Cyclist Tweeter Cleared Of Careless Driving

bumper234

Hit someone with your car, tweet about it and only get a fine/points. Personally think she should have been jailed for leaving the scene of an accident.

From sky news

A driver who sent a "ridiculous" tweet after clipping a cyclist who ended up in a hedge is convicted of two other offences.

http://news.sky.com/story/1170730/cyclist-tweeter-cleared-of-careless-driving


A driver who tweeted about knocking a cyclist off his bike has said sending the message is the "biggest regret" of her life.

Emma Way, who was convicted of failing to stop after a crash and failing to report an accident but cleared of driving without due care and attention, clipped cyclist Toby Hockley on a country road in Norfolk last May.

seamus

And again, the "biggest regret" of her life is sending a stupid tweet, not hitting someone with a tonne of metal and nearly ending their life. That's just a funny incident.

She embodies everything that's wrong with road users.

yop

This thread went down well the first time it was raised about what she had done.
How the hell was she cleared!!!

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=84748414

ednwireland

convicted of failing to stop after a crash and failing to report an accident and 7 points on her licence, she allso lost her job.

bet that an irish court wouldnt be that severe

bumper234

yop wrote: »

This thread went down well the first time it was raised about what she had done.
How the hell was she cleared!!!

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=84748414

Sorry, didn't know there had been previous

Jawgap

ednwireland wrote: »

convicted of failing to stop after a crash and failing to report an accident and 7 points on her licence, she allso lost her job.

bet that an irish court wouldnt be that severe

It's not really that severe - 7 points in the UK are different to 7 points here because there's no automatic disqualification at 12.

And the loss of her job had nothing to do with the court.

Incl legal costs it's probably cost her about £1,500, but some of that will be offset, no doubt, by her TV appearance money.

I suppose her insurance has gone up too.

07Lapierre

The judge should have instructed her to cycle for a while so she could appreciate what cyclists have to deal with on a daily basis.

Her local cycling club should offer her a years free membership...would be a good P.R. move.

Beasty

Jawgap wrote: »

It's not really that severe - 7 points in the UK are different to 7 points here because there's no automatic disqualification at 12.

There is, although you can go to court to try and plead with a judge not to be disqualified. I would also suggest points are more rigorously applied in the UK and often at a higher rate for equivalent offences

Jawgap

Beasty wrote: »

There is, although you can go to court to try and plead with a judge not to be disqualified. I would also suggest points are more rigorously applied in the UK and often at a higher rate for equivalent offences

I agree it's 'easier' to get points in the UK, and it's 'easier' to hit the 12 point makr, but it's both possible and easy to avoid a ban. I remember dealing with one driver when I worked in the UK who, having accumulated his 24th point, still managed to avoid a ban by making yet another plea of hardship when he was brought in before the magistrates.

In my experience, if you could put up a half decent argument that a ban would cause undo hardship because you needed your licence for your job or because of personal / family circumstances (sick child / spouse / Great Aunt Fanny) the magistrates would let you keep your licence and hit you with a fairly meaty fine instead. Or opt for a shorter ban.

Unlike here, where it's 12 points and your out - no ifs, ands or buts.

Beasty

Jawgap wrote: »

Unlike here, where it's 12 points and your out - no ifs, ands or buts.

The problem over here though is the pleading seems to take place before points are applied;)

Jawgap

Beasty wrote: »

The problem over here though is the pleading seems to take place before points are applied;)

Yes, it's more efficient that way - it saves the court's time being wasted, leaving them more time to let off drunk cyclists :pac:

robinph

I don't get how they can claim she was driving with due care and attention. If she crashed into another road user, which they have said that she did, then surely she wasn't driving with due care and attention. The logic just doesn't work.

Her claim of only driving at 15mph is also rubbish, surely the bike will have been going about that fast anyway, so how did she overtake?

Edit: re UK points. Different classes of points stay on the licence for different lengths of time. Quite easy for someone to have racked up 24 points over several years, but have never actually had 12 points active on their license at the same time.

Jawgap

robinph wrote: »

I don't get how they can claim she was driving with due care and attention. If she crashed into another road user, which they have said that she did, then surely she wasn't driving with due care and attention. The logic just doesn't work.

Her claim of only driving at 15mph is also rubbish, surely the bike will have been going about that fast anyway, so how did she overtake?

