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Cyclist and Palace of Westminster (copyright Simon MacMichael)Government opens dangerous and careless cycling law consultation
The government has confirmed the launch today of a consultation on introducing new offences of causing death or serious injury while cycling, as well as changes to existing laws regarding dangerous or careless cycling.
Cycling UK has said that the move is merely “tinkering around the edges” of the full road safety review that the government said it would conduct in 2014.
The consultation, which opens today, will run until 11.45pm on 5 November 2018 and as we reported yesterday follows a review of existing laws following the conviction last year of cyclist Charlie Alliston in connection with the death of pedestrian Kim Briggs.
> Government set to open consultation on new causing death by dangerous cycling offence
Alliston, who had been riding a fixed wheel bike with no front brake when he collided with Mrs Briggs in 2016, fatally injuring her, was acquitted of manslaughter but found guilty of causing bodily injury through wanton or furious driving under the Offences Against the Person Act 1861.
The case led to calls for the law to be updated, rather than prosecutors having to rely on outdated legislation in such circumstances and last year the government announvced that it was conducting a review of the law.
Announcing the consultation today, transport minister Jesse Norman, who has responsibility for cycling and walking, said: “In recent weeks we have announced a range of measures designed to protect vulnerable road users such as cyclists and pedestrians.
“These include new measures to combat close passing, training for driving instructors, better collision investigation and £100 million in new investment through the Safer Roads Fund.
“Now we are taking further steps. These include a consultation on new cycling offences, further work on national guidance on cycling and walking infrastructure, and improvements to the Highway Code.
“All these measures are designed to support the continued growth of cycling and walking, with all the benefits they bring to our communities, economy, environment and society.”
In response to today’s announcement, Cycling UK has repeated its call for the government to deliver the full road safety review that it pledged to undertake in 2014.
The charity’s head of campaigns, Duncan Dollimore, said: “We need a full review – something promised by the government in 2014 – because the way the justice system deals with mistakes, carelessness, recklessness and deliberately dangerous behaviour by all road users hasn’t been fit for purpose for years.”
The charity pointed out that cases of pedestrians being killed in collisions involving cyclists was very low.
“In 2016, 448 pedestrians were killed on our roads, but only three of those cases involved bicycles,” it said. “And in the last 10 years 99.4 per cent of all pedestrian deaths involved a motor vehicle.”
Cycling UK also highlighted its belief that both cyclists and pedestrians are being failed by the legal system, citing the fact that only 27 per cent of drivers convicted of causing death by careless driving, which has a maximum prison sentence of five years, are sent to jail with an average term of 14 months.
Dollimore said: “Whether someone is prosecuted for careless or dangerous driving is often something of a lottery, as are the resulting sentences, leaving thousands of victims and their relatives feeling massively let down by the justice system’s failure to reflect the seriousness of bad driving.
“Adding one or two new offences specific to cyclists would be merely tinkering around the edges.
“If the government is serious about addressing behaviour that puts others at risk on our roads, they should grasp the opportunity to do the job properly, rather than attempt to patch up an area of legislation that’s simply not working.”
Today’s announcement from the Department for Transport also confirmed that the government is considering making changes to the Highway Code to address the issue of motorists making close passes on cyclists, and we shall cover that issue in a separate article.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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49 comments
What should happen:
Introduce presumed liability: the bigger vehicle is considered "at fault" in lieu of other evidence. This should encourage the bigger vehicles to install dashcams to protect themselves (and their insurance premiums).
Ensure that juries are composed (more or less) equally to the types of vehicles involved. That would mean that if a car and bike collide, then the jury should consist of 6 motorists and 6 cyclists.
Revoke licenses for any road incident that has a fatality. After investigation, licenses can be returned if no fault is found, otherwise a lifetime ban should automatically apply. No consideration to be given to people who "need" to drive for their employment - people's safety is more important than getting a tiny bit more tax revenue.
Give Chris Boardman complete power (and a big budget) over the UK's cycling strategy including veto powers to prevent councils putting in piss-poor infrastructure.
