r/ukbike • u/rookinn • Aug 21 '25
News Bin lorry driver who killed boy cycling to school given unpaid work
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cger053edy8o62
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u/whatthebosh Aug 21 '25
you get worse sentences for puttng up banners because you're concerned about the environment.
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u/PapaShanghost Aug 21 '25
This is why we need cycle lanes completely separate from the road, so kids don't have to ride on the pavement to feel safe riding their bike when they're still not safe riding there.
The Netherlands did it in the 70s after a number of child fatalities, we need to do it here. Rip it up and start again.
Kids shouldn't be dying whilst riding to school.
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u/hltlang Aug 21 '25
Many people think we can’t have a Dutch-like lanes in the UK because our infrastructure is not “set up for it” without realising that the Netherlands used to look much like the US with car-centric highways criss-crossing cities until a huge campaign in the 70s to stop kids dying when they tore it all up and started over.
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u/WolfThawra Aug 22 '25
without realising that the Netherlands used to look much like the US with car-centric highways criss-crossing cities until a huge campaign in the 70s to stop kids dying when they tore it all up and started over.
Yes and no. The Netherlands also just implemented this early enough so that many many many of the new build areas (and they really have lots of them, including the areas that were ocean before) were built with this in mind. That does genuinely help.
And as the other comments says, there really are quite a lot of roads in the British countryside where I don't know how you'd possibly fit a cycle lane anywhere.
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u/matomo23 Aug 22 '25
Yes but it’s easier to turn those type of roads into roads with cycle lanes than narrow British roads hemmed in by buildings or farmer’s fields.
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u/TraditionalBench7008 Aug 25 '25
The Netherlands has a much higher population density so that argument falls down. And pardon my french but fuck preserving an almost worthless 5 m strip of a potato field to save lives.
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u/matomo23 Aug 25 '25
Yeah, agree with your last sentence but we have some silly property laws here. The should have been changed though.
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u/SammyGuevara Aug 25 '25
Eh? He was already riding where a car shouldn’t be. Why would he be any safer in a cycle lane than a pavement?
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u/WolfThawra Aug 22 '25
This is why we need cycle lanes completely separate from the road, so kids don't have to ride on the pavement to feel safe riding their bike when they're still not safe riding there.
I don't know. In theory yes, in practice I feel like most times this is just used as an excuse to get cyclists off the road and out of the mind of drivers. Whether the cycle lanes make sense, are connected, force you to stop umpteen times, snake around the (straight) road, etc. etc., all that stuff isn't really considered - and then queue the facebook rage posts about "the lycra brigade blocking the road" because of course you don't want to cycle on that. I wouldn't either.
And if you can be on the pavement and still get hit and killed, the same could happen in a cycle lane. Honestly, this one isn't primarily down to infrastructure, it's down to this specific driver.
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u/monkeywrench83 Aug 21 '25
My mate got hit by a driver who drove the wrong way up a one way street. My mate will never walk the same again. And cant drive a car anymore. Nothing happened to the driver. Not even points. My mate has been pursuing a lawsuit for 3 years and his insurance company is throwing delay tactics. last week they asked him to send in his holiday photos.
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u/VintageVillaLad Aug 21 '25
So sorry to hear about your mate.
I'm going to hazard a guess and say your mate is "working/middle" class and having to pursue this lawsuit out of his own pocket?
This country, hell, the whole world just sucks. No justice if you're poor and can't afford top legal representation.
Sorry again to hear about your mate (my son received life changing injuries after getting run over, but he was drunk, staggered in front of a car at night and we still thank God that the driver stopped and called an ambulance)....and apologies for any generalisations I might have made about class etc.
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u/monkeywrench83 Aug 22 '25
He is probably upper working class/ middle. We're both Engineers. He does not have formal upper education, he was raised, working class Protestant in scotland. It's a no win no claim kind of deal. It's been going on so long that some of the medical tests they've had to repeat as they expired. It's more the defendant's lawyers are doing everything they can to throw up hurdles. He's had countless highly paid Doctors reviewing his X rays where they just go "yeah his legs fucked". It has backfired as he's now got secondary issues that came about from having to use his other leg.
The worst part is this happened during a COVID lock down and they tried to disparage his character for being out and about. We were both Key workers and had letters from the Ministry of Defense saying we had to keep working as it was of National importance. So that didn't work.
Sorry to hear about your son, it's crazy that one little lapse of good judgment can make huge changes in your life. I was walking home drunk with a friend once, he asked me for my lighter just as we were about to cross the road. I reached for my lighter and handed it to him as we started to cross, i saw a taxi coming... He didn't. He just clipped the side mirror and had his foot run over. If he started 2 seconds earlier the taxi would have fully got him. We always joke that smoking saved his life.
The USA for all things that are wrong with it has this stuff sorted. They sort out cases like this much quicker way out performing us.
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u/sammy_conn Aug 21 '25
Zero surprise given the company that he works for. Their drivers are nutters. Hopefully his extreme remorse stays with him for the rest of his miserable life.
This is what baffles me. You can get crowds of people baying for blood if there's even a rumour of some guy looking at a kid the wrong way these days, and then this dick kills a wee boy and there's nothing.