Edit: re UK points. Different classes of points stay on the licence for different lengths of time. Quite easy for someone to have racked up 24 points over several years, but have never actually had 12 points active on their license at the same time.

well, given I was there and I was prosecuting the person, you'll have to take my word that his points were accumulated in the required three year period All points have a lifespan of 3 years, regardless of how you 'earned' them.

Also (I'm not defending her) but she has to prove nothing, CPS and police have to prove it - just because they didn't, doesn't mean she wasn't - they just didn't get their case across the line.

robinph

Jawgap wrote: »

All points have a lifespan of 3 years, regardless of how you 'earned' them.

No they don't, I've had a bunch of longer lasting ones. :eek:

Edit: I thought that most of them were 3 years as well, just with some lasting longer, but most actually seem to be 4 years with a few being 3 or 11 years:
https://www.gov.uk/penalty-points-endorsements/endorsement-codes-and-penalty-points

Jawgap wrote: »

Also (I'm not defending her) but she has to prove nothing, CPS and police have to prove it - just because they didn't, doesn't mean she wasn't - they just didn't get their case across the line.

That's the bit I really don't get. They have to be seriously incompetent if they can't manage to prove she was driving without due care and attention but at the same time did manage to convict her of the other charges. Driving without due care and attention is surely a requirement of having an accident?

NeedMoreGears

I wonder if the general abhorrence of her actions after the event are colouring perceptions of what the driver should have been convicted of in this instance?

Suppose she hadn't sent that idiot tweet, would a conviction for two fairly serious traffic offences be seen as a reasonable outcome?

Anybody know what the minimum/maximum penalties the judge could have imposed?

Would the judge have been allowed to be influenced by the fact she tweeted about it afterwards?

Jawgap

robinph wrote: »

No they don't, I've had a bunch of longer lasting ones. :eek:



That's the bit I really don't get. They have to be seriously incompetent if they can't manage to prove she was driving without due care and attention but at the same time did manage to convict her of the other charges. Driving without due care and attention is surely a requirement of having an accident?

They're endorsements not penalty points as such, but the court when they endorse the licence will give it a point 'value.' Endorsements can last up to 11 years and the points are live during that time for the purposes of the totting up procedure.

on the second point, it's nothing to do with competence - it's about what the prosecutor can prove, and if you haven't got the evidence then she gets the benefit of the doubt.

Beasty

NeedMoreGears wrote: »

Would the judge have been allowed to be influenced by the fact she tweeted about it afterwards?

Only in whether it helped determine guilt or not - the fact she hit the cyclist was undisputed and I would guess the fact she tweeted influenced the decision to prosecute for failiing to stop and failing to report the accident. I presume she pleaded guilty to those charges.

HivemindXX

The first question I'd like to the answer to would be, if you were using due care and attention how is it that you hit the cyclist then?

I'm guessing it would be something like, I don't know but I can tell you it certainly wasn't because I wasn't paying attention and don't feel like I need to give any space when overtaking a cyclist, and I'd like to see you prove otherwise.

I can see why she regrets sending the tweet. If she hadn't she'd still be lol'ing about it instead of having all right thinking people know she's a nasty bitch for hitting a cyclist and driving off and everyone else thinking she's a moron for boasting about it on the internet. I guess that's more justice than a lot of cyclists hit by cars get.

bambergbike

Jawgap wrote: »

on the second point, it's nothing to do with competence - it's about what the prosecutor can prove, and if you haven't got the evidence then she gets the benefit of the doubt.

Absolutely. And most police forces in the UK don't seem to have any interest in investigating car-bike crashes unless the cyclist is actually injured badly enough to be taken off to hospital. If a cyclist walks away bruised or even more or less unharmed, the police treat these crashes the same way as they treat minor fender benders (i.e. damage only to property, no human cost, just let the insurance companies sort it out.)

I think she was probably only charged with careless driving because she clearly had to be charged with leaving the scene of an accident and it would have been odd to have the accident itself completely swept under the carpet in the court proceedings. I don't think anybody had the slightest hope that it might actually be possible to secure a conviction on the dangerous driving charge (on the basis of the evidence that the police wouldn't have been bothered gathering).

There's a description here of a vaguely similar accident (contact between the bikes and the car, but no significant damage to the people who were hit) that gives some insight into how the process typically works.

It's fairly depressing stuff, but what's really depressing is that we can get so caught up in the whole "cyclists should/cyclists shouldn't" discussions (lights/reflective gear/helmets/headphones etc.) that we are sometimes barely aware of this stuff unless we encounter it directly in our personal or professional lives.

