Thoglette wrote:uart wrote:Just wondering what others think about this.
I'd like to see Judge Linda Petrusa's track record on car-vs-vunerable-road-user cases.
It is, in my observation, extremely rare for a non-fatal MV accident involving a cyclist to result in a custodial sentence.
suspect this is a case where the Judge's empathy with the pedestrian means that the normal (albeit p. poor) logic on sentencing leads to what is really an irrational statement by the Judge.
I may have only just noticed and am now suffering from some sort of bias that means I'm noticing it more but seems to me that the idea that cyclists and bicycles are in some way inherently dangerous seems to be becoming a norm.
Think this is driven (no pun!) by congested urban areas where many pedestrians are what I'd call "accidental" - they've had to get out of their cars to move around on foot and take the same attitudes to cyclists with them that they have when driving - "they are a nuisance", "they are a danger to other road users", "they come out of nowhere" and of course in urban areas (unlike in rural or suburban areas) cyclists just ride too fast for their own and others safety. The same people that don't look for cyclists at intersections or expect them to slow down even when they have priority are the same people who step out in front of cyclists when on foot because they haven't looked or just expect a cyclist (as required by law of course) to cede - a consequence of all this is to further marginalise cycling and the cheap press and political shouts for more control of cyclists.
Pity the judge didn't comment on how fortunate it was that the cyclist wasn't also badly injured.
round about the time of the Alliston case in the UK spotted this in the paper of the town I grew up in:
https://www.gloucestershirelive.co.uk/n ... ies-436755
no action against the pedestrians who had just left a pub - most of the press coverage focused on the "dangerous" speed the cyclist was travelling at - albeit within the speed limit
and finally trust the pedestrian in this sad case does eventually make a full recovery