. In this case it sounds like the legitimacy of the cyclist being where they were was not obvious. That’s avoidable.

Conflict and confusion can be engineered out. In this case it sounds like the legitimacy of the cyclist being where they were was not obvious. That’s avoidable.

Yes but that costs money and takes time and political will and councils have none of those things. Also, we don’t like simple solutions like that in the UK.

It’s not “difficult” to engineer out conflict, the Dutch and Danish have been doing it for decades but even they are still improving and you sometimes find that in engineering out bike/car conflict, you inadvertently get more bike/pedestrian conflict and then need to resolve that.

There are elements here of the recent Dan Walker crash where he was hit from behind on a roundabout and immediately everyone was saying “he should have been on the bike path, there’s an underpass there for bikes”.
And then it was pointed out that the underpass is dangerous and shit and covered in glass, half flooded, unlit etc.

Provide shit infra and cyclists won’t use it and they’ll create their own infrastructure – like in this instance where the cyclist was, rather harmlessly, using the pavement.

@squirrelking

My god you’re a horrible bastard.

Because I think it’s reasonable a partially sighted woman with cerebral palsy could be scared when she (sort of) sees a bike coming at her on a pavement?

Did she act like a tit? Yes. Lots of scared people do. (And lots of people walk away from the scene of an accident out of fear too). Does she know the vaguaries on whether bikes are allowed on pavements. (I mean even the police didn’t).

It’s tragic all round tbh. “Justice” hasn’t been served – and can’t be really.

Because I think it’s reasonable a partially sighted woman with cerebral palsy could be scared when she (sort of) sees a bike coming at her on a pavement?

Did she look scared to you in that video?

Do you suppose that it’s unreasonable for a 77-year old woman to fall off her bike out of fear or panic when faced with trying to avoid a physically intimidating, angry woman swearing at her and waving her arms about?

For my 2p,

I had some sympathy for the antagonist in a “there but for the grace of god” sort of way, right up until I read the absolute horseshit presented in defence.

To add context I think this is the location:

Google maps

IIRC the dual carriageway next to it is a 30(?) But as DC in little town like Huntington it gets some enthusiastic driving, when I lived there (not far from that location actually) I definitely favoured riding on that pavement at busier times of day the combination of people making for the shops and people trying to get through town made it a more hectic environment than it needed to be, a DC inner ring road is a recipe for speeding and twattery (I now live in Reading where they’ve really managed to push the same concept to a new level) from google maps/street view I can see no obvious cycling infrastructure upgrades compared to living there 20 years ago.

I think it’s reasonable a partially sighted woman with cerebral palsy could be scared when she (sort of) sees a bike coming at her on a pavement?

That’s not a ‘flight response’ to a “perceived danger”. Watch the video again, from her first gesture/initial shouting to the definitely not a shove (definitely a shove) she takes five steps forwards no pausing, side-stepping or avoiding action, she was looking for conflict and achieved it… Then she just **** off to the shops.

Send her down (we know they won’t), her medical conditions are not a mitigating factor. Genuinely fearful people seek escape or refuge they don’t try to attack or challenge those perceived threats then callously carry on about their business like they aren’t involved…

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-64824436

Three years jail. Genuinely far more than I expected.

I’m not surprised; it’s not just punishment for her actions on the day causing death, but immediately after and subsequently. Showing remorse is sometimes taken into account. Sometimes.
So I guess this is now an example of a pedestrian killing a cyclist, resulting in jail time.

Crazy how three years almost feels like a “mini victory for cyclists,” when sentences for injuring or killing cyclists often seem to be so feable.

It’s quite an unusual case so I doubt there’s any broader implications from it regarding road user groups.

I’m not going to comment on the severity of sentence deserved for the ped. My mother is 77 this year though and exactly the sort of cyclist who still keeps on riding but would pop onto a pavement like at. I can’t imagine how I’d feel if her story ended in that manner.

Yeah, same – my mum’s 83, still rides a bike around and would probably use a pavement occasionally. Doesn’t bear thinking about.

Cambridgeshire County Council subsequently reiterated that and said it would review the location, but in his sentencing remarks Judge Sean Enright said it was a shared cycleway.

The judge ruled it was a shared use cycleway. This will have been dealt with in minutae in the trial.

The driver of the car that hit Mrs Ward said there was “always a piece of me that feels guilty” and that her whole life had “turned upside down” following the incident.

And I’m sure most would feel the same. She was probably a significant witness too, given she didn’t have time to react.

Jail? Good.

Yeah, it’s a life sentence for the driver in that sense.

Miranda Moore KC, who said in mitigation for Grey that “she does not pose a risk or danger to the public”, stated she would be making an appeal against the sentence.

This is troubling; so the deceased lady wasn’t a member of the public? I mean, we know as cyclists we’re sub-human.

A. Let her off and she mau well do it again.
B. If the camera wasn’t there, or the incident happened 10mtr earlier we would not have the cctv, so it becomes a he said, she said, and we end with a dead cyclist and it becomes just a horrible accident.

Well, she’s at least a year in the clink to think about her actions and subsequent lies. Still too short.

A horribly tragic case all round.

Because I think it’s reasonable a partially sighted woman with cerebral palsy could be scared when she (sort of) sees a bike coming at her on a pavement?

In your mind you have turned the aggressor into the victim.