Spook_ie

Jawgap wrote: »

It's not really that severe - 7 points in the UK are different to 7 points here because there's no automatic disqualification at 12.

And the loss of her job had nothing to do with the court.

Incl legal costs it's probably cost her about £1,500, but some of that will be offset, no doubt, by her TV appearance money.

I suppose her insurance has gone up too.

https://www.gov.uk/driving-disqualifications

Jawgap

Spook_ie wrote: »

https://www.gov.uk/driving-disqualifications

I'm not sure what your point is, but you've made it very well.

Spook_ie

Jawgap wrote: »

I'm not sure what your point is, but you've made it very well.

Just a link to the relevant UK site

As to the overtaking comments from posters, wasn't she going the opposite direction? That's the way I'd read the reports anyway

Mr Hockley told the court he was riding with a friend through Rockland All Saints, near Thetford, and had slowed down to about 18mph for a bend when a car came around the the corner "on my side of the road".

He said he ended up in a hedge, bruised, scratched and stung by nettles, after the car's wing mirror clipped his right arm.

He told the court there had been "quite a loud crunch" but admitted he had not come off his bike.

Jason Sexton, who was riding with Mr Hockley, told the court he had been riding just in front of his friend and had shouted to warn him about the approaching car before pulling into a lay-by.

He told the court he had also shouted at the driver, adding that his friend had been "as far across (on the road) as he could be to avoid traffic".

NeedMoreGears

Beasty wrote: »

Only in whether it helped determine guilt or not - the fact she hit the cyclist was undisputed and I would guess the fact she tweeted influenced the decision to prosecute for failiing to stop and failing to report the accident. I presume she pleaded guilty to those charges.

I'd agree the fact she tweeted was likely a significant factor in the decision to prosecute; not to mention the fact that it made her quite easy to track down!

I didn't word that question particularly brilliantly. What I trying to get at was, in terms of sanctions handed down, would the judge have been allowed to be influenced by the fact she tweeted and the contents of the tweet?

Beasty

NeedMoreGears wrote: »

would the judge have been allowed to be influenced by the fact she tweeted and the contents of the tweet?

Can't see how it can be taken into account. The offence was committed and the tweet was simply a form of "recording" of it. Sentences can be influenced by the guilty party showing remorse, but that tends to be later on rather than in the immediate aftermath. As far as I can make out she did show remorse to the cyclist involved and that may have been taken into account.

GoTilUBlow

The fact she has an exclusive contract with ITV daybreak is a pretty poor sign of the times.

magicbastarder

daybreak claims they did not pay her for her appearance. i suspect her motivation in appearing on it was to appear contrite and human.

droidus

Cyclist was on the wrong side of the road and she was annoyed at his 'mannerism':

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/emma-way-video-watch-bloody-2811552

NeedMoreGears

Beasty wrote: »

Can't see how it can be taken into account. The offence was committed and the tweet was simply a form of "recording" of it. Sentences can be influenced by the guilty party showing remorse, but that tends to be later on rather than in the immediate aftermath. As far as I can make out she did show remorse to the cyclist involved and that may have been taken into account.

That would be my view. I suspect the sanctions handed out by the judge were a function of the relatively minor injuries suffered (albeit that they could have been significantly worse - she and the cyclist were fortunate in that regard).

On balance I'd be of the view that she was punished plenty for the tweet - lost her job, everyone knows who she is and likely many have a very low opinion of her behaviour etc. As regards the severity of the sanctions handed out for the specific road traffic offences, I've no idea what is "normal" but £1,500 looks a bit light to me.

NeedMoreGears

Did a bit of googling......

The story below indicates a six month sentence following conviction for a hit & run. The poor victim was severely injured.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/8583610/Hit-and-run-driver-who-left-victim-paralysed-sentenced-to-just-150-days.html

This from the Evening Standard "A failure to do so can mean a prison sentence of up to six months, 5-10 driving license penalty points, and a fine of up to £5,000."

http://www.standard.co.uk/business/money/what-to-do-if-you-are-involved-in-a-hit-and-run-accident-8511510.html

magicbastarder

droidus wrote: »

Cyclist was on the wrong side of the road

she says he was on her side of the road - not sure if i'm missing a section where it clarifies if he was entitled to be there or not?

quozl

magicbastarder wrote: »

she says he was on her side of the road - not sure if i'm missing a section where it clarifies if he was entitled to be there or not?

He said that he wasn't on her side of the road, as did his - admittedly biased - friend.

So it's her word against his on that.