Criminal nuisance conviction for roading contractor after crash

[Funkyfly]

Sheesh, what a minefield.! Whilst I except responsibility for my actions on the road and if I fuck up and have a moment, I accept it is my fault, just as I have legal responsibilities for which I will be prosecuted if I transgress, so the Councils and Roadworkers have legal responsibilities. Like me, if they can get away with them, they will. But also, like me, if they get caught out, then, they too can expect to be prosecuted. And if I have to put up with continual bombardment of what my legal responsibilities are, vis, "speed kills" etc, then so can the authorities.! People should occasionally remind them of their obligations.
However, I refuse to accept that I am in the wrong, purely because I am on my bike on the road and have to be totally omniprescient to all conditions and situations. There can be times when everything is out of your control and you are along for the ride, whichever way it pans out. So, should you have not got out of bed that morning? Apparently.
We should always ride to conditions, but a little help is always appreciated, esp. road signs.

It would appear Motu, Jim and friends are on a crusade, the You need to take responsibility for everything that could ever happen to you on the road crusade.

They are one extreme in the "responsibility" debate, the other extreme being you can always blame someone else.

Lifes not like that, there are grey areas and a medium.

Whos at fault when your driving around a 100kph sweeper at 160kph, half cut in the morning, in an old car with no WOF because it been in an accident before, the steering arm on your car sheers off and at a sped close to 160kph you crash into another car.

The other driver had seen you loose control (he was prepared for something like this) and tried to stop/swerve, but at a speed of nearly 260kph (one doing 160 the other 100) simply didnt have enough time/room to avoid you. Remembering our reaction times, the time it takes to lift you foot off the gas and onto the brake, the time it takes for the brakes to apply, the time it takes to realise that a car is coming straight for you, the time it takes to pull on the wheel, the time it takes for this turning force to be applied thru your tyres.



It goes on and on, and there are plenty of real life experiences where "victims" simply couldnt avoid the accident.

[Funkyfly]

Jim2, although I think in principle that taking a personal responsibility view is a relatively reasonable thing to do, 'punishing' yourself with that long string of 'what if's?' before your accident isn't a terribly productive approach.

Yes, you MAY have avoided that accident IF you hadn't altered your schedule. You MAY also be dead IF you had stuck to your schedule, and your schedule brought about a completely different string of events which put you in an unlucky, but more dire set of circumstances. Looking back over your situation and saying 'what if' may help you rationalize your predicament, but there are an infinite number of 'what if's'. What IF you were heinously breaking the speed limit - you MAY have been through that intersection before the other driver was in that suburb. (And current LTSA marketing would indicate that MAY have made you a murderer...)
You MAY also have won the lottery IF you stopped at a dairy and bought a lotto ticket. You MAY have also kissed that $5 goodbye, as you have no control over how those little balls drop out the machine.

You'll never know and you can't change history.
Taking reasonable steps is more along the line of Motu's approach (although he may not articulate it as well as he could have), ie not riding to your limits so you have room to maneuvre, taking the best course of action when a hazard has been identified. As others have said, there has to be some practical approach to the daily risk taking that is life.

Well put dude.

I think reasonableness is something this thread has been lacking.

[James Deuce]

Jim2, although I think in principle that taking a personal responsibility view is a relatively reasonable thing to do, 'punishing' yourself with that long string of 'what if's?' before your accident isn't a terribly productive approach.

Yes, you MAY have avoided that accident IF you hadn't altered your schedule. You MAY also be dead IF you had stuck to your schedule, and your schedule brought about a completely different string of events which put you in an unlucky, but more dire set of circumstances. Looking back over your situation and saying 'what if' may help you rationalize your predicament, but there are an infinite number of 'what if's'. What IF you were heinously breaking the speed limit - you MAY have been through that intersection before the other driver was in that suburb. (And current LTSA marketing would indicate that MAY have made you a murderer...)
You MAY also have won the lottery IF you stopped at a dairy and bought a lotto ticket. You MAY have also kissed that $5 goodbye, as you have no control over how those little balls drop out the machine.

You'll never know and you can't change history.
Taking reasonable steps is more along the line of Motu's approach (although he may not articulate it as well as he could have), ie not riding to your limits so you have room to maneuvre, taking the best course of action when a hazard has been identified. As others have said, there has to be some practical approach to the daily risk taking that is life.