Waving your arms and shouting invective before making deliberate contact is an assault, moving into battery.

I would take from your stance that you would act in a similar manner as it’s so reasonable and understandable. That’s not a great indicator of the amount of humanity that you have available to deploy

I’m usually pretty keen on people who endanger cyclists getting severely punished, but I’m not sure what the value is of sending that women to jail. The verdict is correct, there must be a more humane way to deal with her.

Cambridgeshire County Council subsequently reiterated that and said it would review the location, but in his sentencing remarks Judge Sean Enright said it was a shared cycleway.

And yet every news article I’ve seen on this (not many, admittedly) refer to the incident as happening on a pavement. That’s piss-poor reporting as usual when it comes to people-on-bikes. Opening line of the BBC article:

A “territorial” pedestrian whose actions killed a 77-year-old cyclist when she was angered by her being on the pavement has been jailed.

I’m usually pretty keen on people who endanger cyclists getting severely punished, but I’m not sure what the value is of sending that women to jail. The verdict is correct, there must be a more humane way to deal with her.

What more humane way would you suggest? I would hazard a guess that she wouldn’t have been so agressive towards a younger more able bodied cyclist, just coz she has cerebral palsy it doesn’t stop her from being a bully.

but I’m not sure what the value is of sending that women to jail.

Because she is directly responsible for the death of an old lady. We put a lot of people in jail for a lot less every day.

Clearly a popular place to cycle – on the link in the second post on this thread the BBC reporter has a bike whizz by her as she is reporting from the crime scene (ironically almost at the same time as she gestures with her arm towards the road – now that could have been awkward!)

The convicted lady is walking to her local shop so she probably walks that path frequently and so both expects cyclists and is annoyed by them.

On this occasion everybody was unlucky and clearly a crime was committed – even if the woman hadn’t been killed, I would have expected some kind of prosecution for pushing her off her bike and into the road. Unfortunately for her, and probably mainly due to  leaving the scene she has been made an example of. It sounds harsh but the judge probably had very little choice – and had she been in a car and left the scene nobody would be expecting a lower sentence.

One thing everybody is taking as ‘read’ is the car driver not being able to stop, The line of sight looks very good coming up to the scene from the BBC report – personally I’d have been looking ahead at any potential hazards and wobbly bike riders on narrow pavements always throw up red flags for me!  I’m sure the police did an accident report but as long as the driver wasn’t pissed or speeding then they are in the clear – but how about driving BELOW the speed limit in these situations and expecting someone to fall off? Surely the hazard perception test is all about this?

I’m sure there would still have been a collision but maybe with less dire consequencies. Maybe it wouldn’t have changed anything but everyday I see drivers ‘within the law’ but still driving too fast for the circumstances past running toddlers, scooting children, prams, cyclists etc. If one tiny thing goes wrong a tradegy occurs – there is no room for error.

Surely the hazard perception test is all about this?

I guess that depends on how long the lady was in the road before the impact – if the car hit her almost immediately I think it would be highly unfair to lay any blame on them. And from what I recall of doing a sample hazard test (small by with a football scenario), if you click on it when you see the boy with the football, it’s a fail. It’s only when the football enters the road that it becomes an emerging hazard.

hazard perception

20 mph is 9 m/second, so hazard perception allows you about 10 metres to react and avoid. Alternatively, since we are speculating, the driver’s dash cam showed clearly that the convicted pushed the cyclist off the pavement. Even at 20 mph, hitting and driving over a 77 year old who is on the road, not above the bonnet, is never going to end well.

“she does not pose a risk or danger to the public”, 

The evidence would show otherwise!!!

One thing everybody is taking as ‘read’ is the car driver not being able to stop, The line of sight looks very good coming up to the scene from the BBC report – personally I’d have been looking ahead at any potential hazards and wobbly bike riders on narrow pavements always throw up red flags for me! I’m sure the police did an accident report but as long as the driver wasn’t pissed or speeding then they are in the clear – but how about driving BELOW the speed limit in these situations and expecting someone to fall off? Surely the hazard perception test is all about this?

I can’t recall from memory if it’s a 30 or 40mph limit IIRC, but the road in question is indeed completely straight, but with junctions left and right, and traffic lights and pedestrian crossings probably every 100m or so and a speed camera just back up the road a bit. It would be difficult to do an inappropriate speed during the day unless you really were driving like an idiot as both lanes are slowed by traffic turning off to side roads, and getting through that half mile or so without stopping at least twice for traffic lights is unlikely.

It’s the congestion / reluctance of normal people on bikes to take the whole lane that makes it horrible to ride down rather than speed.

So the judge said yep, it was a shared cycleway….

“The trial was told that police could not “categorically” state whether the pavement was a shared cycleway.

Cambridgeshire County Council subsequently reiterated that and said it would review the location, but in his sentencing remarks Judge Sean Enright said it was a shared cycleway.

… But then this?

Det Sgt Mark Dollard, of Cambridgeshire Police, described it as a “difficult and tragic case”.

“Everyone will have their own views of cyclists on pavements and cycleways, but what is clear is Grey’s response to the presence of Celia on a pedal cycle was totally disproportionate… “

So even on a shared cyclepath, there’s an ecpected level of antagonism that even little old lady cyclists will just have to put up with? Or am I being overly sensitive?