Fund cycling infrastructure with at LEAST £20 per head and recognise that increased cycling should lead to long-term savings for NHS expenditure.
Also, any cycling court case should be forced to accept the opinion of BTBS for consideration (that'd wake them up a bit).
Finally got around to responding, and mostly pointed out that I wasn't against cyclists being held to account for their behaviour, but the same charges and penalties should apply to all road users, including pedestrians, otherwise it's discrimination.
Unfortunately, it'd be discrimination if they apply the same charges and penalties to cyclists due to the ant-cyclist rhetoric that is common in the UK (see BBC and/or tabloid papers).
The only way that it would be close to fair would be to ensure that the juries are composed of at least 90% frequent cyclists.
Personally, I think the penalties should be related to the level of negligence and the kinetic energy of the vehicle. A driver of a lorry, coach or bus should be held to a higher standard than someone driving a small car.
With the most hysterical level of irony, this is part of the Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy!
"Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy safety review: proposals for new cycling offences"
So they're going to spend all the money that should be spent on making cycling better on consulting about a new cycling offence. Literally insane.
Cycling has barely changed for over a hundred years, the law that was made back then is still just as suitable now. I don't see any need for the consultation... except to distract from Brexit, the generation that can't afford to buy a home, out-of-control gang crime and violence, immigration control, the total polarisation polarisation of society to keep us busy while the rich get richer and the poor get poorer...
No, you're completely missing the point, er, LOOK OVER THERE INSTEAD!!!
Their own report states:
[30] For completeness, not all of these fatalities were attributed to cyclist error:“...6/20 assigning a factor to the pedestrian only, ....4/20 assigning a factor to the cyclist only.”
Why aren't they proposing a new dangerous walking offence?
Bottom line?
We've known for decades that a jury of people, most of whom have driving licences, don't convict other drivers. They think "There but for the grace of God go I." Ooooh, and how many of them are that special subset - the suckers for the "hard-pressed-motorist" meme. Result - persistent and grotesque injustice.
And a cyclist? On a charge of causing death by dangerous cycling? Being judged by the same set of 12 driving licence holders? What possible hope does s/he have of a fair trial, and a safe judgement by his/her peers? God help 'em.
So please don't forget to reply to the consultation.
Just done the "consultation"
Biased, one-sided, confusing, limited scope for disagreeing with their intended course of action.
In summary: we're fucked and I'm off to invest in Cycliq & Garmin, because we're all going to need front-facing cameras.
Let's face it, even if a ped is primarily at fault a cyclist is still going to get hung by a jury of car drivers, unless there's evidence otherwise. In fact, even video evidence probably won't help.
I don't think it's as bad as that. My approach was to answer No to the questions that asked if I supported the propsals, and in the text boxes explain that I think they shouldn't be wasting parliamentary time on this when there's an elephant in the room.
I also questioned why these crimes are vehicle-based at all - shouldn't they really be looking at crimes such as GBH, involuntary manslaughter and so on? What has driving or cycling got to do with it? Why not 'causing death by being a dangerous/careless dickhead'? Why bring the mode of transport into it?
Note that I used more parliamentary language in my response.
Police consider a cyclist who has come from the side into the path of a motor to be at fault, this is made absolutely clear in STATS19 reports. Their death is placed sqaurely on their shoulders, when a pedestrian does this within a few metres of a slow moving cyclist (10-14mph) who is swerving away in the first instance is brought up on manslaughter charges and police concoct a bullshit amassively flawed and incomparable test to 'prove' they could/should have pulled up in time.
Motorists ploughs straight through the back of a cyclist no case to answer, in fact cyclist blamed for their death by police due to all sorts of neferious reasons!
Cyclists minding their own business, motorist driving at excessive speed on icy roads and kills four of them, senior police officer Lyn Adams perverts the course of justice by making a public statement stating.
