2 days Ago
The Argus’s Savannah Nicholson recently reported (September 30) that “a road-rage driver left a motorcyclist with life-changing injuries after he deliberately pursued the rider and knocked him off his bike. Darren Kay was angry at the motorcyclist filtering in traffic on the A259 at Ferring, Worthing. He performed an undertake of vehicles in the outside lane to catch up with the rider during the incident on March 16 last year.
His vehicle then swerved towards the rider to knock him off. The motorcyclist, a 34-year-old man from Lancing, sustained life-changing injuries and was taken to hospital with a bleed on the brain.” Savannah reported that Kay, who admitted causing serious injury by dangerous driving, initially claimed that he had not seen the motorcycle passing on his inside but his own dashcam footage recorded how he had pursued the rider and said foul-mouthed abuse at the moment of impact.
He was sentenced to three years and two months in prison and was disqualified from driving for four years and seven months. Had his victim died, Kay would have been sentenced to between five and 14 years in prison for causing death by dangerous driving. He may have received a sentence at the higher end of the scale as there would be consideration of the injury, the intent to harm, the level of violence and what the previous offending history is of the accused.
However, a judge would consider mitigating factors in every case, including the defendant’s level of genuine remorse. I can just hear it now: “I am genuinely sorry/It was completely out of character/I had a moment of madness/I am so ashamed of my actions” and so on. I have a problem with the prison sentence Kay received because he will likely be released in just over 15 months after he has served 40 per cent of his sentence.
I also have an issue with the pathetic driving ban. If I was Prime Minister for a day, one of the measures I would have no hesitation in introducing life bans for anyone found guilty of careless or dangerous driving, or who is caught using a mobile phone while in control of a motor vehicle. The average compact car weighs up to 3,000 pounds, while the average midsize car weighs 3,300 pounds.
The average large car weighs 4,400 pounds. Whatever Kay was driving, even the lightest compact car, it had the potential to kill a motorcyclist, cyclist or pedestrian. Why allow someone to be given control of a potential killing machine when they have previously endangered life? I am fed up with selfish car drivers including those who park inconsiderately, who think they own the roads, who flout the Highway Code, who don’t give cyclists (like me) sufficient room as they pass by, or who cut you off, either deliberately or through a lack of attention.
Driving is a privilege and if you don’t respect others, pedestrians, cyclists or other motorists, you should have that privilege removed...
permanently. And before we hear the usual pitiful whining of some car drivers that cyclists endanger others by ignoring red traffic lights or by cycling on the pavements, I agree. I have no patience for dangerous cyclists either, although the likelihood of a cyclist causing serious injury or death, while it happens, is far less likely.
As a pedestrian I don’t like the contra flow cycle lanes in otherwise one-way streets in the North Laine. I never remember to look the ‘wrong way’ as I cross the street. The fools at Brighton and Hove City Council who thought contraflows were a good idea have also, stupidly, encouraged some cycling on the pavement.
In the otherwise excellent Valley Gardens scheme, with pedestrian paths and a clearly designated cycle lane, there are ludicrous ‘shared spaces’ where cyclists and pedestrians are expected to share the pavement. Worse still are those shared spaces, such as outside St Bartholomew’s Church off London Road, which treats cars, bicycles and pedestrians as equals. What sort of idiot thought that this would ever work? A car driver perhaps? Did they think that this was a match-up of equals? I regularly attract the ire of drivers, motorcyclists and even cyclists by asserting my right, at risk to life and limb, to use this shared space before them.
Traffic and pedestrian law should be based on a cascade of rights, with pedestrian safety and right of way coming first and foremost, followed by those on bicycles, then motorcycles, and then, lastly, car drivers. And if car drivers don’t like that, tough. n Andy Winter is a former councillor who worked in social care and homelessness services for 40 years.
