I am a life-long cyclist, for both getting around Sheffield and for leisure, enjoying all the hills the city and the Peak District has to offer. I participated in the "die-in" protest last year (during which we witnessed an appalling act of pre-meditated road-rage - I wonder what happened to that driver?) I'm also a car driver (as I imagine many cyclists are) and a pedestrian. Virtually every time I cycle I have to avoid a car driver doing something stupid that endangers me - carving me up; turning left in front of me; opening car doors into my path etc. Sometimes drivers deliberately target me. Drivers who injure or kill cyclists should very clearly be punished. If they do so when drunk, speeding, on their phones, deliberately driving dangerously or knowingly being careless then the punishment should be severe. But whether sending a driver who momentarily doesn't pay attention to prison would help is, in my view, pretty doubtful - there are surely much more constructive ways to respond to the terrible harm they have caused. All this said, what we really need is a massive culture change so that car drivers see and treat cyclists in a fundamentally different way. We also need to change the road infrastructure so that it reduces risk (for pedestrians, for cyclists and, indeed, for car drivers and their passengers). The former will take many years, and needs to start from the very top (which won't happen so long as the "car lobby" is seen as politically crucial and anti-cyclist culture wars abound). The latter requires £ billions. And we probably need to improve how people are assessed for their continued fitness to drive - I wonder how many of us know people who for reasons of illness or infirmity should no longer be driving - tricky territory, but not to be shied away from.
That quote "driving is a privilege not a right" was me. I think there should be an automatic life driving ban for anyone who kills someone else with a motor car.
Ruining another person's life by sending them to prison will do nothing to bring back loved ones lost in driving accidents. Prison should be an option in the worst cases, but generally it's not going to achieve anything. Better to improve cycling infrastructure to stop this kind of thing happening in the first place.
I completely agree. Much better to remove this person's right to drive. Nobody should go to prison for a mistake but there should be things in place to stop it happening again. That should include longer driving bans and more infrastructure.
I find it fascinating that as a society we accept the staggering number of people killed and seriously injured on the roads* every year as an inevitable part of life. Imagine the outrage that would ensue if that many people were killed and injured on the railways. I don't particularly want to run the risk of killing someone every time I go to work, but that's what we do every time we drive a car.
*1711 killed and 28,941 seriously injured in Britain in 2022 according to Brake, the road safety charity.
Agreed. Interesting to note that the death toll on the railways was huge in the early days but is now one, if not THE safest forms of transport (planes?) And crossing a road on foot is perhaps almost as dangerous as cycling these days?
Much of the problem lies in the way cities are structured. Sheffield wasn't built for cars let alone bikes. there's no great answer to improve safety unless you rip it up and start again, and that will never happen. There will always be dangerous drivers and dangerous cyclists, and much could be done to improve both of these things, but people are human and will make errors of judgement. It's putting measures in place to try and mitigate against these.
The problem is not limited to driving offences where cyclists are the victims. My own father was a pedestrian when he was killed by a Dangerous Driver. So I disagree that it is about road design or any such-technicality, it is about poor driver behaviour and selfish driver attitude. The man who killed my father received a derisory suspended sentence, measured in months not years, and a pathetic 12 month driving ban. And this was an offender who already had a previous conviction for causing death on the roads! Ask any Traffic Cop and they'll tell you the best way to kill somebody and get off pretty much scot-free, is to run them over or knock them off their bicycle. On average 5 people die every day on UK roads but the reality is that precious few killer drivers go to prison, a situation which has worsened in recent years as the Home Office sentencing advice is to give non-custodial sentences because the prisons are full. For those who are unsure what the purpose of sending dangerous killers to prison might achieve, the first result would be Crime Prevention - last time I checked prisoners can't drive and don't have access to vehicles or the road network. The second function prison sentences might serve is Deterrence. Getting off lightly the first time didn’t really teach my father’s killer a lesson nor alter his ways, just how many chances should we give people who have no respect for their fellow road users in their community? Victims don’t get a second chance, not do the families left behind to live with the pain every day for the rest of their lives. I frequently use the junction where Adrian Lane was tragically killed - the standard of