Driver walks free after seriously injuring rider! WTF?

Was just shown this...

http://www.manlydaily.com.au/common/story_page/0,7168,17839473^15721,00.html

Unfucking believable *frown*


G-S

 

In aus.motorcycles on Tue, 17 Jan 2006 23:19:11 +1100

The big problem is.. what is punishment, and what's it good for?

Will the driver be careless again? Unlikely... at least not in that
way. I have no doubt at all that he is shattered, and probably has
nightmares and day horrors. I can't see any other punishment will make
any difference.

Will other drivers see this and be encouraged that it's OK to hit riders?

Well.. how many people knew about it? Can you name the sentences of
drivers who are considered at fault in crashes in your local area?
Your state?

And if you could, would it make a difference? It was a deliberate act
after all. How do you stop carelessness? If the penalty for failing to
use your indicators (for example) was loss of licence, who would care
unless it was enforced? What would your chances be of getting caught?
And so what incentive would there be to always use them instead of use
them when you remember? No one thinks "I won't use my indicators next
time" they think "Damn, need to be.. here."

So would jail time for this old man make any difference at all to
anyone else's behaviour?

Would it do anything at all positive compared to the much more serious
negative effect on a man already having serious negative affects?

So we boil down to "but what about revenge?"

I find that harder to handle. I can see how people greviously hurt need
to feel that someone gives a shit, but I think someone does. I just
can't see how a serious sentence is anything but revenge and I'm agin
that on principle. BEcause it brings the revenger down to the level of
the lawbreaker.

The big thing for me is how to get yuor average careless driver to
take more care? It's endemic in the system this carelessness. It's a
consequence of car journeys being an unavoidable and annoying chore that
has to be done to get your from where you are to where you want to be.
Unless some way can be found to either stop people making such journeys
or to make it difficult and challenging to make them without the country
coming to a screeching halt...

Then we are going to live with us "vulnerable road users" getting
creamed by idiots in tanks.

It is possible, I suppose, that lots of publicity about stiff sentences
given to such people might change things, but given human nature - large
numbers of people drive cars, and carelessness is inherent in the system -
I doubt it.

If I was the old bloke in question, I'd issue a press release about my
sorrow and horror and visit the young man. Of course for all we know
he has done both those things but they don't make as good a story....

The only thing I think will work is to get more bikes out there.
Encourage everyone you can to get a scooter. Ride your bike even if
it's a little more work than taking the car. Because more bikes is
the only way to change the habits of drivers even a little.

It's certain that all the howling about courts won't change it at all.

Zebee

 

I'm not suggesting jail time, but to walk free without any sort of fine
or licence cancellation is on the other side of reasonable too.

0.05% and extreme speed regulations exist with the stated intent of
reducing the road toll, both fatalities and serious injuries.

It seems logical to me that SMIDSY offences sentencing should take into
account victim impact, and where that victim impact is serious then
penalties similar to dangerous driving or 0.05% should at least apply.

To recieve no penalty... not even loss of licence is the part I find
unbelievable.


G-S

 

Well put. There are a couple of things courts can't fix (which don't
necessarily apply to this case)....

People commonly see their car as another room on the house that happens to
move. Little sense of shared road space or risk and need to pay attention,
and too many distractions.

Bugger all chance of getting caught for bad driving or poor roadcraft (as
opposed to "breaking the law"). Nothing beats sufficient experienced police
presence as a deterrent.

 

'suppose you got a pont there, but how is the root cause addressed?

 

There is very little you can do to stop people making mistakes.
Im sure he didnt mean for it to happen but it did and the young guy paid
a very high price for the old guys negligence.

But, walking away fineless and with license intact is a bit of a slap in
the face to the victim & family.

 

There wasn't even a conviction recorded, that's the scary thing for me.

To me that says its OK to drive with my eyes shut so long as I show up
in court looking suitably remorseful. I don't really question that a
jail sentence etc would have made much difference, but what kind of a
message does the court send out.

I don't see how the penalty fits the crime in this case, where is the
'justice' when this guys walks away without even a conviction recorded.
The bike riders parents are more than a little upset by the ruling.

Driving a car, bus, truck even a bike you are in control of a killing
machine. Until people are taught to take proper care nothing is going to
change. I'm from the UK originally and whilst we have our fair share of
bad drivers/riders over there people here don't seem to have been taught
to handle traffic properly, they've been show how to operate the
controls of the car but very little if anything about 'road craft'.
Either that or are they just ignorant or too bloody lazy to bother to
put any effort into driving.

 

More speed cameras will fix it....

 

Spot on. Here's the stop and go pedals, here how to go left and right, now
try not kill someone.
Ironic that someone going 3km/h over the speed limit gets more of a penalty
than this guy.

 

I don't think too many people would suggest jail time, but a financial
penalty and some sort of official mark on this person's license would be a
start. Loss of license for a period of time would also seem appropriate to
me. Perhaps Community Service is another idea. Make these people go around
to schools or something. Doing absolutely nothing is just abhorrent. In no
way can thing possibly improve with that type of ruling.

But there has to be some sort of reparation for damage done. The Community
Service idea could hardly be called revenge.

I thought howling was part of the democratic process. Ignoring it certainley
isn't.

