Phil W Lee wrote:
BrianW considered Sun, 18 Jan 2009
13:46:51 -0800 (PST) the perfect time to write:

On 18 Jan, 20:18, Tom Crispin
wrote:
On Sun, 18 Jan 2009 19:13:41 -0000, "Brimstone"





wrote:
Tom Crispin wrote:
On Sun, 18 Jan 2009 18:42:01 +0000, Marc
wrote:
Well I'm a cyclist, with an interest in environmental matters, and I
find Dughs posts not only embarrarising but counter productive;
anyone else?
I would put him on a par with Troll B, but his posts are marginally
better than Troll J's diatribe.
The Daily Wail's photo of the Mercedes mounting the Chrysler was very
amusing, though I put it down to an unfortunate mishap rather than
evidence of an incompetent motorist.
Doug also has some valid points.
Motorists who kill should face manslaughter charges. ?It defies all
sense of justice that a motorist with four bald tyres who killed four
cyclists was fined for having bald tyres, and the killed effectively
ignored.
Can you imagine a scaffolder whose scaffolding collapsed killing four
pedestrians facing a fine for having faulty scaffolding, and the
killing ignored? ?No - the scaffolder would face charges of criminal
negligence and manslaughter.
Only if the evidence showed him to be negligent.
Surely that would be for a jury to decide.
The evidence has to show that the defendant was grossly negligent -
it's a higher standard than ordinary negligence. The CPS will decide
whether there is sufficient evidence to warrant prosecution before it
gets before a jury.

I would have thought that driving with any defective tyre in
conditions known to be particularly slippery (scraping the windscreen
being a good indicator of this) could be reasonably interpreted as
negligent, and the fact that 3 tyres were defective could just as
reasonably be interpreted as raising that to gross negligence.

However, I think it's more pertinent that he was clearly driving at a
speed that was in excess of what was safe for the conditions (and
nobody else appeared to have the same difficulty in controlling their
vehicles on that road under those conditions


Errrr the police car that was called to the accident had trouble ( If I
remember correctly) and another police car had reported a problem with
that bit of road , but the message hadn't been forwarded to the LA.

I'm not excusing the driver, for the bald tyres, or the CSA for nor
prosecuting, but it is very difficult when there are variable surfaces
to make a one speed fits all policy. If he had left 20 seconds ealrier
or later, if the club's waitress had been faster or slower, all we would
have had would be another car in the hedge.