"The driver has lost control because of the ice on the road. There is no indication to suggest that this is down to something like excessive speed.[There is absolutely a massive indication the killer lost control due to excessive speed on an icy road]
"Our best estimate at the moment is that the car is driving at something like 50 miles per hour. And on a road like this, that isn't excessive speed. [Except the inquest states that the speed was between 60 and 70mph, why did you GUESS at 50mph in the first instance]
"Every road traffic collision is treated as a crime scene and tests have already been carried out.
"However there is nothing to suggest the driver did anything but lose control and on the face of it this seems to be a terrible accident." [LIAR!]
You can repeat this bullshit all the time, left turning HGV across a cycle lane, yup, fault of the cyclist, motorist on their phone who lies about them turning across their path from some tiny side path, motorist not guilty, driver on wrong side of the road on a blind bend, not guilty because the dead person wobbled and was incorrectly attributed as being inexperienced.
It's fucking criminal the way people on bikes are being put on trial on the one hand yet not protected on the other with both ends of the scale havinga completely different set of rules applied to either prosecute (actually persecute) or absolve blame of those that kill and maim people on bikes. It makes you want to vomit and/or burst a blood vessel.
I went to the consultation page brimming with righteous indignation only find, what appears to me, to make liable the same penalties when cycling that I would face when driving. No plans for licencing, no plans for compulsory insurance.
I'm afraid I couldn't maintain my indignation and couldn't really find anything to object to. Saying that of course that's mainly down to my trying not to kill or seriously injure anyone else, as I always hope they try tobdo the same for me.
The problem is that the level of focus on this is totally disproportionate to the risk. Car deaths are like a hundred times more prevalent but don’t draw 100 times the ire.
I think that many people think of deaths caused by motor vehicles as just one of those things, as if its a natural phenomenon like the weather; if they think about it more than that, it's just "Will it delay my journey?". And that's how the media report it, too.
Compare and contrast with how an injury or death caused by a cyclist are reported (not if the cyclist is a victim, because that falls back under "just one of those things...").
The way I read it licensing was only not suggested due to the difficulties in administering a scheme rather than due to any lack of point.
On the whole I had no problem with the suggestions here. What i do have a problem with is the fact that this has been produced at all. This is absolute knee jerk reaction to a minor problem that is being exagerated to win votes. All this is doing is feeding the feeling that all cyclists are riding around causing chaos without a care in the world.
Because of this I had to spend an hour at lunch with friends yesterday trying to presuade somebody that just because I ride a bike does not mean I spend all of my time jumping red lights and weaving through OAPs in the precinct. In fact I'm just trying to get to work without getting killed.
Amen.
Picture the scene. You intend to fix 'something' at work. You have evidence, loads of it, as to the problems. You have other environments that you can go and view that fixed similar stuff - some ages ago, some more recently.
Then, for whatever reason, you piss about with less than 1% of the problem and 'fixes' that are lacking evidence as to their ability to even resolve the less than 1%...
You'll come and pick up your P45 and you'll be fucking grateful.
Forget bikes. Forget peds. Forget cars. Forget it's this issue. This is pissing about in the margins while people actually die of actual death.
This is either 1. wilful rabble-rousing and ignoring of evidence or 2. incompetent arsewittery of the highest order, and every minister that touched it should be recalled for being twats or cretins.
The issue I have with that is that, even in the most egregious cases, the maximum penalties are almost never applied for dangerous or careless driving offenses (nor are dangerous driving offences pursued in many cases, as they are clearly too hard to prosecute).
So we could very well end up with the result that nominally the offences have parity, but cyclists are still prosecuted and punished more harshly than drivers for "similar"offenses, as juries may be more liable to convict (having less cycling than driving experience and sympathy) and judges more willing to hand out higher sentences.
Like this?
www.chesterchronicle.co.uk/news/chester-cheshire-news/delivery-man-clear...
