Cyclist killed in city centre early this morning.

copacetic

Another death, from independent.ie:

A 67-year-old man has died in a road crash in Dublin.

The cyclist received serious injuries when he was struck by a Dublin Bus on Fitzwilliam Square East at about 1am this morning.

The man was rushed to St. James's Hospital where he was later pronounced dead.

Gardaí at Pearse Street are investigating.

311

Thoughts are with his family ,I hope he had lights etc.

mike65

Killed sounds a bit prejudicial tbh.

Mike.

RtD

Very sad to hear.

Was actually passing by the aftermath of the accident last night just as they were putting the accident victim into the ambulance, there was a lot of rushing around and even at the time I thought it didn't look great. I saw the bike and it was completely destroyed, front wheel buckled in all sorts of directions. The bus driver involved was sitting on the step of his bus looking very distraught. I feel sorry for him, without knowing the full details of the incident, it must play very heavily on the mind to be involved in such an event.

copacetic

mike65 wrote: »

Killed sounds a bit prejudicial tbh.

Mike.

How mike? Cyclst killed by bus is a fact as far as I can see. Don't see how that assigns blame.

Seth Brundle

It does give the impression that the bus is somewhat responsible though.
Thoughts go out to both the cyclist's family and the bus driver.

mike65

Killed is a prejudical term as it suggests a premeditated act to a degree. Though I realise it wasn't intended.

Mike.

Profiler

kbannon wrote: »

It does give the impression that the bus is somewhat responsible though.
Thoughts go out to both the cyclist's family and the bus driver.

I agree with Mike, fatally injured, is probably a better description.

However thoughts do go out to the cyclist's family and friends but also to the Bus Driver too.

NewDubliner

311 wrote: »

Thoughts are with his family ,I hope he had lights etc.

You're being a bit selective in your list of things that might have been a factor. Maybe better wait until the facts are known?

goo

Probably just meant that with a helmet/lights its less likely to be spun as partly his fault.

cantalach

mike65 wrote: »

Killed is a prejudical term as it suggests a premeditated act to a degree.

That's just too funny. Reminds me of the dreadlocked hippy character played by Mike Myers in The Cat in the Hat who says "I find the term 'dog' offensive - I prefer 'canine person'."

When the teenager was killed by lightning in Tallaght a few months ago, the headlines reported this as "Teenager Killed By Lightning" - was there a suggestion of premedidation in that?

Profiler

cantalach wrote: »

When the teenager was killed by lightning in Tallaght a few months ago, the headlines reported this as "Teenager Killed By Lightning" - was there a suggestion of premedidation in that?

No! of course not, and as you know only too well that was because there was no human being controlling the speed and direction of the lightening bolt.

This is a tragic accident and until we know for sure what happened to suggest that someone was killed as opposed to fatally injured, in my opinion anyway, an inappropriate description.

Perhaps the bus driver never saw the cyclist, perhaps the cyclist came out of a side road into the path of the bus, we don't know! Until we do know then the phrase "killed" is, as far as I am concerned, an improper way to describe what occurred.

ilovelamp2000

mike65 wrote: »

Killed is a prejudical term as it suggests a premeditated act to a degree. Though I realise it wasn't intended.

Mike.

You're mixing killed up with murdered.

trout

A person died. A human. That is what's important.

In the absence of hard facts, any speculation or comments other than condolences are somewhat futile.

RIP

blorg

We don't know what happened.

Condolences for the cyclist's family. Particularly tragic that it would happen to a 67-year old who was still cycling in this day and age.

Also the bus driver- from RtD's description it sounds like it affected the driver badly, and he may well have been blameless in the incident.

311

NewDubliner wrote: »

You're being a bit selective in your list of things that might have been a factor. Maybe better wait until the facts are known?

I'm not making a judgement on the person ,it's just something that would come to mind when anyone would be involved in a cycling accident at night.

Even with lights on bikes ,it can still be hard to be seen.

hardCopy

RIP

I actually drove by the scene in a taxi, completely forgot about it until now.

Traumadoc

Is that a normal bus route? or was it a bus returning to the station?

Bicyclegadabout

I think it's the last stop for one bus route, can't remember the number. Always seems to be a lot of buses parked there though.


Condolenses to the family.
There's been an unusually high number of bicycle related deaths recently.



PS: Lads, this is a bit messy, but semantics are important. Get out out your dictionarys and look up "kill", "murder", "manslaughter" and so on.

bassman22

Profiler wrote: »

I agree with Mike, fatally injured, is probably a better description.

However thoughts do go out to the cyclist's family and friends but also to the Bus Driver too.

political correctness gone mad! ahhhhhh.................

monument

mike65 wrote: »

Killed is a prejudical term as it suggests a premeditated act to a degree.