I think people are missing the point. I made a series of bad decisions that culminated in an accident. There are no what ifs. I ignored weather reports, my 2 hour late departure time, and my state of mind. It happened, there were no what ifs about it. As part of the process of dealing with it you have to examine what you could have done differently, and I arguably contributed the greater amount of stupidity to the accident. I've learned a lot about myself and how I should approach these situations. Standing back and blaming the other dude entirely is pointless because you learn nothing at all.

The two injury accidents I've had have been preceded by a shouting match with my wife. Lesson: fight with wife, take bike gear off and sit down for two days without moving. If I had been sensible, I wouldn't have been in the wrong place, and this is a what-if, but it is highly likely the old gentleman would have driven to the ferry queue with his lights off quite happily.

[Funkyfly]

You are being pedantic to point score without providing a reasoning behind your statements. There should always be a because statement or a reasoning/explanation of your statement SEX! Statement Explanantion eXample (or for the politically correct, SEE, which it changed to after I'd been taught it from the end of primary onwards). OK so you dont always need an example, but it often clarifies things further than a straight explanation. For an example of an example, see any of your attempts to do a reductio ad absurdio on the situation of accidents. I know I dont always follow the SEX principle, but I think you need to do it more often than you do.
You werent there either were you? I have heard about what actions Chris took after his accident, and have based my opinions of him on this. Unfortunately you cant always get everything first hand, thats why we have news media (mass information through an efficient intermediary).

Pedantic - "Characterized by a narrow, often ostentatious concern for book learning and formal rules: a pedantic attention to details."

You call me pedantic then go on to state i should use the "SEX principle" when attempting a "reductio ad adsurdio" like you learnt to.

LOL. Tell me again whos being pedantic?

[Drunken Monkey]

Fair 'nuff, I see what you're driving at.

Just to be a pedantic bastard though:

...there were no what ifs about it...

then...

...As part of the process of dealing with it you have to examine what you could have done differently...,

One could reasonably beleive that saying "what you could have done differently" is the same as "WHAT IF you did something different", no? Possibly the source of FunkFly's confusion...

...Standing back and blaming the other dude entirely is pointless because you learn nothing at all....

Indeed, it gets you nowhere. I didn't disagree with that. One would hope he also took your self-responsible approach, starting with apologising profusely to you, then making steps that he didn't drink & drive or ignore stop signs again...

[mangell6]

The two injury accidents I've had have been preceded by a shouting match with my wife. .

So now we know who the real responsible party was for those two accidents!!



How come the legal system does not "ignorance" as a valid reason?

[NordieBoy]

It wasn't your fault, but were you watching the vehicle behind you? This incident is why I always work up to the front of a queue.
It's a very rare accident in which even the innocent party couldn't have done something to avoid it.
This is the essence of defensive driving.

My accident was at the lights.
I was about 10 cars back from the front.
A car stops behind me.
A car dosn't stop behind her...

About the only thing I could have done was to not be there.

Result - 1 written off Gilera Nordwest and one sore little finger.

[Funkyfly]

I think people are missing the point. Standing back and blaming the other dude entirely is pointless because you learn nothing at all.

Oh, we finally see the word "entirely"

We are getting somewhere, i dont think anyone is trying to remove all blame from you for the accident - rather you were not "entirely" at fault. Therefore you are free to lay some blame on the old guy who was over the limit, failed to stop and driving without his light ons. In this case it would be unfair or unreasonable to fully blame yourself.

Jim "Every accident you have is your own fault."

blame can often be attributed to more than one party, in some cases more blame can lie with a certain party (drunk drivers), and even in some cases a party can be blameless.

[Funkyfly]

My accident was at the lights.
I was about 10 cars back from the front.
A car stops behind me.
A car dosn't stop behind her...

About the only thing I could have done was to not be there.

Result - 1 written off Gilera Nordwest and one sore little finger.

Makes it hard to believe "Every accident you have is your own fault." doesnt it.

Sorry to hear.

[Drunken Monkey]

How come the legal system does not "ignorance" as a valid reason?

Despite your 'who cares' sign, I'll answer this one anyway for those who do...

All word of law is printed and available for review by all citizens at various local establishments, typically public libraries, but sometimes also bookstores (eg Whitcoulls in the city), council buildings, etc...

*Apparently* it's up to us (as dutiful, patriotic citizens) to read and understand it.

Bloody impractical, I say.

