What is a life worth?

[Lakeland]

Just seen this on a local news site, the guy was riding a 400cc motorbike and was essentially killed by an officer doing a u-turn, she pleaded not guilty. The claim by other officers that he was doing 100mph smells a tad..

http://www.nwemail.co.uk/News/Barro...uvre--41907a48-a821-42b9-b9c8-d12d4850b3a3-ds

Anyway, this is the sentence, what are your thoughts?

180 hours of unpaid work, banned from driving for a year and £2,800 costs.

Does working in the force give you some leeway in court? I've not looked at other cases but this seems to be a bit lenient to me, sure I've read about people being jailed under similar circumstances?

 

[Lakeland]

The thread isn't about police getting lenient treatment is about what a biker's life is worth, though yes I did question if it was lenient because of her job.

The officer claims to never have seen the biker until he was lying on the floor. There are a few more reports with more info on that site and a few others.

I'm a biker and posted it here because it made me wonder what protection we have with regard to being killed, there doesn't seem to be much deterrent and this kind of article doesn't send out a good message with regard to being safe on the road. I didn't post in GD because it would just turn in to the typical biker hate thread.

 

[Lakeland]

Courts do issue punishments to deter others. Vehicles are legal weapons which far too few people understand until it's too late. As a biker I rage when I see my life flash before me due to the laid back attitude of others, not sure why you're having a rage but each to their own.

If there is evidence that the biker was riding at a sensible speed when the accident happened and the accident was caused because the officer did a dangerous u-turn and t-boned the biker what relevance does pervious speed have? To me it just smells a bit funny..

It's not really a daily mail headline is it.. If your life was taken would your family say 5 weeks unpaid work, a 1 year driving ban and 2.8k was just? Life is worth more than that, in my opinion. After a few brief web searches it seems that sentences handed out vary quite a lot but most instances are the usual 'sorry mate I didn't see you' while pulling out of a junction. I saw a helicopter rescue type program a few weeks ago and was shocked to see that pulled out on a biker and very nearly killed them got nothing more than 3 points on their licence, the same as you'd get for eating a cookie at the traffic lights..