Foreigner in a Mercedes involved in hit and run

Discussion Open Forum
321

I know in Canada, the onus is on the crown to prove guilt, not on the accused to prove innocence. Is it the same in Taiwan?[/quote]

What are you being facetious now? The chap has been formally charged so it will go to trial and the prosecutors need to prove their case to the Magistrate. Many people accused of crimes here have been acquitted in a court of law here.

I am sure Mr Dean will surely avail himself of legal representation. He has all the rights of any accused by a prosecutor in Taiwan. He got accused, he got bail. He will have his day in court.

322

I know in Canada, the onus is on the crown to prove guilt, not on the accused to prove innocence. Is it the same in Taiwan?[/quote]

Yes, I believe so.

323

It would seem so, at least in principle.

Article 161 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Republic of China, as translated, reads in pertinent part:

[quote]The public prosecutor shall bear the burden of proof as to the facts of the crime charged against an accused. . . .[/quote] law.moj.gov.tw/PDAENG/GetNewFile.ashx?FileId=491 (Word document, will pop up)

Article 154 of the same Code, as translated, reads in pertinent part:

[quote]Prior to a final conviction through trial, an accused is presumed to be innocent. [/quote] (See link posted above.)

Article 301 of the same Code, as translated, reads in pertinent part:

[quote]If it cannot be proved that an accused has committed an offense or if his act is not punishable, a judgment of “Not Guilty” shall be pronounced.[/quote] (See link posted above.)

To try to give some context to the law quoted and cited above, here are two articles (good ones, in my opinion) on changes in Taiwan’s law of criminal procedure in the past few years, and on related matters:

Brian L. Kennedy, “Taiwan’s Criminal-Justice System: Clash of Cultures,” Taiwan Review, April 1, 2003
taiwanreview.nat.gov.tw/ct.asp?x … tNode=1347

Celia Llopis-jepsen, “The Backsliding of Judicial Reform,” Taipei Times, January 19, 2010
taipeitimes.com/News/editori … 2003463825

324

Ok, so the prosecutor in Taiwan bears the burden of proof.

Next question: what is that burden?

In the US the prosecutor must prove guilt by “clear and convincing” evidence, which is a very high standard, as opposed to “preponderance of the evidence,” which is a much lower standard, meaning just “more likely than not” or 51%.

So, is “clear and convincing” evidence required in Taiwan? I would guess that it is in theory, but I’m doubtful the courts are scrupulous in actually requiring it on a case by case basis.

325

[quote=“Mother Theresa”]Ok, so the prosecutor in Taiwan bears the burden of proof. Next question: what is that burden? In the US the prosecutor must prove guilt by “clear and convincing” evidence, which is a very high standard, as opposed to “preponderance of the evidence,” which is a much lower standard, meaning just “more likely than not” or 51%.

So, is “clear and convincing” evidence required in Taiwan? I would guess that it is in theory, but I’m doubtful the courts are scrupulous in actually requiring it on a case by case basis.[/quote]

Well if it is proven that the valet was back at the club before the accident could have happened who do you think was driving? There is nO trial by jury here in a court. So no need to compare to the US or any other country. Would it be unreasonable to assume that if the club valet could not have been driving when the accident happened that Mr Dean was?

326

Sorry, I don’t believe it. Once again, the numbers the papers are pushin’ are plainly preposterous.

80 meters? Really? A car on a Taipei City street hits a guy, and he flies 80 meters? :noway:

Maybe Urodacus can do the physics on this one, but I’m guessing a car would have to be going over 300 kph to produce this effect.

327

Well if it’s not 80 meters will it make the guy any less dead? Since when did any newspaper not embellish something of their stories?
Maybe it was 18 meters or 8 meters. It doesnt really matter. The guy might have been dragged 80 meters by the vehicle. The story line seems straight forward enough. We can remove all the drama and speculation of how far the dead man was sent flying.

A valet left the club driving the car with Mr Dean in the car in the early hours of the morning. Mr Dean we assume asked the valet to drive as he had been drinking and may have been over the legal limit to drive.

The valet returned several mintues later. He says Mr Dean asked him to get out of the car and drove on by himself. Witnesses confirm the valet returning to the club within 6 minutes of leaving.

The car belonging to Mr Dean was involved in a hit and run accident that kill a man. The hence unknown driver and car fled the scene of the crime. Mr Dean claims to not have been driving the car. Mr Dean had possession of the car after the accident. Mr Dean had his GF drive the car to the mechanics to be sold off. Mr Dean knew the car was involved in an accident yet hid the car from the police. An off duty policeman spotted the car by chance, a black mercedes that had been seen in a hit and run accident. So it seems that witnesses saw the car accident but not who was driving perhaps. The police were looking for a black mercedes invovled in a hit and run accident. so information about that had been sent out

The information above does not seem to be disputed. What we dont know is what time the accident occured exactly. Was it at the time the valet was driving or not? The police may know these facts.