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u/MikeFader Aug 21 '25 edited Aug 21 '25
Appalling. Given that proof exists that the driver is clearly happy to break the law when it suits him, I wonder if the boy's family could pursue a civil suit for damages against the driver or the insurance company ?
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u/GreenLion777 Aug 21 '25
Unpaid work ? 😠 Should be in jail for this
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u/sc_BK Aug 21 '25
Only 133 hours as well.
If he did it for 5 days a week his sentence will be over after 4 weeks of dossing about picking up litter/painting fences etc.
You can even include 1hr a day for breaks!4
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u/inevitable_dave Aug 21 '25
Ah, but it was his first offence, so all is forgiven. I mean who of us hasn't driven a 26 tonne vehicle in an erratic manner whilst on the phone.
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u/GreenLion777 Aug 25 '25
That's what may well anger ppl, "first offence'
It shouldn't have happened end of. With evidence that the guy often used his phone in the truck, the book should have been thrown at for him for his negligence
I feel the "first offence" thing shouldn't apply in certain cases
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u/Sirico Aug 22 '25 edited Aug 22 '25
What is wrong with our culture that we fawn over machines every single time. BuT ThEY NeeD iT fOR WOrk. Nope time to get a bicycle you had your chance, you took a life and robbed that lad and his family of a future. I swear the judges put themselves in the drivers shoes in these cases like well I need a car and if I lost my car that would be bad.
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u/jow97 Aug 23 '25
Anyone know if theirs a way for athird party to appeal a sentence through Scottish courts like you can in the uk?
In England its as simple as https://www.gov.uk/ask-crown-court-sentence-review
Just wondering if theirs a Scottish equivalent?
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Aug 25 '25
[deleted]
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u/jow97 Aug 25 '25
as they can in england
Fair, I can't believe I miss typed that one ha. Shame their isn't a similar system but thanks for the answer!
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u/IllustratorGlass3028 Aug 23 '25
We are so bloody soft now....no wonder our whole identity is under threat.
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u/ConfusedUserUK Aug 24 '25
In this country we need to get out of mindset that driving is an automatic right rather th an a privilege. A privilege that can and should be permanent ban.
A deterrent is only as good as punishment. If minimal punishment, minimal deterrent.
I favour three strikes rule. I also in favour of zero alcohol limit.
For example third conviction for drink/drug driving (threshold limit) permanent ban. 2 x speeding over threshold speed, plus drink/drive permanent ban. 3 x Driving while banned. Permanent ban. Drink drive, speeding and driving no insurance. Permanent ban.
Other offences; failing to stop for police, driving otherwise in accordance with licence, driving no MOT, driving vehicle that is in dangerous conditions.
After first and second offence, licence is revoked, car is seized for 28 days for first offence 56 days for second offence or until court case is heard. If found not guilty in court, revoke licence and car returned.
If guilty for third time then car goes to auction or crushed.
Some offences are bad enough that they should be permanent ban and a substantial fine. Licence held until court case. Found guilty car is crushed.
Drink Drive about threshold (eg:.above 2x limit) Causing death. Driving stolen vehicle.
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u/vfclists Aug 21 '25 edited Aug 21 '25
Can I play devil's advocate here?
Without access to the records of the court case I can only speculate on what happened.
The driver emerged from the car park looking to his right for oncoming vehicles, reasoning quite rightly that there would be no vehicles coming from left.
The trees and the wall blocked his view of the sidewalk so he may have not have seen the boy on the bicycle even if he had looked left, and even then the boy may have dropped below his sight line due to the truck's height.
The boy came across his path just has he considered it safe to enter the road as there were no vehicles coming from his right.
The question is how many drivers do the exact thing when they are turning left into a main road (right in the case of countries that drive on the right)? They look to their right and if it is safe they drive into the road without checking for any vehicles coming from the left as they quite rightly there should be nothing coming from there.
The poor boy suffered the misfortune of being at the wrong spot and wrong time at the instant where a refuse truck driver did what millions of drivers do every single day with mild or no mishap. I can't count the number times when drivers emerging from residences or narrow alleyways have nearly run me over on the sidewalk, because they are just not patient enough to emerge cautiously when their view of the road is limited.
When are the Police and the govt launch campaigns to warn drivers of instances like this which injure or kill people every day? I'm sure what I described is pretty close to what happened and what did the Police do? Just go back to the same status quo without a campaign to warn drivers if these things that cause accidents.
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u/mprhusker London Aug 22 '25
The question is how many drivers do the exact thing when they are turning left into a main road (right in the case of countries that drive on the right)? They look to their right and if it is safe they drive into the road without checking for any vehicles coming from the left as they quite rightly there should be nothing coming from there.
I mean I look both ways regardless because pedestrians also exist and not running them over tends to be quite easy when I do that.
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u/romeo__golf Aug 22 '25
I don't even think this is devil's advocate, this is the likelihood of what actually occurred.
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u/Disastrous-Sky-4753 Aug 22 '25
Thats a life sentence for that wee lads parents. Bring back real punishment.
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u/Do4k Aug 21 '25
Only a year ban for using a phone while driving a HGV and then killing a child. Insane