 

What you said is true, but a conviction should have been recorded and maybe
a fine given even or at least court costs. If this person was a young bloke
(18-45) and showed the same remorse I don't believe he would have got off as
lightly.

 

In aus.motorcycles on Wed, 18 Jan 2006 07:27:52 +1100

I dunno. SHould the bod who ran over his daughter in the driveway be
automatically charged with neg driving?


here we have the difference between mandatory penalties - speeding for
example - and judicial discretion.

Should there be no judicial discretion allowed?

Should there be discretion allowed for things that don't have them
now, such as speeding?

Zebee

 

In aus.motorcycles on Tue, 17 Jan 2006 21:29:36 GMT

I wonder if the magistrate doesn't get to record a conviction without
all sorts of other things?

And what message is being sent out? Do you feel it is OK to hurt
someone? If you don't, why will others?

Zebee

 

The things for which we have fixed penalties are mostly those things which
are quantitative, red lights, speeding, and are dealt with them in a
quantitative manner. However, is 120 in a 110 zone on the Nullarbor really
as bad as 50 in a primary school 40 zone. I think not. But no matter whether
the penalties are fixed or discretionary, there will always be one group
shouting 'too harsh' with another shouting 'hang him'. I'm in favour of the
elemments of the situation being taken into account. Some will say, that is
too cumbersome for speeding offences but, if no one is endangered, should it
really be an offence.

Theo

 

It's an unfortunate fact of life that drivers frequently fail to notice
oncoming vehicles when deviating/overtaking/turning. In my area we had 2
multiple fatalities within a week where elderly drivers attempted to cross a
busy highway into the path of oncoming trucks.
Their penalty was death.
So what chance of them seeing a motorcycle?
In over 40 years of riding I've reached the conclusion that it's up to the
rider to remain out of range of all other vehicles & never assume they've
been seen unless eye contact is established.
Too many of my good friends have been crippled or killed through assuming
they weren't invisible to other road users.
G.

 

Culpable driving? No...
Negligent Driving? Probably yes.

I'm not saying that, but there are cases where judicial discretion is
limited by maximum and/or minimum sentencing limits.

Within limits yes... but I believe that even if limits were set then the
judge in question has decided outside what those limits should be.


G-S

 

Yup, you are responsible for your own safety. Just how frequently do we fail
though? WA has over a million vehicles which must average at least 30 km per
day, that's 30M km/day. We have one fatality every second day making it one
fatal error of judgement every 60 million kms travelled. Is that bad, good,
OK, acceptable? People in WA have one chance in 4 million of being road-kill
today, or once in 11,000 years.

Theo
(distance figures guestimated by the hat method, I do 100 kms a day on
weekdays, 450 per week)

 

"I sentence you to 200 hours community service, to be performed at the
spinal and brain injury ward of Manly hospital. Your drivers license is also
suspended and you are to resit the knowledge test and pass a driving test,
to the satisfaction of a certified examiner..."


How about it magistrate?


How hard can that be? What HAS he learnt? What steps were taken to
ascertain whether the driver has appalling habits?

 

PS.. At least a token gesture towards repaying the community for the costs
involved in his inattention.

 

In aus.motorcycles on Wed, 18 Jan 2006 10:44:27 +0800

except all chances are not equal.

Someone who drives only on country roads has difference chances to
someone who only drives in the suburbs, different again to someone
only in the city, and different again to someone out of their usual
habitat.

Different again to someone who drives a new vehicle, different again
to someone who drives an old car (compared to a new one with airbags
etc) different again to someone on a bike.

The majority of car/bike crashes are, I believe, where the car turns
across the bike.

I suspect this is because it's the hardest one for the bike to avoid!
You can't really place yourself in a least-vulnerable position as you
can with lane changes, the swerve direction and timing are harder than
someone pulling out from a side street into the same direction you are
going, and there are fewer cues than the guy from the side street.

For both vehicles - side on movement is easier to spot than head on
movement.

And the physics mean that the consequences are going to be greater on
average.

Maybe rider training - L plate and greater - needs a lot more work on
the "brake and swerve and work out which way to swerve" method of
avoidance. One thing I noted when it happened to me was that I didn't
want to swerve right, which was the correct direction. I preferred
left handers I did brake hard, then swerved right to go around
him, but there was a fraction of time when I had to think about which
way to go.

I note that had I been thinking of somethig else at that moment
instead of "traffic lights, I have green, hmm don't see many people
turning right there I wo- shit!" I might have been toast.

I think the bod who was cleaned up was done by the driver turning
into a side street or driveway. What's the bet that both of them had
travelled that road many times before and seldom met anyone ether turning
or proceeding?

I well recall sitting in the passenger seat of my housemate's car when
he went through a give way sign. He looked left, I looked left, I saw
the bright yellow RAA van, he didn't. The van slowed, flashed lights,
my housemate jerked and said "where did he come from!". I said "he's
been there allthe time..."

The problem was that my housemate didn't expect someone to be there.
That road was dead quiet most of the time. So he saw what he expected
to see...

Ain't no way you can change that very human habit. If you turn into
your driveway 500 times without anyone there, then will you see them
the 501st?

Zebee