Hearing about this, my 'depression' was further lowered whilst reading a (unrelated) Domnic Lawson article in Sunday's Times on presumed consent for organ donation. A person, talked baout in the article, who was on the organ donor register was a keen cyclist. Dominic Lawson had inserted the comment, "organ donor" after the words 'keen cyclist' in his article; you can't win! Mind you, Dominic Lawson is a bit of a Daily Mail cyclist hater anyway (I think?).
People are happy to let people - drivers, cyclists, pedestrians - die, because the alternative is that they spend more on policing and learn to drive better. No one can be arsed with that.
Jesus that consultation response was a crock of sh*t, feels like the survey was generated by the work experience kid!
Mostly answered 'not sure', binary yes/no answers are worthless. Explained this my final comments. Basically yeah, I agree people should be prosecuted if they cause death or injury through dangerous cycling, but I still think the government should focus more on enforcing the laws they already have to deal with death or injury through dangerous driving!
Probably sounds like too much work, or, shock horror, would require actually funding a public service, e.g. the police. Much easier to generate a bit of outrage, publish a meaningless consultation, give the gammons something to froth about and hopefully let the whole thing die a death.
@Don - after posting the link I went back and made the mistake of reading some of the comments. It shows just how much cyclists are the hated outsiders of our time.
Edit: The Telegraph covered it yesterday: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/08/12/death-dangerous-cyling-plans...
I got as far as the bolloxed headline in the Torygraph, I used to read that paper in an attempt to understand the other point of view. Now it's just a hate fuelled piece of shit and you pretty much know what's going to be spewed out.
I am, however, surprised at the levels of bile being vomitted by the readership of the Independent. I mistakenly thought that they were significantly more educated and worldly wise than the Daily Mail arsewipe readership. I guess not. The levels of stupidity, selfishness and total lack of awareness aof anything is incredible/
My bad.
And yes, I do blame Thatcher.
EDIT: The only explanation that I can think of is that people do know the real problem but are too scared to admit it, because it is them. And the only way to excuse one's own poor behaviour is to attack someone else. They know that if they condemn poor driving, they are admitting that they themselves are poor drivers, and this goes right up to the judiciary.
We appear to be in a bit of a pickle.
The Independent have some coverage of this: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/cycling-law-conservatives...
I was tempted to say well done Independent, then I went on to read the comments.
"Fredd 2 minutes ago
I'm a pensioner and after being hit twice by cyclists, one while crossing on a green light and once while walking on a pavement, I now carry a stout walking stick. Any cyclist who comes near me on a crossing or pavement gets it rammed into his front wheel. I choose the front wheel because this is more likely to bring him (and it's always a him) off. Got one recently on a crossing and followed up by falling to the ground which had the bonus of bystanders nearly lynching the idiot. I suggest more people do this, it's very satisfying and great sport. Time for pedestrains to fight back and reclaim their crossings and pavements."
It is truly depressing that people not just think like that, but feel they should vocalise it.
Well Fredd, I am often bumped into while walking down the street by people who think that they have priority, I hope that one of them isn't you becuse I'll break your fucking face!
Where will it end?
So "Fredd the pensioner" commenting in the Independent thinks cyclists are the problem on the pavement?
Has he really never been forced into the road by metal boxes blocking the pavement?
My five year old daughter and I were nearly hit by another school mum in an SUV bumping up onto the pavement next to us as we walked to school.
It's also a regular occurence to find cars driving along pavements to avoid hold ups on the road.
The strange thing is most pedestrians just seem to accept it, to believe that the motor car must always be deferred to, but if a cyclist does the same thing, despite putting the pedestrians at far less less risk, there is tut-tutting and talk of lycra louts.
That grinds my gears does the pavement bump. The way some of them will look at you as you're in the wrong for being on the pavement. Once they've dropped their kids off, they then proceed to speed through the 20 zone. Usual supsect is yummy mummy, expensive SUV, no job but can be heard at pickup time moaning about how hard they have it. Get real.
The only place I've seen the figures for who was to fault in cyclist/pedestrian casualties split out is in a footnote in https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cycle-safety-review
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