My piece here on how far if at all one should feel sympathetic towards a motorist who gets distracted and causes the death of a cyclist has prompted several interesting comments:
But "unlucky accident"? Sorry, no. I am a motorist and a bike rider. Several years ago, during an urban commuter run, I appalled myself by realising I had no recollection of driving the past mile or so, because I was answering a mobile phone call. That was the last time! I now either stop (safely) to answer or, mostly, ignore the call.
What about the innocent, but experienced (never mind) cyclist and his family? On a straight road?
Sorry, you can see I totally disagree with your conclusions. Disappointed.
Sorry, but I have to disagree with you on this. Two things. First the calculus of loss. One family loses their wife/mother for a maximum of 18 months; the other their husband/father forever. Is this a just balance? Secondly, something that really bothers me. Why all the argument over the difference between careless and dangerous driving? Is the charge of manslaughter not applicable?
Punishing negligent drivers who inadvertently cause death isn't about trying to make use of the roads risk-free. It's about rebalancing and re-allocating risk, and matching it with responsibility.
At the moment the risk a of a cycle/car (and even more, lorry) collision is borne almost entirely by cyclists: they stand to suffer much more from drivers' negligence than drivers themselves. Prison sentences for fatal negligence, however unintended the consequences of that negligence, are a way of addressing that and - let's hope - of influencing our behavior when we drive.
Given relative vulnerabilities I would like to see the rebalancing of risk taken further, so that there is a legal presumption - in the absence of clear evidence to the contrary - that in any cycle/vehicle collision the driver is at fault. This presumption applies, as I understand it, in a number of European countries, and underlines the duty of care which in any civilised society the strong owe to the weak.
All fair enough.
These considerations take us into deep water concerning the role and purpose of 'punishment'. Is it intended to serve some sort of cosmic justice, or to compensate those who have suffered loss? Or is it to deter future wrongdoing? Or some inchoate combination of all of them?
The philosphical point is that the law and life draw lines, many of which make little substantive sense. Thus it is illegal per se to 'use a mobile phone while driving' even if you commit no harm to anyone. But what does it mean to 'use' a hand-held phone? This seems to amount to making calls or sending texts or getting emails - using the communication functions of the device. Turning it on to listen to a downloaded podcast or music does not count as an offence, even though it may be no less distracting.
Likewise speed limits. Most people don't seem to realize that the default speed-limit on a quiet but small English country road is a brisk 60mph - faster than you might think is safe. However, if you are driving at that speed or even quite a lot slower than that speed and hit a pedestrian, it may be hard to convince a court that you were not driving recklessly or 'without due care and attention'.
Should there be as one reader above says a 'legal presumption' that any car-driver colliding with a cyclist is at fault? What exactly does that mean? And isn't it a priori unjust, in that it leads to convictions of people without it being proved that they are in fact 'guilty'? Here is an elegant analysis of some of the tricky legal issues this idea raises.
Conclusion?
As a society we have no choice but to accept some risks as part of life. As I said before, if we want to reduce to closer to zero the adverse consequences of having cars, bicycles and people all on our roads at the same time, a nationwide flat speed-limit of 10mph would do the job. But any idea to impose that would be massively rejected by voters. They would be right. All such a law does is displace risk. Yes, fewer people will be killed or injured on the roads. But more people will probably be killed or injured or left to die elsewhere because society generally functions less efficiently.
Is it 'safer' if more people cycle? Maybe, or maybe not. More cyclists mean more pedestrians or cyclists killed or injured by cyclists (yes, that happens too on a non-trivial scale).
Given how many miles are driven by all sorts of forms of transport in the UK every year, it is astonishing how few people are killed on the roads. In these circumstances, I prefer to leave it to the blunt but usually nuanced wisdom of the courts to work out how far in each case there has been a clear-cut case of inattentiveness, negligence, recklessness, intent - or just bad luck. Then apply or not the sanction - and where appropriate express the sympathy - that seems, all things considered in the circumstances concerned, to be fair.
