Focus on ACC

Well so much for a good bash last weekend celebrating my mates 45'th.

An aquaintance and his 12 yr old daughter from Cambridge were on their way down to stay over and help celebrate this occasion but were taken out by a dumb tin top driver at Himitangi.

This dumb arse drove through the stop sign onto state highway one then stopped in the outside passing lane!

Not much chance of avoiding a stupid fuckwit like that when you are on a motorcycle is there!

I am happy to report however that the rider is now out of ICU and his daughter's operation to reattach her heel was successful.

Both are now on their way back to Waikato Hospital.

Cost to ACC and the Tax payer of many thousands of dollars.

Yet I am sicked with despair after reading the local rag and left wondering if the Judicary have decalred open season on motorcyclists.

Failure to prove cause of death:

Palmerston North mother Stevee Williams did not drive carelessly when she U-turned in front of a motorbike killing its rider, a judge has found.

Police claimed the sudden turning manoeuvre of the 30-year-old woman caused the death of 22-year-old Oliver Moreton and injured his pillion rider and girlfriend Hayley Stewart outside a Rugby St dairy on November 25, 2007.

But Judge Alastair Garland has ruled the prosecution failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt that Williams' driving was a real cause of the death or injury.

It was "more probable than not" that she had driven in a careless manner, but it was not enough to convict, he said.

Williams had "seriously impeded" vision due to a van parked in her line of sight but she indicated, looked in her mirrors and inched slowly out before performing the U-turn, he said.

In light of certain evidence, "it would appear that Ms Williams made a genuine mistake", Judge Garland said.

He could not rule out the possibility that Mr Moreton was speeding, despite crash analysis that calculated the motorbike's speed between 25 and 47kmh.

"It is reasonably possible that excessive speed and loss of control of the motorbike were the real causes of the collision, and hence, the resulting death and injury."

Williams told the Manawatu Standard she was pleased with the outcome of the hearing that both she and her lawyer, Phillip Drummond, had worked hard on.

"I am thankful that it is finally over as this has been a very stressful time for my family and I."

But Mr Moreton's mother Nicky Fairclough said she was in "complete shock and disbelief" over the finding.

"I can't move on, it's just completely shattered what was left of me."

She wondered why the family had not received any form of apology from Williams.

"She has never said sorry, never said even one word to me."

Ms Williams said she was advised not to contact the victims' families while the matter was before the courts.

Ms Stewart was not happy with Judge Garland's decision. "I still say that if she didn't do that then this wouldn't have happened ... We did not have any time to react.

"I don't think it's going to end here, it's just not justice."

Police were consulting their legal team to see if there was a possibility of an appeal." Manawatu Standard 31/03/09

Hopefully the Police will do just that!

One merely has to read the statements made by witnesses and reported earlier such as.

Witness Phillipa Kimura said she watched from her parked car as Williams inched her way out of the park behind her to see past another van, before bringing the car around into a u-turn.

"I said to my daughter, 'Look at this dick blocking the view . . . there's a big white van parked behind you and you're trying to do a u-turn'.

"Personally, if it was me I would have gone up further because you could not see behind the van."

When the accident happened beside her car with an "almighty bang", Ms Kimura was first to call 111, she said.

Jason Waho had been waiting for a park outside a Rugby Street dairy to get icecream for his children when he watched the events unfold that "lazy Sunday".

When the car turned onto the road, the motorbike braked and locked its wheels, went up on the front wheels and "catapulted the girl over the car", he said.

Mr Waho apologised to Mr Moreton's mother as he described the 22-year-old's impact with the car - "I'm sorry you had to hear that".

The motorbike rider had just a few seconds to react, he said. Manawatu Standard 28/01/2009

&

Serious Crash Unit's Constable Chris Pelosi, however, said that his calculations showed excess speed by Moreton could be "discounted". Manawatu standard 29/01/2009

I did note with some satisfaction however that the High court in Nelson returned a verdict of guilty on two counts of dangerous driving causing injury against Anthony Dale Bridgman a former police officer who did a three-point-turn on a bend in the Upper Buller Gorge. Nelson Mail 30/03/09