driving there is terrible. It’s one of those junctions where car drivers like to cut the corner, not only are they turning in without being able to observe the approaching traffic, they are then on the wrong side of the road and of course the purpose of cutting the corner is to take it without the inconvenience of having to slow down or stop and look. Who are these impatient people taking such risks and disregarding the rules of the road and the safety of their fellow citizens? They aren’t big nasty armed robbers with sawn-off shotguns. It is ordinary local people, men and women, young and old - people who look like you and me. Perhaps if more of such innocuous looking killer drivers were splashed across the front pages having received the maximum jail sentence then more of us will sit up and take our responsibilities behind the wheel and in the saddle more seriously? Perhaps numbers of road deaths would go down? We won’t know until we try. The maximum sentence for Causing Death by Dangerous Driving has only relatively recently been increased from 10 to 14 years to much fanfare from government ministers. But what’s the point if judges are actively prevented handing down such a sentence? It becomes just a dangerous form of virtue signalling whilst at the same time gaslighting victims and safety campaigners. Justice has to be fair and balanced to maintain its legitimacy so this isn’t a hang ‘em high plea for retribution, we’re not talking an eye-for-an-eye here. Nevertheless victims have as much right to fairness as offenders, though they rarely receive it. Prison alone will do nothing by way of rehabilitation of the offenders but then again nor does allowing them walk free with a slap on the wrists and not even a mention of any restorative justice. The current weak situation around road death serves nobody well and merely perpetuates the feeling that nothing works properly, of institutionalised societal unfairness, and that our law is an ass. We all have a right to make it home safely and that right needs actively upholding.
Child protection: difficult. For everyone. The Lastborn was an accident-prone child, and I believe he would wait until my back was turned and then throw himself on something, just to see what it felt like. We had to go to Children's A&E so often, that we must have been marked as possibly violent parents: because I was conscious of being carefully observed and questioned as the number and frequency of visits mounted. Well: it's understandable. I bear no grudges. Fortunately, he grew out of this phase eventually.
He then had a lot of accidents at school too: but I had alibis for that, as I simply wasn't there 😆 I was only too pleased to have him off my hands 😆😆😆
"Here's me headbang note," he'd say about three times a fortnight, throwing the bit of paper at me 😩
(For those readers who haven't had experience of these things: the note informs you that your child has banged his/her head, and you must watch for symptoms of concussion, and if they arrive, you must seek medical advice.)
Road traffic accident implies nobody was at fault, which is why they're called road traffic collisions now. Killing simply means to cause death, it doesn't have to be deliberately, so I think it's accurate.
Cars are bigger than bikes, so if you're cycling, whether a collision is your fault or the other person's fault, you're going to get the worst of it. Regrettably, the same applies to cyclists and pedestrians: if you're the pedestrian, you're out of luck. Might I mention that many cyclists frequently cycle inconsiderately? They go through red lights a lot, and if I'm crossing with a Green Man, I sometimes get the fright of my life. Often, it's because they're on a hill and don't want to lose momentum. Well: they shouldn't be solving their problems by creating them for others. Fair's fair, whatever form of transport you use.
That's exactly it, pedestrians and people on bikes are always going to be vulnerable to motor vehicles, and nobody likes shared walking/cycling lanes, so we need infrastructure that separates these modes of transport as much as possible, and design junctions to force the bigger vehicle to take care and attention.
Go to many European cities - including Spain, Germany and Croatia, not just the obvious walking and cycling friendly places like Netherlands and Denmark - and you will see fantastic safe cycling routes out into the local countryside for families to enjoy safely. Crazy for 'the outdoor city' to have such dangerous routes to the Peaks when it could easily be so much better.
Some incidents are accidents. Events with unintended consequences. Others, such as driving under the influence of drink or drugs or using a mobile phone, come in a different category and should be punished accordingly. I'm over 80 and last year I undertook a voluntary driving assessment. I wouldn't object to doing it again to ensure I'm safe to drive. Having said that, it isn't just elderly drivers who maybe drive when they shouldn't. My husband was an optician and often dispensed spectacles for driving only to see the patient put them in their pocket as 'they didn't really need them'. There is no legal duty for opticians to inform the DVLA if a patient is not fit to drive by virtue of poor eyesight. It isn't routine to examine someone's fitness to drive after they have been in an accident. Maybe it should.