328

Well, I’m no physicist but a back-of-the-envelope calculation seems to suggest it’s possible.

A C-class Mercedes weighs 1900kg. Let’s say the man weighed 60kg and he was traveling by bike at say 7 km/h, which is half the typical maximum speed of bicycles (15~30 km/h in wiki; he wasn’t Lance Armstrong and streets of Taipei aren’t empty straight downhill road track in France…and I’m assuming that he didn’t have a state-of-the-art top-performer bike).

Further, let’s assume that the collision was head-on (which would lead to the most amount of energy transfer), and the Mercedes was stopped by the impact of collision afterwards, then all the kinetic energy was transferred to him. Furthermore, if there were no inelastic energy losses (which is not true because the driver must’ve braked, but let’s just assume so for the purpose of calculation for maximum energy transfer), and the guy was thrown flying 80m across the scene at a incredibly high speed of half a second (which worked out to be 576 km/hr), then the math worked out that the car only needed to travel at 18 km/hr to achieve this.

If his flight time in the air was 10x slower at 5 sec, then the Mercedes only needed 10 km/hr to achieve this type of flight at impact. At a more unrealistic flight time of 20 sec, the car only needed ~3 km/hr.

Obviously this scenario is nowhere near the true conditions of the accident, but 10-18 km/hr certainly is not difficult to achieve by both the car and the bike. So while 80m might sound slightly exaggerated, I’m inclined to believe that it’s possible, considering that when there is no one out on the street late at night, speeding drivers can certainly be traveling in excess of 50-60 km/hr easy.

329

Wait, you’re saying that a car impacting a person at a speed of 18km/h will launch that person a distance of 80m at 576km/h?
You don’t work for the Taipei Times do you?

330

[quote=“catfish13”]Well, I’m no physicist but a back-of-the-envelope calculation seems to suggest it’s possible.

A C-class Mercedes weighs 1900kg. Let’s say the man weighed 60kg and he was traveling by bike at say 7 km/h, which is half the typical maximum speed of bicycles (15~30 km/h in wiki; he wasn’t Lance Armstrong and streets of Taipei aren’t empty straight downhill road track in France…and I’m assuming that he didn’t have a state-of-the-art top-performer bike).[/quote]

Well it was an E320 not a c class, and the rider was on a scooter not a bicycle. Plasmatron is correct, a car going at slow speeds doe not fling a person 80m. Dragged yes if the car doesnt stop but not sent flying.

Still if Mr Dean wasnt driving, who was driving when the car fled the scene? The car was driven to a totally different location after the accident and that wasn’t to where the valet was, which is back at the club. Also the police were on the lookout for the car after the accident and it was only discovered in ar Mr Deans mechanics shop by chance by a retired police officer, taken there by Mr Deans GF.

So we can assume Mr Dean wasnt that drunk he could not have driven the car away from where the accident took place. If he was so drunk as to have passed out he would have still been at the accident scene. So he did knowingly leave the scene of the accident regardless as to who was driving the car. And he was in the car at the time of the accident one may assume. So how did Mr Dean have possession of the car to ask his GF to take it to the mechanic if another person had driven the car somewhere else? These are the unresovled fact the police and prosecutors need to address in a court.

If Mr Drean cannot show evidence as to who drove at the time of the accident and after the accident the police will of course accuse him of being the driver of the car. The valet claims he was told to get out of the car prior to any acccident and returned to the club. Witnesses must have seen the car leave the scence of the accident.

If Mr Dean can show the valet was driving at the rime of the accident then fled the scene after and returned to the club, he would be innocent. But that doesnt explain why he tried to have the car trashed and not report the accident to the police.

331

600 kgs of drugs . . . 600 grams . . .

80 meters . . . 8 meters . . .

6 minutes . . . 60 minutes . . .

What’s the difference?!

We’re talking :liar: Taiwan Fish Wrap :liar: ; not CSI.

332

[quote=“zender”]600 kgs of drugs . . . 600 grams . . . 80 meters . . . 8 meters . . . 6 minutes . . . 60 minutes . . .

What’s the difference? We’re talking :liar: Taiwan Fish Wrap :liar: ; not CSI.[/quote]

Mr Dean claims he was sleeping at the time of the accident and doesn’t remember the accident and only found out about it the next day when his “wife” called him. He obviously cant remember how he got home also perhaps. So it’s his word vs the valet who says he was back at the club.

As for those claming he needs a translater they should listen to his interview in Chinese about the accident. He seems very proficient in Chinese.

youtube.com/watch?v=Gm50behC0OI

333

[quote=“plasmatron”]Wait, you’re saying that a car impacting a person at a speed of 18km/h will launch that person a distance of 80m at 576km/h?
You don’t work for the Taipei Times do you?[/quote]

I don’t. And I have no idea for how long the guy was airborne…I did provide 2 other time estimates, both of which suggested even slower vehicular speeds. The .5 second flight time was my “most ridiculous” scenario of estimation, which showed that the car only needed to be traveling at a nominal speed to achieve such impact upon collision with a bicyclist.

