Doncha think?

On the death of the motorcyclist in the Waikato:

A police officer who made a fatal u-turn in front of a motorcyclist was left so badly shaken by the man's death he could not key in an emergency call on his cellphone, says a witness.

In an ironic twist, the allegedly speeding motorist who the officer was about to pursue when he made the u-turn may have been the motorcyclist's best friend.

The Oxford English Dicitonary defines 'irony' thusly:

2. fig. A condition of affairs or events of a character opposite to what was, or might naturally be, expected; a contradictory outcome of events as if in mockery of the promise and fitness of things. (In F. ironie du sort.)

Let's ignore that fact that, even if this situation were ironic, pointing it out - an "ironic twist"? - in the second sentence of an article about a man's death, as if we were watching an M. Night Shyamalan movie, might be considered a wee bit too wry.

"A condition of affairs or events of a character opposite to what was, or might naturally be, expected". Now we can probably accept that you wouldn't expect that, when a man is killed after a police car sideswipes him during a U-turn, the policeman happened to be about to pursue someone who may have been the victim's best friend. That much is certainly true, in the same way as it's true that one might find it unlikely to meet the man of one's dreams and then, in short order, meet his beautiful wife. But it's hardly the opposite of what was expected, is it?

It's not even "a contradictory outcome of events as if in mockery of the promise and fitness of things". Now, if the policeman had been about to go and rescue the victim's friend from a burning car, that might have been ironic - he's ended up saving one, but harming the other. Unfortunately for the English language he was only about to give the man a speeding ticket.