Your John is a much missed optician Elaine and I'm so happy to see Birds is still a superb business and keeps my vision in top, stylish condition which is much needed when I'm driving, walking or riding my bike.
Have to agree with your comments re the very sad cycling incidents. Twas ever thus? Bob Dylan in Percys Song wrote a song about a friend sentenced to 99 years for manslaughter following a car crash. That was a fictional story although in the US it could possibly have happened. The theme was ‘his friend was a good person and it was an accident’ The judge on the other hand was harsh and showed no mercy so the law was at fault. Mercifully in this country there are sentencing guidelines which surely came into play handed down by senior judges. I personally know the Ringinglow Road spot but not the Rotherham one. Traffic calming at the junction with Common Lane might have helped as cyclists can approach that junction very quickly coming down the hill and a second of lost concentration is disastrous. Very sad stories.
Having recently been a cyclist victim of a driver’s ‘momentary lapse in attention’, I think it is our infrastructure that needs rethinking. We ban guns, but equally fatal cars course through our urban streets, constraining so many freedoms to travel and play. I’d like a radical re-emphasis. How? Twenty’s plenty throughout the urban area, more junctions where everyone just needs to take care and give way, bans for SUVs in cities, putative taxes on large vehicles that hog road and pavement space, red routes providing reliable public transport.
You say 93% of convictions for death by dangerous driving result in a prison sentence. So why focus on one if the 7% to argue more should go to prison? 93% sounds a very high fraction already.
I am a life-long cyclist, for both getting around Sheffield and for leisure, enjoying all the hills the city and the Peak District has to offer. I participated in the "die-in" protest last year (during which we witnessed an appalling act of pre-meditated road-rage - I wonder what happened to that driver?) I'm also a car driver (as I imagine many cyclists are) and a pedestrian. Virtually every time I cycle I have to avoid a car driver doing something stupid that endangers me - carving me up; turning left in front of me; opening car doors into my path etc. Sometimes drivers deliberately target me. Drivers who injure or kill cyclists should very clearly be punished. If they do so when drunk, speeding, on their phones, deliberately driving dangerously or knowingly being careless then the punishment should be severe. But whether sending a driver who momentarily doesn't pay attention to prison would help is, in my view, pretty doubtful - there are surely much more constructive ways to respond to the terrible harm they have caused. All this said, what we really need is a massive culture change so that car drivers see and treat cyclists in a fundamentally different way. We also need to change the road infrastructure so that it reduces risk (for pedestrians, for cyclists and, indeed, for car drivers and their passengers). The former will take many years, and needs to start from the very top (which won't happen so long as the "car lobby" is seen as politically crucial and anti-cyclist culture wars abound). The latter requires £ billions. And we probably need to improve how people are assessed for their continued fitness to drive - I wonder how many of us know people who for reasons of illness or infirmity should no longer be driving - tricky territory, but not to be shied away from.
That quote "driving is a privilege not a right" was me. I think there should be an automatic life driving ban for anyone who kills someone else with a motor car.
Perfect solution Simon.
Ruining another person's life by sending them to prison will do nothing to bring back loved ones lost in driving accidents. Prison should be an option in the worst cases, but generally it's not going to achieve anything. Better to improve cycling infrastructure to stop this kind of thing happening in the first place.
I completely agree. Much better to remove this person's right to drive. Nobody should go to prison for a mistake but there should be things in place to stop it happening again. That should include longer driving bans and more infrastructure.
Quite right
I find it fascinating that as a society we accept the staggering number of people killed and seriously injured on the roads* every year as an inevitable part of life. Imagine the outrage that would ensue if that many people were killed and injured on the railways. I don't particularly want to run the risk of killing someone every time I go to work, but that's what we do every time we drive a car.
*1711 killed and 28,941 seriously injured in Britain in 2022 according to Brake, the road safety charity.
Agreed. Interesting to note that the death toll on the railways was huge in the early days but is now one, if not THE safest forms of transport (planes?) And crossing a road on foot is perhaps almost as dangerous as cycling these days?
