Two-year road ban for driver who hit cyclist and drove off

‘The right time to apologise was after knocking me down’

A MOTORIST who mowed down a cyclist and then drove by the scene just minutes later has been put off the road for two years.

Kevin Kennedy left Hugh McLaughlin in agonising pain when he struck him from behind in his Citroën Berlingo van in Co. Donegal on September 2, 2018.

Keen cyclist Mr McLaughlin had been out for a ride between Dochary and Dungloe around 8pm when he was almost killed.

In a victim impact statement to Dungloe District Court, where Kennedy appeared on dangerous driving charges, Mr McLaughlin told how he thought he would never see his family again.

But he said the most frightening part of the crash was how Kennedy drove by him minutes later in the opposite direction instead of calling for the emergency services.

Mr McLaughlin, from Dungloe, revealed his disbelief at the incident, stating ‘it was a nice bright evening and I was wearing my hi-viz fluorescent cycling top’.

‘I had rounded a corner and was cycling downhill on a straight stretch of road probably at a speed between 30 and 35kph when I was struck from behind and sent flying into the air and ended up landing face-down in the ditch,’ his impact statement read.

‘I was in total shock at what had happened and still can’t believe it. The road at that location is seven metres wide and his van is only two metres. It keeps going round in my head why he was unable to avoid me.’

However, as someone with a ‘great interest in cars’, Mr McLaughlin ‘knew immediately who the [grey Citroën Berlingo which struck him] belonged to’.

After the incident, Mr McLaughlin realised he was ‘cut quite badly on [his] right side and was bleeding from a gash on [his] arm’, and was in a lot of pain.

A passing driver called an ambulance and paramedics arrived to tend Mr McLaughlin’s wounds, followed shortly by gardaí.

‘While I was standing at the side of the road giving details to the guards, I saw the same van with its distinctive chrome bullbar on the front of it coming towards us, but not slowing down,’ said Mr McLaughlin. He added that he ‘actually walked out in front of it with my hands out in front of me in an attempt to stop it, but it just passed on by’.

Gardaí pursued and apprehended the driver ‘a few miles out’, he added.

Kennedy, 51, of Meenderryherk, Dungloe, faced a number of charges including dangerous driving, leaving the scene of an accident and not reporting an accident.

His victim described it as a ‘despicable act’ to drive by someone after knocking them down and then to drive by them and not to check if they were alive or dead’.

Kennedy wrote to the cyclist in September apologising for what he had done, but Mr McLaughlin has refused to accept his olive branch.

‘The letter contained half a page of meaningless words,’ he said. ‘This has only added insult to injury... The time to apologise to me was immediately after he knocked me down.’

Passing sentence, Judge Paul Kelly banned Kennedy from driving for two years and also ordered him to carry out 100 hours of community service.