Maybe they should teach some common law at schools?

[Funkyfly]

One could reasonably beleive that saying "what you could have done differently" is the same as "WHAT IF you did something different", no? Possibly the source of FunkFly's confusion...

Sometimes you need to nail people down on the details, its real easy to speculate.

People are taking the word of some newspaper reporter (we know they often get it wrong) and blaming a fellow rider without even talking to him to get his version and check the facts.

Kinda makes you think about just how close the riding community really is huh.

[James Deuce]

Oh, we finally see the word "entirely"

We are getting somewhere, i dont think anyone is trying to remove all blame from you for the accident - rather you were not "entirely" at fault. Therefore you are free to lay some blame on the old guy who was over the limit, failed to stop and driving without his light ons. In this case it would be unfair or unreasonable to fully blame yourself.

Jim "Every accident you have is your own fault."

blame can often be attributed to more than one party, in some cases more blame can lie with a certain party (drunk drivers), and even in some cases a party can be blameless.

No, it was entirely my fault for putting myself in the position I did due to the factors I have already explained. There are lots of people in this thread removing themselves from ALL responsibility for accidents they've had. I'f I'd been sensible and stayed in Christchurch for the night I wouldn't have had that particular accident.

I died twice, once at the scene and once in the ambulance. The chap who ran me over was very apologetic (apparently) but that tune changed in court when it was apparent that I wouldn't be attending, and the MOT officer who attended the scene and did the post accident analysis was no longer available in an official capacity, only as a civilian witness due to being made redundant that same weekend.

Getting bitter about that doesn't help, and I still maintain that it was my fault, despite the legal blame being assigned to the other driver. He broke the law, and I was stupid. He may well have died of old age since, but I still have to live with the aftemath, and I will do anything to avoid that sort of situation including taking responsibility for setting up the environment that caused the accident. If you wanted to extend the "victim" analogy, you could say that the other driver was the victim of a society that tolerated drinking and driving. I rather suspect that he would maintain to this day (if still alive) that it was my own stupid fault for chosing to ride one of those dangerous motorbikes.

[Funkyfly]

No, it was entirely my fault for putting myself in the position I did due to the factors I have already explained.

Well common sense tells me the accident wasnt "entirely" your fault as you would suggest, and that why the cops charged the old guy. Because he had to SHARE some of the blame. The Law said he was also to blame.

[Funkyfly]

Originally Posted by NordieBoy
My accident was at the lights.
I was about 10 cars back from the front.
A car stops behind me.
A car dosn't stop behind her...

About the only thing I could have done was to not be there.

Result - 1 written off Gilera Nordwest and one sore little finger.

Here is a real life example we can explore if you dont mind Nordie.

Jim how is this accident "entirely" his fault?

Im going to leap to some conclusions here....

1)Nordie was watching his rear, but due to the car directly behind him he was unable to judge the last cars speed etc..

2)Nordie had left space as an out in front of him (he has no control over the space behind (car drivers often park right behind a bike)

You cant spend every seccond at a stop looking in your mirrors and turning around, you need to also watch the car in front doesnt reverse instead of going fwd (i have seen it happen more than once) and keep an eye on what those beside you are doing, also you want to watch the intersection for any cars failing to obey the rules that might possibly crash into your line.

Lets say Nordie had been doing all of these things.

How is he "entirely" at fault again?

[James Deuce]

Originally Posted by NordieBoy
My accident was at the lights.
I was about 10 cars back from the front.
A car stops behind me.
A car dosn't stop behind her...

About the only thing I could have done was to not be there.

Result - 1 written off Gilera Nordwest and one sore little finger.

Here is a real life example we can explore if you dont mind Nordie.

Jim how is this accident "entirely" his fault?

Im going to leap to some conclusions here....

1)Nordie was watching his rear, but due to the car directly behind him he was unable to judge the last cars speed etc..

2)Nordie had left space as an out in front of him (he has no control over the space behind (car drivers often park right behind a bike)

You cant spend every seccond at a stop looking in your mirrors and turning around, you need to also watch the car in front doesnt reverse instead of going fwd (i have seen it happen more than once) and keep an eye on what those beside you are doing, also you want to watch the intersection for any cars failing to obey the rules that might possibly crash into your line.

Lets say Nordie had been doing all of these things.

How is he "entirely" at fault again?

That's up to Nordie to decide.