Not in any legal way that's for sure. And also not by any dictionary definition I've seen.

kbannon wrote: »

It does give the impression that the bus is somewhat responsible though.

As above.

cantalach

bassman22 wrote: »

political correctness gone mad!

I completely agree. Avoiding the word "killed" because of its supposed connotations is just Pentagon-speak. We're all seen those press conferences where a question about civilian deaths gets a response like "we would not accept that characterisation but I can confirm that there were some collateral fatalities amongst non-combatants."

The simple fact is that googling "killed by a bus" (with the quotes) finds over 100,000 occurrences, many of which are in respected publications that you wouldn't associate with exaggeration and hearsay, and where no suggestion is being made of intent or neglect.

This reluctance to use the correct word for something unpleasant can also be seen in the ever increasing trend in this country for people to say "passed away" instead of "died". What's with that? Are we really that afraid to call a spade a spade?

robfitz

I got down to the scene of the fatal collision at Fitzwilliam Square East later on Sunday morning and took some photos.

Profiler

bassman22 wrote: »

political correctness gone mad! ahhhhhh.................

What about the bus driver? has he killed someone? or was his vehicle involved in an incident where someone sustained fatal injuries? the difference between the two? his share of blame.

In the absence of knowing exactly what happened then I don't think being careful what words you use is being politically correct.

R.I.P

Chips Lovell

Profiler wrote: »

What about the bus driver? has he killed someone? or was his vehicle involved in an incident where someone sustained fatal injuries? the difference between the two? his share of blame.

In the absence of knowing exactly what happened then I don't think being careful what words you use is being politically correct.

Nobody's saying the bus driver killed anyone. It's been pretty common parlance, at least where I grew up to say "he/she was killed in an accident" even when no one else was involved, e.g. "he was killed when he came off a roof".

Gavin

The cyclist was killed. Killed either by the impact of the bus, or impact with the ground. The statement does not imply that the driver of the bus killed the cyclist.

"Fatally injured" is semantically the same as "killed".

Profiler

Verb wrote: »

The cyclist was killed. Killed either by the impact of the bus, or impact with the ground. The statement does not imply that the driver of the bus killed the cyclist.

"Fatally injured" is semantically the same as "killed".

If you look at how the RTE refers to these incidents they use phrases like

man dies in Co Kerry accident or man dies after Dublin city collision

The reason behind this is I believe that the use of the word kill or killed implies blame, should there be a criminal case as a result of the incident then words such as killed would prejudice a fair trial.

Interestingly enough the only use of the word killed was in an incident where the other person involved was a 16 year old. Teenager killed in Antrim Moped Crash as such a 16 year old can not be tried in the same way the bus driver or any other adult could be out on trial.

Profiler

el tonto wrote: »

Nobody's saying the bus driver killed anyone. It's been pretty common parlance, at least where I grew up to say "he/she was killed in an accident" even when no one else was involved, e.g. "he was killed when he came off a roof".

Something that has entered the common day vernacular does not necessarily make it correct.

I stated my reasons why the word killed should not be used in my previous reply.

monument

IF you search Independent.ie or IrishTimes.com you'll find 1,000s of crash reports saying a person or persons were killed.

Forget "common day vernacular" both legal and dictionary definitions do not support you.

Chips Lovell

This is getting silly

Profiler wrote: »

If you look at how the RTE refers to these incidents they use phrases like

man dies in Co Kerry accident or man dies after Dublin city collision

If you look at how RTE refers to these incidents, they also use phrases like:

Man killed in Co Cork accident
Baby among three killed in road crashes
Pedestrian killed by lorry in Louth
Three killed in separate road crashes
Woman killed in Co Donegal road crash

Profiler wrote: »

The reason behind this is I believe that the use of the word kill or killed implies blame, should there be a criminal case as a result of the incident then words such as killed would prejudice a fair trial.

You should ring RTE and tell them this in that case.

copacetic

Can I ask for a mod lock on this thread? I started it, it was taken off topic very early by some on thread complaints about language that were really out of order imo. I didn't respond more than once on thread as I felt it was disrespectful to all involved in the accident. I hoped the thread would stay on track but it has totally gone off the rails.

ilovelamp2000

Profiler wrote: »

The reason behind this is I believe that the use of the word kill or killed implies blame, should there be a criminal case as a result of the incident then words such as killed would prejudice a fair trial.

Your belief isn't well founded.

The use of the word killed doesn't apportion blame, how it's used in a sentence can though.

"The cyclist was killed in an accident with a bus." - No blame imputed or attributed.

"The cyclist was killed by a bus" - you could argue there is blame being applied there.

Anyway, enough of the pedantry.

311

The term killed is used with any road deaths. I don't think there was any discrimination from the OP.

How is someone suppose to describe a fatal road accident ?