This Volvo Driver Rammed A Cyclist For No Good Reason, And Got Away With It

The driver of this Volvo appears to speed up before slamming into a cyclist and leaving the scene. Because it was a hire vehicle, police said they couldn't determine the identity of the driver

Matt Robinson

Updated: 03 Feb 2016

This shocking crash happened November last year in Nottingham, and was severe enough to cause internal haemorrhaging and back injuries for the victim. It took him four months to recover from the injuries, but the real sting in the tale came when Nottingham Police were unable to prosecute the driver, as the Volvo XC60 was revealed to be a hire vehicle.

Instead, a man eligible to drive the car at the time - quite possibly the perpetrator - got away with just a £150 fine and six penalty points for “failing to provide driver details.” A woman was also eligible to drive at the time, but the Crown Prosecution Service deemed that there wasn’t enough evidence to determine who was behind the wheel.

Source: BBC

Growing up on a diet of World Rally Championship highlights and lengthy Gran Turismo 2 sessions, a life in cars was as good as inevitable for Matt.

Comments

Couldn’t determine the ID of the driver? Don’t hire cars have tracking sheets of who drives when?

EDIT: What it sounds like is they couldn’t pin it down on the fact that it WAS the person hiring the car who drove at the time. I would have thought it be in the contract that any crime committed using the car or damage caused would be the responsibility of the person hiring at the time.

I know for a fact that they do, in the Netherlands at least. Every person that drives it has to be registered, even the guy who comes and picks it up when you’re done with it.If they don’t know who drove it then the rental company should be held accountable imo.

Yeah wtf, whenever I’ve hired a vehicle they want proof of ID and driving licence etc

I think the only reason why they can prove it is because you can’t see whether it’s a male or female behind the wheel because of the front windshield being tinted. That’s why in some places you actually cannot tint your windshield for this reason.

well if rule applies to hire cars it applies to any other car as well… usually when you hire a car there is just one maybe 2 people driving the car in the contract… and they cant determine the person driving the car? if it was any other person driving the car and they said they didnt know who was driving at the time the owner of the vehicle would have been charged… this is stup!d… the cyclist should get an other lawyer… because it sounds to me that the one he had didnt do his job correctly.

I used to work as a HR manager and the company I used to work for had a contract sheet for every driver stating if a vehicle was hired/rented out that any damages, fines, charges and tickets made to the vehicle would be on whomever was hired for that vehicle no matter if they let a colleague drive it for 5 minutes or even 1 minute. Anything that happened while under the name of the person who has hired it will be on them so they can not worm out of a speeding ticket, parking fine, vehicle damage or as shown in the video - hit and run.

next volvo ad: ram a cyclist and get away with it because volvo

Volvo: Guaranteed to pass the Moose test. Results with cyclists may vary.

As in “we give our hire cars to people without asking their personal information, so we can’t help you find a guy we gave this car too on a specific date, that we also didn’t write down”

I Imagine there is a reason they can’t get the drivers identity, perhaps the car was not on rental, but an employee had borrowed it, perhaps it was rented with fake documents (which is how and why so many large scale robberies are carried out using hire cars)