Villains or victims?
There are lessons for everybody in the manslaughter conviction of street racer Dylan Cossey say driving and legal experts.
Over the past two weeks a 20-year-old Hamiltonian became the new public face of dangerous – and definitely deadly – young drivers throughout the nation.
Following a six-and-a-half-day trial in the High Court in Hamilton, Dylan Cossey was found guilty of four counts of manslaughter, following a high-speed crash south of the city.
What made this case different was the fact that Cossey was the driver of a different car, a Honda Integra, that was racing at estimated speeds of more than 150kmh against the Nissan Skyline that lost control, smashing into a van travelling in the opposite direction with devastating effect.
The police also charged Cossey’s front seat passenger Stephen Jones with four counts of manslaughter – on the basis that he was allegedly encouraging Cossey to commit an illegal act. The jury found Jones not guilty of those charges, but guilty of perverting the course of justice by deleting 20 seconds of apparently crucial footage he took of the moments before and after the smash. Both men were found guilty of leaving the accident scene without stopping to give assistance, and Cossey was found guilty of causing injury to the van’s driver.
But whether Cossey should have been charged with manslaughter and what his conviction means for the wider driver population is still very much a moot point.
Online forums such as the T Straight Facebook page flared up with debate during and after the trial, with commenters evenly split on whether the two defendants were villains or victims.
Associate Professor Robert Isler, director of the Road Safety and Research Group at Waikato University, had a lot of sympathy for young motorists like Cossey, who could find themselves in major dilemmas in a split-second.
‘‘This is an extremely unfortunate crash that was caused by young people who probably experienced some serious selfconfidence and self-worth issues.
‘‘It is not helpful to suggest that we might be too aggressive or too competitive and there is nothing the police could enforce. Rather, we need to find ways a minority of young – mostly male – drivers can experience a sense of achievement and self-worth, without the need to put themselves and others seriously at risk.’’
It is a frequent complaint of car enthusiasts in the Hamilton area that they have no place to go to show off the prowess of their machines – at least not without raising the ire of nearby residents and, frequently, the police.
Te Kowhai and Horotiu residents last year held a public meeting with boy racers at the burnout hotspot of Onion Rd, after the frustration of contending with late-night skid sessions reached boiling point.
As well as the street racing community, the trial had prompted much discussion among the legal community and beyond.
Hamilton barrister Mike McIvor said while most people might have difficulty with the idea of Cossey being held accountable for the deaths of other people in a completely different car, the Crown prosecutor had proved to the jury there was a causative link.
‘‘At first blush you look at it and you think ‘That’s a bit tough’, but under the definition of manslaughter it fits.’’
The police were definitely attempting to send a message to street racers, he said.
‘‘There’s a lot of this sort of thing going on and they are trying pretty hard to curb it . . . we will just have to wait and see what sort of effect it has in time.’’
At the very least, awareness had been raised, McIvor said.
‘‘I was talking to a guy just yesterday who had recently bought his son a pretty flash car. He said to me ‘I’ve got to go and tell my kids that if they are at the lights and a guy next to them starts revving his engine, not to try and beat him – because if that guy loses control and crashes, they could get done for manslaughter’.’’
The trial and its outcome was not totally without precedent.
In 2014, Napier man Matthew O’Sullivan, 21, was jailed for threeand-a-half years for racing causing the death of Maree Schafer, 18, on February 19, 2013, and racing causing injury.
Schafer was a rear seat passenger in a Holden Commodore that lost control and slammed into a tree during a race that reached speeds of more than 180kmh on Sandy Rd, Meeanee.
O’Sullivan, who was 19 at the time, was the driver of a Ford Falcon that was drag racing the Commodore, driven by Brandon Lawrence.
In 2007, Jeffrey Douglas Luke, who was then 19 years old, was jailed for 20 months for the manslaughter of Scott Finn at Mt Maunganui.
Luke was in
Aviation Drive near Tauranga Airport, late at night to race. Finn, one of two race starters, was stuck by Luke’s car – travelling at 130 to 150kmh – as he was standing on the road.
Luke’s situation was exacerbated because the Mitsubishi Galant VR4 had been recently written off the road by police due to modification to the suspension. He repaired the vehicle and had it recertified, then re-installed the illegal modification.
Car enthusiast groups in the Hamilton area were canvassed for their opinions for this story, but none were willing to go on the record about the Cossey case and whether it would mean a change in their behaviour behind the wheel.
Kiwi motorsport champ Greg Murphy, who helped develop and is promoting the Holden Street Smart safety programme, said young, impulsive drivers should not be singled out as the major danger on New Zealand roads .
‘‘It’s easy to look at [Cossey] and judge him and say ‘you are the big problem’, but the reality is it is one part of a whole bunch of big problems.
‘‘If you are ignorant of the road around you, you are as big a danger on the roads as the driver who is doing 120kmh . . . There are people driving too slowly, doing
80kmh and they have 20 cars lined up behind them, and one of those drivers could end up doing something stupid because they are getting frustrated.’’
Most New Zealand drivers were ignorant of road rules and how to drive competently, and the tendency for most drivers to make poor spur-of-the-moment decisions contributed most to dangers on the roads, Murphy said.
‘‘There are these over-arching issue of driver culture and skill levels and all these things combine to make one big problem that it is going to take a lot hard work to get any sort of improvement. Things are getting worse because the skill levels are going down. You have bad drivers teaching their kids bad habits, because they can’t afford or are just unwilling to shell out for some proper driving lessons.
‘‘There were 380 people killed on the roads last year, and 100 of them were not wearing seatbelts. There’s so many people killed on the roads and so many people affected by that. If you think you are never going to be one of them, think again.
‘‘Any person can rock up to New Zealand and start driving here.
‘‘There’s so many factors and, with these guys, a whole lot of those factors combined and you got the worst possible outcome.’’
‘‘We need to find ways drivers can experience a sense of achievement and self-worth, without the need to put themselves and others seriously at risk.’’ Associate Professor Robert Isler