On a rather pleasanter subject than cyclists being killed - I love the tree trunk carving! It’s so beautifully and skilfully done. I do hope it lasts!
Much of the problem lies in the way cities are structured. Sheffield wasn't built for cars let alone bikes. there's no great answer to improve safety unless you rip it up and start again, and that will never happen. There will always be dangerous drivers and dangerous cyclists, and much could be done to improve both of these things, but people are human and will make errors of judgement. It's putting measures in place to try and mitigate against these.
The problem is not limited to driving offences where cyclists are the victims. My own father was a pedestrian when he was killed by a Dangerous Driver. So I disagree that it is about road design or any such-technicality, it is about poor driver behaviour and selfish driver attitude. The man who killed my father received a derisory suspended sentence, measured in months not years, and a pathetic 12 month driving ban. And this was an offender who already had a previous conviction for causing death on the roads! Ask any Traffic Cop and they'll tell you the best way to kill somebody and get off pretty much scot-free, is to run them over or knock them off their bicycle. On average 5 people die every day on UK roads but the reality is that precious few killer drivers go to prison, a situation which has worsened in recent years as the Home Office sentencing advice is to give non-custodial sentences because the prisons are full. For those who are unsure what the purpose of sending dangerous killers to prison might achieve, the first result would be Crime Prevention - last time I checked prisoners can't drive and don't have access to vehicles or the road network. The second function prison sentences might serve is Deterrence. Getting off lightly the first time didn’t really teach my father’s killer a lesson nor alter his ways, just how many chances should we give people who have no respect for their fellow road users in their community? Victims don’t get a second chance, not do the families left behind to live with the pain every day for the rest of their lives. I frequently use the junction where Adrian Lane was tragically killed - the standard of driving there is terrible. It’s one of those junctions where car drivers like to cut the corner, not only are they turning in without being able to observe the approaching traffic, they are then on the wrong side of the road and of course the purpose of cutting the corner is to take it without the inconvenience of having to slow down or stop and look. Who are these impatient people taking such risks and disregarding the rules of the road and the safety of their fellow citizens? They aren’t big nasty armed robbers with sawn-off shotguns. It is ordinary local people, men and women, young and old - people who look like you and me. Perhaps if more of such innocuous looking killer drivers were splashed across the front pages having received the maximum jail sentence then more of us will sit up and take our responsibilities behind the wheel and in the saddle more seriously? Perhaps numbers of road deaths would go down? We won’t know until we try. The maximum sentence for Causing Death by Dangerous Driving has only relatively recently been increased from 10 to 14 years to much fanfare from government ministers. But what’s the point if judges are actively prevented handing down such a sentence? It becomes just a dangerous form of virtue signalling whilst at the same time gaslighting victims and safety campaigners. Justice has to be fair and balanced to maintain its legitimacy so this isn’t a hang ‘em high plea for retribution, we’re not talking an eye-for-an-eye here. Nevertheless victims have as much right to fairness as offenders, though they rarely receive it. Prison alone will do nothing by way of rehabilitation of the offenders but then again nor does allowing them walk free with a slap on the wrists and not even a mention of any restorative justice. The current weak situation around road death serves nobody well and merely perpetuates the feeling that nothing works properly, of institutionalised societal unfairness, and that our law is an ass. We all have a right to make it home safely and that right needs actively upholding.
Well said Chris.
Also, that’s so sad about your dad, I’m sorry to hear it and for the pathetic sentence.
Child protection: difficult. For everyone. The Lastborn was an accident-prone child, and I believe he would wait until my back was turned and then throw himself on something, just to see what it felt like. We had to go to Children's A&E so often, that we must have been marked as possibly violent parents: because I was conscious of being carefully observed and questioned as the number and frequency of visits mounted. Well: it's understandable. I bear no grudges. Fortunately, he grew out of this phase eventually.
He then had a lot of accidents at school too: but I had alibis for that, as I simply wasn't there 😆 I was only too pleased to have him off my hands 😆😆😆
"Here's me headbang note," he'd say about three times a fortnight, throwing the bit of paper at me 😩
(For those readers who haven't had experience of these things: the note informs you that your child has banged his/her head, and you must watch for symptoms of concussion, and if they arrive, you must seek medical advice.)
