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news
Statue of Justice, Old Bailey (licensed CC BY 2.0 on Flickr by Ronnie Macdonald).jpgSkip lorry driver acquitted of causing death of cyclist in Hull
A skip lorry driver has been acquitted at Hull Crown Court of causing the death of a cyclist through careless driving, with a CCTV expert telling the trial that the rider would have been in the vehicle’s blind spot before the fatal crash due to its wing mirrors.
Craig Beharrell, aged 42, was killed when he was hit by a skip lorry driven by Peter Sanderson, 62, on the city’s Hessle Road at 7.35am on 17 July 2017, reports the Hull Daily Mail.
Mr Beharrell had been riding on a cycle lane along Hessle Road when Sanderson turned left onto the road from Wiltshire Road.
The fatal crash was recorded on both the GoPro camera the cyclist was using and on CCTV in the cab of the lorry, with footage from both shown to the jury during the week-long trial.
CCTV analyst Matthew Cass, appearing as an expert witness for the defence, told the court that both the lorry and the cyclist became “synchronised” as they neared the junction.
He added that the cyclist would have been obscured from the lorry driver’s view because of the vehicle’s wing mirrors.
Before the jury retired to consider its verdict, Judge Paul Watson told them: “In difficult cases like these there are no winners and no losers and we in the criminal justice system entrust difficult decisions in cases like this to jurors to do their best to look at evidence on both sides.”
The jury acquitted Sanderson, who insisted he had not seen Mr Beharrell, after deliberating for nearly four and a half hours.
After delivering their not guilty verdict, the judge told the members of the jury that their decision had been informed by their “knowledge and experience of the world and their experience as drivers.”
Besides the fact that only the jury can know what factors went into their decision, it’s worth noting that Hull has the fourth-highest levels of cycle commuting in England and that nationwide, one in four households have no access to a motor vehicle.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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47 comments
it looks from the description and this road layout, the cyclist was on the main road cycling in a marked lane, and the lorry has pulled out of a side road to join that main road, so collected the cyclist from on the cyclists left side
This synchronisation thing must be them saying the lorry was moving forward at enough pace that meant a cyclist or anything that fitted in the "A pillar" gap of a lorry was blocked from the drivers initial view,and was kept blocked till the driver then totally commited to turning out of the side road as they believed it to be clear and thats when the collision occured.
how a jury of drivers does not think that counts as death by careless driving...I dont know what can you say
condolences to the family & friends of the cyclist involved.
There's a plan to ban lorries with poor driver visibility, it's only in London though:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/sep/30/lorries-face-london-ban-plans-improve-safety-cyclists
Elsewhere in the country, just put a yellow sticker on the back of it and hope for the best.
Thanks, so if he was at a junction he should have stopped. If he had stopped for a couple of seconds and pulled out at a normal speed there is no way they could synch. It seems the expert of CCTV should have been replaced for someone with a basic comprehension of mechanics or physics...
@Alansmurphy
The lorry was at the junction turning onto the road the cyclist was coming down. The Synchronisation meant the lorry was moving towards the juntion at the same speed the cyclist was coming so he was always blocked by the large double wing mirrors these lorries have nowadays.
However this does not excuse the driver of at least careless driving as he did not try to move to ensure nothing was behind the blind spot. To me it is the equivalent of changing lanes just based on what is in the mirrors and not looking over your shoulder to make sure. All lorry drivers are aware of blind spots on their lorries and if they don't check them then it is careless at minimum.
The original story last week meant I gave a similar lorry a wider berth when going around a roundabout. I'm glad I did as he left hooked me without indicating for his exit and compared to his entrance onto said roundabout.
exactly give way is a "must" order in the highway code, its not a choice, its not a well only give way if you can see there are some big things in your way, careless driving is counted when a driver drives without due care and attention, or without reasonable consideration for other persons.
how did the jury decide this didnt meet that criteria ?
Because they're deciding based on how they treat give way signs, rather than on how the law intends for them to be treated.
Several years ago I used to insure a skip lorry firm and their driving history was atrocious. They hit anything and everything from telegraph poles to houses.
Even nowadays I get to see claims information from courier/delivery firms in London. Their drivers swear blind that the motorbike/car/van/bus was trying to undertake them etc. or pulled out of a side road. I then see some of the video evidence from the other party and 9 times out of 10 the driver is a lying ar5ehole.
You've literally just reminded me that *literally* yesterday I was behind a skip lorry in manchester that turned right out of a T-Junction and cut across the corner of the pavement by around three feet. Admittedly, he *probably* checked that there wasn't a pedestrian there... but that's not certain, and even if it were - it was still an atrocious piece of driving.
I've been involved with the construction industry for some time. I'm also involved with the road safety sector. Skip lorries and tipper lorries have an awful record for crashes. A lot of the firms involved in this sector have dodgy records and a minority of them have criminal connections. This last group often have the worst records for safety of all.
So hasn't changed much in 50 years then as I remember watching this old film in the 80's as a child.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051713/?ref_=tt_urv
We are learning nothing from this case except that it is fine to kill cyclists.
How can you be in a blindspot for any length of time, how did they become synchronised...
It may be the driver has reduced culpability here and we as cyclists should know. If i turn left onto a cycle lane and I'm halfway down a lorry and we're moving at equal speed, do i become invisible. It could be in this case that this happened, the driver checked his mirrors, the rider was alongside him for 20 metres and he checked his mirrors again, then moved. What can we expect them to do, get out of the cab? If this is indeed the case either all trucks need to be recalled to be checked or cycling infrastructure must be completely separate.
However, if the lorry overtook the cyclist, slowed as the cyclist approached and then did the left turn of might is right (which is usally the case) then he should be prosecuted.
People aren't taking actions based on these horrific outcomes and they just keep happening.
So if the lorry driver is not at fault and the cyclist was killed because of the road layout putting him in the lorries blind spot, is the council facing a corporate manslaughter charge?
The Beyond the Kerb blog covered 'synchronisation' once before, but that was road layout rather than being in a vehicle too big for an urban environment...
https://beyondthekerb.org.uk/collision-course/
My car has blind spots - behind the A-pillars. When I feel they may be obscuring my vision, I move my head to see around them.
I don't understand why the HGV driver isn't expected to do the same. And I would like to know why a vehicle with such an obviously poor design is allowed on the roads.
When I'm driving I know there's a blindspot. It's my responsibility to look and check and I would not expect to use that blindspot to mitigate an error in judgement that led to someone's death. If the design of the vehicle prevents drivers from being culpable then all sorts of carelessness can be excused. I'm sorry that the victims family will not feel that there's any form of justice delivered here.
'there are no winners and losers'. P-r-e-t-t-y sure that the victim and his family would be 'losers' in this case
'experience as drivers'. Well, that bodes well for the future of trial by jury in the case of cyclists killed by drivers, eh? How about 'experience as cyclists'?
Did the skip lorry driver not see rhe cyclist before he turned left? Or was he maybe one of those magical cyclists who - we're told regularly - just 'appeared out of nowhere'
The 'justice' system in this country is utterly fucked
So, if it isn't the driver's responsibility to ensure that their maneouvre is safe to perform, does it mean that the vehicle is not fit to be on public roads?
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