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Liability
JoelP - 1/12/08 at 09:43 PM

If you drive into a stationary car, how is it not your fault? And if someone dies, how is that too not your fault? Are you allowed to ram people if they leave their cars were they arent meant to be? Or are you, as a competent driver, expected to be looking out for other peoples mistakes and making up for them?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/south_yorkshire/7759093.stm

blakep82 - 1/12/08 at 09:50 PM

because his solicitor can not be saying it was his fault. his solicitor's job it to convince everyone else its not his fault.

when has any lawyer defending a murder suspect ever turned around in court court and said "yeah, he blatantly did it, your honour"

i think thats the only reason

nitram38 - 1/12/08 at 10:10 PM

He did plead guilty......says it all

JoelP - 1/12/08 at 10:19 PM

gulity... to 'dangerous driving', not 'causing death by dangerous driving'.

smart51 - 1/12/08 at 10:22 PM

Clearly it was his fault but that's not how an adversarial judicial sentence works. His lawyer has to persuade the court that he is a saint who was maliciously injured by a car illegally stationary in the fast lane of the motorway, whose minimum speed limit is 30. The other lawyer has to make out that he is reckless and feckless, a menace to society who should be punished most harshly. After a guilty plea, the judge decides what punishment fits the crime, in balance to other similar crimes with reference to the mitigating and aggravating factors of this incident. It is the least worst workable legal system invented by man. Having seen it at work as a juror, I wouldn't want to be in jeopardy of it. Seeing it at work just made me want to be totally law abiding.

nitram38 - 1/12/08 at 10:25 PM

I have done jury service. One thing I realised about courts, unless you are there to witness the whole case, it is difficult to come to a conclusion.
The trouble with the news/media is that it tends to cherry pick what it is telling the public.
I am not defending the driver, just pointing out that we do not know all of the facts.

JoelP - 1/12/08 at 10:27 PM

i suspect this charge only relates to the texting whilst driving, not the actual crash. Which isnt right in my book; colliding with a stationary vehicle is easily avoidable - you just look where you are going, nothing more or less. It seems obvious that being distracted by texting has caused him to hit an object he should've avoided, leading to a fatality. So to me that is causing death by dangerous driving.

MikeR - 1/12/08 at 11:26 PM

I was always told that if you have you handbrake on (and are stationary) it has to be the other persons fault.

You should drive in such a manner you can avoid all other vehicles. If the other vehicle is stationary (and the hand brake makes this so) then you have to be braking the law to hit it.

Not sure if this is true - but it makes sense.

iank - 2/12/08 at 07:46 AM

quote:
Originally posted by JoelP
i suspect this charge only relates to the texting whilst driving, not the actual crash. Which isnt right in my book; colliding with a stationary vehicle is easily avoidable - you just look where you are going, nothing more or less. It seems obvious that being distracted by texting has caused him to hit an object he should've avoided, leading to a fatality. So to me that is causing death by dangerous driving.


Yes, but his beak is arguing he was texting before the accident and that was dangerous driving, but they can't prove he was texting at the time of the accident, so that would at worse be driving without due care for which there isn't a "causing death by" version.

By pleading guilty and arguing like that the CPS will drop the impossible to prove case to get something, and he'll get a reduced sentence with no chance of jail time.