Bikers charged with death by dangerous driving

[Mervin]

Well the view of a biker solicitor a valid point i suppose,

From a legal point of view it is complete and utter nonsense. But it is entirely possible that for tactical reasons the riders' own lawyers offered to accept the condition to demonstrate that they were contrite and treating the process seriously. Unless a client needed to ride, in these circumstances I would probably advise them to make an offer of this sort.

[badgerKDD]

Thats a fair enough point from their solicitor but to have it put forward from the judge in the first place is what pisses me off.

[Bladerunner]

I think the entire case is bol*ocks, if you are riding with other people and you get split up for whatever reason - be that traffic, riding ability or whatever - if you make a decision to take extra risks etc and ride beyond your ability then that is your decision and yours alone.

I ride faster than many of my friends, so does this mean that if we go for a ride together and one of them crashes whilst some distance behind me it's my fault? Does it f*ck. What if I'm out for a ride and someone else on another bike uses the same stretch of road behind me and crashes? I think it's a very dangerous precendent to be setting.

At the end of the day it's a tragic situation, but it is the sole responsibility of the individual in control (or not) of the bike at the time.

[Mervin]

Well Bladerunner one would hope so, but it seems that the law has a different view to us , let us just hope that the judge /jury see sense and realise it was the riders decision too go out that and ride how he did, and no one forced him to do it
Merv

[billinom8s]

I bet there are no bikers in the jury.

[DaveMcR1]

I find it interesting that we don't seem to hear of any car drivers being prosecuted for the same "offences". Given that the number of cars on the road are considerably more & teenagers being teenagers & as we are all supposed to be governed by the same laws of the road. Maybe I'm just biased cause I ride.

[gudgeon pin]

I think there has to more to this little lot than first meets the eye, the other riders need to be clearly linked to this incident for the powers that be to feel confident enough to bring this charge to court.
Its possible the riders have been associated by their proximity to the fallen rider, the incident may have been observed on camera, or by an off duty police officer or perhaps several authoritative witnesses, clearly a charge as detrimental to all concerned as this would be well founded, it would follow then they must have very strong evidence of some kind.

Here’s one rider that will be watching this case very closely, being a real devotee of close combat riding, I for one would not wish to risk an encounter with the authorities if this case goes the wrong way.

[gudgeon pin]

Yeh, thought as much...

“Will we soon have to assume a legal duty of care for any other biker we chose to ride along with?” [1]

Here’s a thread that may interest any aspiring ride-out leaders/organiser!

reference [1] http://backroadsrider.wordpress.com/201 ... ty-of-care

[badgerKDD]

Yep, good article..

Oh [censored] it I'm off to join MAG, oh and I'll be handing out forms for everyone to sign when I organise my next 'fun' rideout absolving myself from all responsibility of other participants, car drivers, pedestrians, cattle in nearby fields, low flying aircraft etc.

Motorcycling = freedom.....not any more

[Squashed_Fly]

I can see this from both sides. I'm assuming that the conditions surrounding the accident involved riding at speeds above the speed limit. If so, for the others to be close enough to be associated, they must too have broken the speed limit and therefore deemed to be riding dangerously and potentially contributing towards this death. If you ride at the national limit (60 on a single carriageway), and the rider who has the accident is doing 80, it won't take long for him to leave the group of riders behind who are riding sensibly, and thus any accident would be deemed of his own doing.

If you see someone in your group you feel is riding beyond their limits, and you want to preserve your license etc, then slow down. If that doesn't encourage them to do the same, and they still ride excessively, then you know you did what you cold to stop them coming to harm, plus you wouldn't be close enough to be associated.

If we see a rider stopped and broken down, we feel we have a duty of care to help him out, so why not in this case?

I'm just playing devils advocate, as so many people seem to question why this should be allowed to happen. For the record, I don't agree with it, and the point made about it just being bikes, not cars as well is well made. If a car has an accident in the fast lane at 85mph, we don't immediately hold everyone else responsible. We just call it 'the flow of traffic' and be done with it....

[graham22]

Problem is, if you're riding in a group, the front rider may be within the limit but the ones somewhat behind may have to ride alot over it to keep in touch - it happens, but to the public (ie witnesses) they couldn't tell the difference between a bike overtaking at 60 compared to one overtaking at 85, so everyone is classed as riding at the same speed.

I think the whole thing is as a result of the current 'blame society' where no-one takes responsiblity for their actions, also it's a 'result' for the police, albeit an easy one - far easier than chasing drugged up violent theives.

Also, watching a Road Wars/Traffic cops program a while back, didn't the police sucessfully prosecute some boy racers in cars where one of their group collided with another car head on killing a chaild in the other car as well as the boy racer? I know an innocent TP was killed as well but same circumstances ie vehicles travelling together.

As I said before, I don't agree with this but I fear the prosecutors will get the result they want.

[Squashed_Fly]

Was there any update on what happened with this case?

Interested to see how it pans out....