While on the subject of cycling…
“Our goal is to send a message to cyclists about safety,” Gascon said. “Just because you are riding a bicycle doesn’t mean all bets are off. All of the rules of the road that apply to everyone else apply to you too.”
Given that this maniac killed a pedestrian, I would suggest that the message ain’t half strong enough, frankly. Jail time should have been an absolute minimum.
Whilst I accept that they’re perhaps not all the same, I have many times over the last few years been both annoyed AND endangered by the smug, supercilious holier-than-thou idiots clad in Lycra.
May their saddles cause excruciating scrotal chafing!
The going rate for killing with a car is £35 (http://www.solihullnews.net/news/solihull-news/2013/01/17/driver-gets-35-fine-after-cyclist-dies-in-collision-105074-32622442/). It’s not obvious that killing with a bike is that much worse.
That story underlines the problem with prosecuting – lack of evidence with which to charge adequately. it sounds like it should have been death by reckless driving, but without the evidence, driving without due care and attention was the best they could do and get a conviction.
“I was already way too committed to stop … I couldn’t see a line through the crowd and I couldn’t stop, so I laid it down and just plowed through the crowded crosswalk in the least-populated place I could find,”
Cyclists, (like the ‘highly trained’ police pursuit drivers), don’t believe that the laws of Newton apply to them. Just out of interest I followed a cyclist downhill in my car. At 45 mph he was ‘getting away’, meanwhile in my stable four-wheeled, anti-lock power braked car I decided that it wasn’t prudent to maintain that speed. Going downhill decreases the available braking force and adds a forward propulsion component, due to gravity. The stability of any bicycle is also degraded on a downhill stretch yet some idiots even go for the ‘no hands’ technique.
I’d agree and I’m a cyclist. These tossers give all the rest a bad name.