What is a life worth?

Odd comments just because you end up killing someone doesn't mean you should get anything. Depends on the circumstances. If it's a complete accident with no rule breaking, then why should they be punished.

As to this particular case, normal media is crap and no where near enough info.
 
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Sagalout said:
It was death by dangerous driving - therefore not just an accident, but completely avoidable
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Don't bother reading what I actually said.

But as you've said it, how was it?
Clear straight road, no no u-turn signs etc, good weather conditions.
In such a case then they would have to prove that she U turned without looking for traffic and pulled out in front of him. No where in the article does it say that is the case.

You know perhaps the rider wasn't paying attention and missed an obvious road block. In which case she should have got nothing at all.

As I and others have said, the article is useless for deciding such info
 
Glaucus said:
Clear straight road, no no u-turn signs etc, good weather conditions.
In such a case then they would have to prove that she U turned without looking for traffic and pulled out in front of him. No where in the article does it say that is the case.

You know perhaps the rider wasn't paying attention and missed an obvious road block. In which case she should have got nothing at all.
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As she was successfully convicted the court has decided that her driving was well below the standard of a careful and competent driver and be obviously dangerous. Whilst the article doesn't give all the details, you have to ask what a driver could do in a u-turn to be well below that standard.

Getting dangerous driving convictions isn't easy, so I'm more inclined to think that she did indeed do something very stupid with clearly stark results.
 
Burnsy2023 said:
As she was successfully convicted the court has decided that her driving was well below the standard of a careful and competent driver. Whilst the article doesn't give all the details, you have to ask what a driver could do in a u-turn to be well below that standard.
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I don't find this enough, courts often convict things like this with sub par evidence and give extremely small punishments due to it. To try and appease the public.
If it was easily proven sub par she would have got far more. Many people get successfully convicted who shouldn't.

All because if the modern mantra, of someone has to pay and in these sort of cases the dead can't.
 
depends on how productive the dead person was, if they were a doctor, nurse, police officer, airline pilot its quite a lot, if they were on benefits then nothing really...unless they did a lot of unpaid work / were very productive in the community in other ways...
 
Glaucus said:
I don't find this enough, courts often convict things like this with sub par evidence and give extremely small punishments due to it. To try and appease the public.
If it was easily proven sub par she would have got far more. Many people get successfully convicted who shouldn't.

All because if the modern mantra, of someone has to pay and in these sort of cases the dead can't.
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See my edit. Getting DD convictions is hard. The reason she got the sentence she did was due to mitigating factors. That's how sentencing works.

Lets look at the sentencing guide:

http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/s_to_u/sentencing_manual/death_by_dangerous_driving/

It's likely to be a level 3 sentence

This is driving that created a significant risk of danger and is likely to be characterised by:

A brief but obvious danger arising from a seriously dangerous manoeuvre
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Starting sentence is 3 years custody.

Possible mitigating factors:

Actions of the victim or a third party contributed significantly to the likelihood of a collision occurring and/or death resulting

The driving was in response to a proven and genuine emergency falling short of a defence
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I think the fact that significant remorse has been shown throughout also affected the sentence.
 
Burnsy2023 said:
As she was successfully convicted the court has decided that her driving was well below the standard of a careful and competent driver and be obviously dangerous. Whilst the article doesn't give all the details, you have to ask what a driver could do in a u-turn to be well below that standard.

Getting dangerous driving convictions isn't easy, so I'm more inclined to think that she did indeed do something very stupid with clearly stark results.
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As well as the key mitigating factor that I mentioned above.

The bikers speed is key here.

She pulled across the road believing there to be nothing coming and then the biker hit her.

If it happened where I think it happened there is a blind bend right before the layby, so it is reasonable to say that she may have been right in her decision at the time she made it but in the 2 seconds it took to enter the maneuvre (probably as she was looking up the road the other way to check it was clear), the bike had blipped around the corner into the side of her.
 
It's hard in general to get a conviction for any old thing, its not hard at all toga et an conviction for cases which cause death,

And yes mitigation evidence always lowers sentences.

Doesn't mean that plenty of cases get convictions when they shouldn't.
 
Ignore my above. She wasn't convicted of death by dangerous driving but death by careless driving instead. I was wondering how she avoided the mandatory 24 month disqualification.

In which point the sentence is bang in the middle of what should be expected from the guidelines. Custody isn't even in the range for an offence classed as "Careless or inconsiderate driving arising from momentary inattention with no aggravating factors" : http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/s_to_u/...g_death_by_careless_or_inconsiderate_driving/
 
And shows how bad some of our laws are. Sentence increased if multiple people die. In fact different offence if people die.
So much for punishment for crime rather than punishment for outcome.

Same reason victim impact statements should be banned immediately. It affected one person more than another so sentence changes.
 
Indeed, I think along with the sentencing and her own remorse the punishment is about right.

Her life is going to be forever changed and potentially damaged so what is putting her in jail going to achieve? I can't see how that would be in public interest.

It is a terrible tragedy, both for the biker and the Police officer. Knowing your actions have directly caused someones death must be a very heavy weight to bear.
 
I have been on the wrong side of a copper who blatantly lied and got away with it and there was video evidence too!
 
Impact speed of 70mph. Suggests a much higher speed before braking.

Would the collision have happened if biker was at speed limit...Maybe
Would the collision have happened had the driver NOT done the U-turn. No

The driver was innocent until the biker hit her at speed but the biker has to take some blame for the speed. Unfortunately as in most cases the biker loses the most
 
Glaucus said:
And shows how bad some of our laws are. Sentence increased if multiple people die. In fact different offence if people die.
So much for punishment for crime rather than punishment for outcome.

Same reason victim impact statements should be banned immediately. It affected one person more than another so sentence changes.
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I think punishment for the outcome can be fairer.

Shooting a shotgun into the air and not hitting anybody should be treated less harsh than shooting a shotgun into the air and hitting someone
 
Glaucus said:
And shows how bad some of our laws are. Sentence increased if multiple people die. In fact different offence if people die.
So much for punishment for crime rather than punishment for outcome.
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It is a different offence. Death by careless driving is different to careless driving.

I think we need to remember that this can happen to anyone. Very few people pay the proper amount of attention when driving 100% of the time. Driving is really hard and exhausting to do properly as I get reminded any any Police driving course I go on.

BuffetSlayer said:
Indeed, I think along with the sentencing and her own remorse the punishment is about right.

Her life is going to be forever changed and potentially damaged so what is putting her in jail going to achieve? I can't see how that would be in public interest.

It is a terrible tragedy, both for the biker and the Police officer. Knowing your actions have directly caused someones death must be a very heavy weight to bear.
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Indeed.
 
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