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news
Helmet child (credit: road.cc)Judge rules cyclist’s lack of helmet “of no relevance” as taxi driver fined €1,000 for breaking rider’s leg in roundabout crash – after police noted cyclist’s dark clothes and earphones
A judge in Ireland has said that a cyclist’s decision to not wear a helmet is “of no relevance” to a collision which left him with a broken leg and saw the taxi driver responsible fined €1,000 for careless driving.
However, in court this week in Dundalk, the judge also concluded that the motorist’s actions were at the “lower end of carelessness”, as his view was “significantly obstructed” approaching the roundabout where he struck the cyclist from behind.
Meanwhile, a police officer who attended the scene reported that the injured rider was not wearing a helmet, was wearing “relatively” dark clothing, using an earphone, and that his front light may not have been working, while also telling the court that the taxi driver’s view may have been blocked by traffic signs.
The collision, which took place at 10.49pm on 18 November 2021 at a roundabout on Inner Relief Road in Dundalk, halfway between Belfast and Dublin, saw taxi driver Bernard Hutchinson hit a cyclist from behind on his way to pick up a fare, the Irish Independent (link is external) reports.
Roundabout, Inner Relief Road, Dundalk (credit: Google Maps)The collision buckled the bike’s back wheel and threw the cyclist to the ground, breaking his left leg and thumb. After the crash, the cyclist spent several days in hospital, where his left tibia was nailed together during surgery, and was off work for six months after experiencing difficulty lifting heavy objects.
68-year-old Hutchinson tested negative for alcohol and drugs at the roadside in the immediate aftermath of the collision, with the investigating garda telling the court this week that he was distraught and “extremely cooperative”.
Garda Dave Buckley also testified that, when he arrived at the scene, he saw the injured cyclist and his bike lying on the road several metres in front of Hutchinson’s stationary car.
Buckley told the court that the man, who was in severe pain with cuts on his body, was not wearing a helmet and was dressed in “relatively dark clothing”, with an earphone in one ear. The police officer said he found a rear bike light on the road, while the bike’s front light was not working, though it was impossible to say if it had been working at the time of the crash.
> Why is Dan Walker’s claim that a bike helmet saved his life so controversial?
In a voluntary cautionary statement given after the collision, Hutchinson told police that he saw no lights or reflectors on the bike, and that the cyclist was not wearing hi-vis clothing.
Meanwhile, Buckley added in court that the taxi driver’s view “may have been obstructed by traffic signs”, and that he was an upstanding member of the community who had stopped to aid the stricken cyclist.
Hutchinson had initially denied a charge of careless driving causing serious bodily harm, leading to a trial being arranged, but later pleaded guilty when rearraigned.
The driver’s counsel told the court this week that the fully insured part-time taxi driver has been married for 44 years and driving without incident for 50, including driving two of his three adult sons to international amateur kickboxing and taekwondo events.
The driver’s defence lawyer also noted that the injured cyclist had been fully compensated and wished the 68-year-old “no ill will”.
Nevertheless, they did admit that a “second glance to the right might have been appropriate”, while saying that the cyclist was “travelling at some reasonable speed, which he was entitled to do”.
After CCTV footage showing two different angles of the crash was played to the court, Hutchinson’s counsel argued that his actions were “very much at the lower level of culpability” and asked the court to “exercise its discretion not to impose a disqualification”.
An engineer’s report for the defence also showed a loss of vision on the approach to the roundabout, which would nevertheless have been mitigated by a second look before driving on.
Summarising, Judge Dara Hayes agreed that the taxi driver’s view was “significantly obstructed” before approaching the yield line on the roundabout, but that he didn’t make a sufficient final check. Nevertheless, Hayes noted that Hutchinson’s driving prior to the crash was not “hasty” and appeared "relatively conservative”.
The judge also concluded that the fact that the cyclist was not wearing a helmet when he was hit was “of no relevance to the case”.
Arguing that his driving “appeared to fall at the lower end of carelessness” – and noting that his change of plea on the trial date, while not carrying the same weight as an early guilty plea, “was always of value” – the judge fined Hutchinson €1,000, which he must pay within six months.
The 68-year-old was not banned from driving, however, the judge concluding that a “driving disqualification was not required”.
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After obtaining a PhD, lecturing, and hosting a history podcast at Queen’s University Belfast, Ryan joined road.cc in December 2021 and since then has kept the site’s readers and listeners informed and enthralled (well at least occasionally) on news, the live blog, and the road.cc Podcast. After boarding a wrong bus at the world championships and ruining a good pair of jeans at the cyclocross, he now serves as road.cc’s senior news writer. Before his foray into cycling journalism, he wallowed in the equally pitiless world of academia, where he wrote a book about Victorian politics and droned on about cycling and bikes to classes of bored students (while taking every chance he could get to talk about cycling in print or on the radio). He can be found riding his bike very slowly around the narrow, scenic country lanes of Co. Down.
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21 comments
Garda-think = Garda-driver
So the driver committed two acts that would have failed a driving test:
1) Not look enough, given their vision was obscured
2) hit a cyclist from behind (did the driver not have their headlights on?)