Of course, I wasn’t there, so there was no way of knowing anything else to make a prediction on whether the quoted 80m was really true or merely an exaggeration. Just judging from a purely arithmetic point of view it seemed like it was possible.

334

[quote=“Satellite TV”][quote=“catfish13”]Well, I’m no physicist but a back-of-the-envelope calculation seems to suggest it’s possible.

A C-class Mercedes weighs 1900kg. Let’s say the man weighed 60kg and he was traveling by bike at say 7 km/h, which is half the typical maximum speed of bicycles (15~30 km/h in wiki; he wasn’t Lance Armstrong and streets of Taipei aren’t empty straight downhill road track in France…and I’m assuming that he didn’t have a state-of-the-art top-performer bike).[/quote]

Well it was an E320 not a c class, and the rider was on a scooter not a bicycle. Plasmatron is correct, a car going at slow speeds doe not fling a person 80m. Dragged yes if the car doesnt stop but not sent flying.
[/quote]

The E-class is a larger and heavier car than the C, so it would have more kinetic energy contributed from the momentum of the vehicle than the C if both were traveling at the same speed. Mathematically then it would mean that it needed a lower vehicular speed to achieve the same level of impact.

Also, I want to clarify that I do not have any agenda nor am I trying to downplay this unfortunate accident. I don’t follow local media very closely, and there are still various confusing aspects and finer details that I am still trying to sort out. Nevertheless, Dean is going to get his day in court so hopefully all the facts about the accident would have been available and he was not tried on mere circumstantial evidence. I do however have issues with the local media pretty much trying the man in public and establishing sensational bias to people of the court and the jury (they do have juries in the court system in Taiwan, right?).

335

Catfish, the guy was on a scooter, not a bicycle.

336

Well you are way off. To fling a body 80m needs to have some extreme speeds which is not evident from the damage done to the car. Take a look at the picture. The motorcyclist was rear ends which means that he may have traveling at some speed so teh impact speed may not have been that high.

I was hit by a drunk driver who was only doing approx 50kmhr in a car as he went straight thru a t junction. I was on a motorbike. I may have gone no more than 30m in all and probably half of that was sliding across the grass medium I was flung onto.

I can tell you I didnt go flying 80m. A seriously wrecked knee and torn ACL and PCL (ligaments) anterior meniscofemoral ligaments and transverse ligament that required 6 operations over 4 years with lots of physio in between operations and post operations.

blog.sina.com.tw/gogo99/article. … yid=612744

337

Ok, fine, let’s retry the math in a different way.

Suppose that the car was going at 60 km/h and the scooter was at 40 km/h before the impact. Car weighs ~ 2000 kg, and the scooter + driver was maybe 150kg?

After impact, if the car was stopped due to impact (and again, not entirely true, but I wasn’t there to witness the accident), and all the kinetic energy was transferred to the poor man.

.52000kg(60km/h)^2 + .5150kg(40km/h)^2 = .52000kg(0km/h)^2 + .5150kg(v km/h)^2
v works out to be ~ 200 km/h, which breaks down to be ~ 61 m/s. At this speed, it would’ve taken roughly 1.2 seconds for the guy to travel 80m, which is a likely value, isn’t it?

My point is, it doesn’t take the car going at 300 kph for this kind of impact to happen like someone suggested earlier, and it is possible this accident happened at nominal speeds. I’m not a physicist so take my numbers with a grain of salt.

338

Well you are way off. To fling a body 80m needs to have some extreme speeds which is not evident from the damage done to the car.

I was hit by a drunk driver who was only doing approx 50kmhr in a car as he went straight thru a t junction. I was on a motorbike. I may have gone no more than 30m in all and probably half of that was sliding across the grass medium I was flung onto.

I can tell you I didnt go flying 80m. A seriously wrecked need that required 6 operations over 4 years with lots of physio in between operations and post opertations.

blog.sina.com.tw/gogo99/article. … yid=612744[/quote]

Again, I don’t know the finer details behind this case. You guys said 80m, so I did my math based on 80m. I don’t doubt that this could’ve happened at that speed, and I’m not here to convince you that it really did. Of course news media could have been exaggerating, but it did not seem like a completely implausible claim even if they did stretch the details a bit.

339

Ok, fine, let’s retry the math in a different way. Suppose that the car was going at 60 km/h and the scooter was at 40 km/h before the impact. Car weighs ~ 2000 kg, and the scooter + driver was maybe 150kg?.[/quote]

Well the scooter was perhaps rear ended and if so then impact speed would only have been 20kmh

But if it was a head on collision then speed could be very high.

340

[quote=“zender”]600 kgs of drugs . . . 600 grams . . .

80 meters . . . 8 meters . . .

6 minutes . . . 60 minutes . . .

What’s the difference?!

We’re talking :liar: Taiwan Fish Wrap :liar: ; not CSI.[/quote]
:laughing: That’s the money shot right there.

HG