These are tragic road traffic accidents for everyone involved.
They are not ‘Killings’ for heavens sake.
I’m a bit concerned that the editorial policy of the Trib. allows such an inflammatory headline by an anonymous writer.
A dislikable unbalanced piece by most measures I would have thought.
Road traffic accident implies nobody was at fault, which is why they're called road traffic collisions now. Killing simply means to cause death, it doesn't have to be deliberately, so I think it's accurate.
What do you find unbalanced about the article?
Cars are bigger than bikes, so if you're cycling, whether a collision is your fault or the other person's fault, you're going to get the worst of it. Regrettably, the same applies to cyclists and pedestrians: if you're the pedestrian, you're out of luck. Might I mention that many cyclists frequently cycle inconsiderately? They go through red lights a lot, and if I'm crossing with a Green Man, I sometimes get the fright of my life. Often, it's because they're on a hill and don't want to lose momentum. Well: they shouldn't be solving their problems by creating them for others. Fair's fair, whatever form of transport you use.
That's exactly it, pedestrians and people on bikes are always going to be vulnerable to motor vehicles, and nobody likes shared walking/cycling lanes, so we need infrastructure that separates these modes of transport as much as possible, and design junctions to force the bigger vehicle to take care and attention.
Go to many European cities - including Spain, Germany and Croatia, not just the obvious walking and cycling friendly places like Netherlands and Denmark - and you will see fantastic safe cycling routes out into the local countryside for families to enjoy safely. Crazy for 'the outdoor city' to have such dangerous routes to the Peaks when it could easily be so much better.
Some incidents are accidents. Events with unintended consequences. Others, such as driving under the influence of drink or drugs or using a mobile phone, come in a different category and should be punished accordingly. I'm over 80 and last year I undertook a voluntary driving assessment. I wouldn't object to doing it again to ensure I'm safe to drive. Having said that, it isn't just elderly drivers who maybe drive when they shouldn't. My husband was an optician and often dispensed spectacles for driving only to see the patient put them in their pocket as 'they didn't really need them'. There is no legal duty for opticians to inform the DVLA if a patient is not fit to drive by virtue of poor eyesight. It isn't routine to examine someone's fitness to drive after they have been in an accident. Maybe it should.
Your John is a much missed optician Elaine and I'm so happy to see Birds is still a superb business and keeps my vision in top, stylish condition which is much needed when I'm driving, walking or riding my bike.
Many thanks for your kind words. Elly is trying hard to keep Bird's running as her father would want
Have to agree with your comments re the very sad cycling incidents. Twas ever thus? Bob Dylan in Percys Song wrote a song about a friend sentenced to 99 years for manslaughter following a car crash. That was a fictional story although in the US it could possibly have happened. The theme was ‘his friend was a good person and it was an accident’ The judge on the other hand was harsh and showed no mercy so the law was at fault. Mercifully in this country there are sentencing guidelines which surely came into play handed down by senior judges. I personally know the Ringinglow Road spot but not the Rotherham one. Traffic calming at the junction with Common Lane might have helped as cyclists can approach that junction very quickly coming down the hill and a second of lost concentration is disastrous. Very sad stories.
Very sad stories is absolutely right sir.
Having recently been a cyclist victim of a driver’s ‘momentary lapse in attention’, I think it is our infrastructure that needs rethinking. We ban guns, but equally fatal cars course through our urban streets, constraining so many freedoms to travel and play. I’d like a radical re-emphasis. How? Twenty’s plenty throughout the urban area, more junctions where everyone just needs to take care and give way, bans for SUVs in cities, putative taxes on large vehicles that hog road and pavement space, red routes providing reliable public transport.
I don't think prison sentences make sense for accidents. I think driving bans and better infrastructure is the better way forward.
This is billed as ‘The big story’
Who wrote it please?
It’s not the first time I’ve had to ask this.
You say 93% of convictions for death by dangerous driving result in a prison sentence. So why focus on one if the 7% to argue more should go to prison? 93% sounds a very high fraction already.