Yet, still gets to keep his licence with almost no real repercusions...
(One might hope the insurance renewal at least stings a bit.)
I've never bought the "he wasn't wearing a helmet" argument. That's like shooting someone and claiming it's their fault they were injured because they weren't wearing a bullet proof vest.
If the law doesn't require a helmet, it can't punish for not wearing one.
And especially when his injuries were "breaking his left leg and thumb".
Right. In this case, it's like shooting someone in the leg, and claiming it's their fault they were injured because they weren't wearing a bullet proof vest.
Yep. The insinuation was that the cyclist wasn't taking their own safety seriously so was probably cycling dangerously as well as suggesting that the injury either wouldn't have happened or wouldn't be as severe if they had a helmet on. All this is to lessen the responsibility of the driver not to hit other road users.
Agree with the point but ... firearms analogies are tempting but tricky. Because at least in the UK while you can legitimately have certain firearms and shoot, it's been a heavily regulated and indeed particular and niche thing for many years, unlike mass motoring.
... but ... how about "it's a bit like letting off a whole bunch of fireworks in all directions then claiming it's the victim's fault when they were blinded because they weren't wearing eye protection"
But of course that doesn't work well either because there's no expectation that people would wear eye protection while going about most normal activities whereas for complex reasons there's a general perception cyclists should wear helmets. Which unfortunately will feed the "evidence of recklessness / contributary negligence" argument in a way that e.g. failing to follow far more important safety practices while driving does not.
And setting off fireworks is still a "special" / very occasional activity where driving is a "several times a day" totally normal activity for many if not most adults.
"However, in court this week in Dundalk, the judge also concluded that the motorist’s actions were at the “lower end of carelessness”, as his view was “significantly obstructed” approaching the roundabout where he struck the cyclist from behind.
Summarising, Judge Dara Hayes agreed that the taxi driver’s view was “significantly obstructed” before approaching the yield line on the roundabout, but that he didn’t make a sufficient final check.
Hutchinson’s counsel argued that his actions were “very much at the lower level of culpability”
So if the view is significantly obstructed, you don't need to take extra care, you just carry on barrelling through and if you do seriously injure someone, it's not really serious or your fault much. The courts will let you off, aided and abetted by the police, who think that a helmet would somehow have stopped the driver hitting the cyclist.
Levels of motornormativity are so high that it is difficult to see how change can occur.
Yes, that comment surprised me, especially as obstructing visibility at a junction is a standard highway engineering practice to reduce approach speeds.
Example here, where a hedgerow has been planted to obscure visibility, with screening panels added to further reduce visibility.
The courts will let you off, aided and abetted by the police, who think that a helmet would somehow have stopped the driver hitting the cyclist
Yep! That's about it, but it is consistent with the police/ legal system treatment of drivers committing just about any traffic offence
Good to see you understand how road rules work. If I ever get caught speeding I will just say that I didn't realise the speed limit so I just had a guess and cracked on. Can't see? YOLO. Can't expect people to drive to conditions or visiblity.
This is how its been forever unfortunately. Every excuse is accepted and taken as mitigation when someone drives like a twat.
Seems also to be Titanic Captain Edward Smith's attitude with respect to icebergs in the dark.
"The driver’s counsel told the court this week that the fully insured part-time taxi driver has been married for 44 years and driving without incident for 50, including driving two of his three adult sons to international amateur kickboxing and taekwondo events"
Half of this sentence is a complete waste of the courts time
The driver’s counsel told the court that the fully insured part-time taxi driver has been driving without incident for 50 years. is all that was needed
I agree. I have only been married for 33 years, but my driving has improved year on year. I did sometimes flirt with a girl in the accounts dept at work and as a result my driving was very poor at times.
The worst drivers are the sort who have had affairs and got divorced.
I sometimes drive my friends to first class cricket matches, which underlines what a considerate careful driver I am.
He didn't even specify if he'd been married without incident during that time.
I've found that being married has improved my driving to the point where I'm almost incapable without my wife being in the car.
Without her, I'd never know when to brake, or about the other vehicle in front, or approaching from the rear ... or pulling out of a slip road 300m ahead.
😉
So, the lad was driven onto from behind but the police officer at pains to highlight the front light, very good.
While the article says that the front light was not working (perhaps as a result of the crash?), it only comments on the rear light. Which implies that it WAS working!
"and that he was an upstanding member of the community who had stopped to aid the stricken cyclist."
Let's see if we can go up a level by not hitting cyclists in the first fucking place!
While it was the driver's fault for hitting the cyclist, the rider didn't help himself.
He was riding at nearly 11pm in mid-November, and the report suggests that he didn't have fully functioning lights. Plus, he didn't even have anything reflective to mitigate his lack of lighting.
It doesn't do anything of the sort, you know. The taxi driver claims he saw no lights; well, he could be making that up, for obvious reasons, or he could not have seen them as he didn't check properly and had his view obscured by traffic signs as the judge concluded. The police report states that a rear light was found on the road and that a non-functioning front light was found on the handlebars and that there was no way of telling whether it had been functional pre-collision. To jump from that evidence to suggesting that the cyclist "didn't have fully functioning lights" is a massive leap.