Journalism and Cycling 2: the difficult second album

I don't think he deflected at all and dealt with the issue and addressed it; in a nutshell our court/jail system would collapse if we locked up all these minor not violent convicts.

I'm not aware of any jurisdiction where the criminal justice system alone have fixed the dysfunction in their society wrought by widespread illicit drug and alcohol abuse. Take a walk into any district court of your choice and see the revolving door that exists for an underclass in society. On the night in question there are probably 100's of people in breach of bail conditions while simultaneously our jails are beyond full.

Jails are a bit like roads, if you build them you fill them but things rarely enough get better.

The main issue here is that the driver was perversely rewarded for leaving the scene. Given his history it is highly likely he was under the influence at time( or highly agitated from not being so), but by running we don't or can't have that evidence. A mandatory sentence for running would insure this time of criminal isn't rewarded for such a despicable act.

In the absence of such evidence all is left is physical evidence at scene, driver's vehicle and probably no eye witness. Never enough for a conviction most of the time.

Someone in the judges position has to review all facts and state uncomfortable truths.

That 30 mins after sunset/before sunrise is an archaic leftover from a time when batteries and vehicle lighting was of a very poor quality compared to today.

Even at that the UK in 1957 due to increasing speeds they change from 60 mins to 30mins. If that was prudent then, given speed increases 30 mins today seems unwise; particularly to cater for damp/overcast evenings .

As a vulnerable road user sunset/sunrise should be the limits of when to ride without lights, certainly on N roads.

In vehicles automatic lights have largely made the law redundant.

If you look at the audax thread here the recent recommendation for lights from an experienced rider and organiser was for 3 rear lights, in order to cope with battery/redundancy issues.

To say lighting on bike is irrelevant is complete cycling forum blinkers

I'd agree with you, but facts are facts. The judge in this case referred to the fact that the cyclist did not have lights on, contrary to the law.

As @Large bottle small glass put it (more eloquently, I might add) had this ended up in court because the cyclist was injured, then the lack of lights would have been used as mitigating evidence by the defense. This doesn't change because the cyclist died.

It doesn't give me any pleasure to say any of this, particularly when my posts are thanked by the likes of spook_ie, and I'm not saying what I'm saying to excuse or lessen the actions of the man driving the car, but the idea (put forward by a number of posters here) that the judge wouldn't bring this up in a report on the incident seems odd to me.

Just looked, he is

You have no idea of whether conditions? I haven't seen it reported and met.ie records don't go back that far.

So the risk of being hit from behind on a 100km/h N road is the same 45mins after sunset on a damp evening with or without lights?

For fella critical of someone swapping science for opinion you are making some quantum leaps in logic there.

How do you "know" what happened here?

"Is it something you would recommend to a friend or would you advise them use a light? If you would, why?"

You seemed to miss that question

Very!