Motorist cleared of causing fatal crash
Court accepts that biker was not in driver’s view
A driver has been cleared of killing a motorcyclist who died after his bike collided with the man’s car.
Grant Cordier, 52, was charged with causing death by careless driving after the crash on Rocky Hill, Maidstone, in which Osvaldas Rimsa died.
Mr Cordier, from Harrietsham, pulled on to the one-way system in his Alfa Romeo Giulietta from Formula One Autocentres when the accident happened in January.
A two-day trial at Sevenoaks Magistrates’ Court heard the Lithuanian biker was travelling at between 38mph and 42mph on his 1,000cc Yamaha R1 bike in the left-hand lane of the 30mph zone.
The bike clipped the car and sent the 27-year-old rider, known to friends as Ozzy, flying through the air and into a metal pole.
He died instantly, less than a mile from his Florence Road home.
David Barton, defending, said Mr Cordier, an architectural technician of Chegworth Road, only saw Mr Rimsa in his peripheral vision after he had pulled out and had no time to react.
Two experts who analysed CCTV footage agreed it was possible Mr Rimsa was not in Mr Cordier’s view when he initially looked left.
Chairman of the bench Nancy Branson delivered the not guilty verdict after describing the case as highly emotive and tragic.
She said: “Mr Cordier did take sufficient care to look before entering the road, but the motorbike couldn’t have been in his field of vision at the time.
“He did not depart from the standards of a competent driver.”
Mr Barton told the Kent Messenger: “I expressed Mr Cordier’s regret to the court for the loss of life for the family and friends. He has found the entire process deeply upsetting and he is immensely relieved it’s now finished, enabling everybody to move on.”
Mr Rimsa’s friend and fellow biker Rick Evans, who runs Reca Community Biker Cafe in St Peter’s Street, said: “All I want to say to all drivers is, look once, look twice, think bike. Then things like this won’t happen.”
By law, drivers are only required to look once before pulling out of a junction.