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Cycling UK suggests Chris Grayling should be prosecuted for dooring incident
Cycling UK has said it is willing to provide legal assistance to the cyclist knocked off his bike by Chris Grayling. 'Car dooring' is a criminal offence punishable by a fine of up to £1,000 – although the charity has been campaigning for stiffer penalties.
Footage of the incident, which took place in October, shows the Transport Secretary opening the door of his ministerial car into Jaiqi Liu, who was cycling past.
Liu said his bike needed a series of repairs and that he experienced pain later on, after the shock had worn off.
Grayling is said to have implied that the incident was the cyclist’s fault, claiming that Liu had been riding too quickly (despite not appearing to have seen him).
Liu said that after checking he was okay and shaking his hand, Grayling left without leaving his name or details. The cyclist then reported the incident to police.
Cycling UK’s Senior Road Safety and Legal Campaigns Officer, Duncan Dollimore, said:
“Mr Grayling as a former Justice, and the current Transport, Secretary should know it’s a criminal offence to open any door of a vehicle on a road so as to injure or endanger anyone. Currently, it’s treated as a minor offence with a maximum £1,000 fine, despite the fact that people have been killed and seriously injured by car dooring.
“Cycling UK spoke to Justice officials in September suggesting that a review of the offence and penalties of the car dooring offence is needed. Disappointingly, Grayling’s former department rejected our suggestions and omitted them from their review of offences they announced two weeks ago. Hopefully, the Ministry of Justice will now listen to us, and reconsider the entire remit of what is a very limited review.
"Cycling UK is keen to speak to Mr Liu to see if our Cyclists' Defence Fund is able to provide legal assistance. There are questions about why Mr Grayling was not prosecuted for what appears to be an offence, and CDF has in the past been prepared to commence private prosecutions on behalf of injured cyclists."
'Car dooring' is a criminal offence under Regulation 105 of the Road Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations 1986 and Section 42 Road Traffic Act 1988.
Cycling UK points to incidents such as the death of Sam Boulton as a reason why the offence should be reviewed. The current maximum penalty is a fine of up to £1,000 and penalty points cannot be imposed on the offender’s licence.
Dollimore also pointed out that incidents such as this could be affected by government plans to increase the small claims limit for personal injury.
“We sincerely hope Mr Liu suffered no lasting damage as a result of the Transport Secretary’s actions. Unfortunately, had he suffered a moderate but non-life-changing injury, as is common in such situations like a broken wrist or collar bone, if the Government has its way, Mr Liu would not recover any legal or other cost.
“Under current proposals to increase the small claims limit to £5,000, any compensation could easily be swallowed in legal fees as the Government thinks road victims, rather than insurance companies, should pay their own costs.”
Cycling UK, together with RoadPeace and Living Streets, yesterday launched the Road Victims are Real Victims campaign, which opposes the plans.
Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn't especially like cake.
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112 comments
oh rollo, you're so right but so wrong!
going past on the left on a bicycle is generally permissible when the traffic is stationary
blindly opening a passenger side car door while sitting in traffic, not pulled over to the curb, is generally not permissible
the road markings here are unclear and ambiguous at best
personally, I would settle for a 50-50 split on the damages
but publically embarrasing Chris Grayling - that's priceless
Rollo: how is someone meant to ride that stretch of road?
Filtering by cyclists (and motorcyclists) through stalled traffic is allowed in the UK. The cyclist did not appear to be moving too fast but since Grayling didn't look before opening the door, it has to be asked how he knew the cyclist was going too fast. Grayling did not leave his details with the cyclist and should have realised that the cyclist was shocked following the incident. Grayling should also have seen that there was damage to the bicycle. Give Grayling's inside knowledge of the law, he should be aware that he has left himself open to criminal prosecution. If I was the cyclist I would most certainly be pursuing this case. Too many people get away with causing injuries and in this specific instance, the guilty party has even fewer excuses than most.
This is getting somewhat bizzare. The BBC featured the Andrew Mitchell plebgate affair 24/7 for months, but they will not mention this case, of a minister responsible for road safety knocking off a cyclist, failing to exchange details, hiding their parliamentary pass and not reporting it to the police. Which one is more newsworthy?
I've been in touch with BBC Newswatch to ask them to feature this case, and it would help if other people did too: 03700106676, newswatch [at] bbc.co.uk
Malaconotus, I wondered that quite early on, the name made me wonder, LA Confidential and all that, I envisaged tory boys at party HQ grinning, back slapping and a few celebratory lines of the real thing when they came up with that one. It made one comment on Edinburgh's "bold" plans, and oddly stuck to only one of the Graying threads.
Living abroad, I have only just come across this news story.
To my mind, greater by far of the two idiocies shown in the video of the Grayling/cyclist car door collision, and I speak not only as a cyclist but as one who has been carless for more than 10 years now, is the cyclists recklessly riding, at some speed to boot, on the inside of the traffic lane, i.e. in the narrow space between the left-hand side of the cars and the pavement. Recipe for suicide, imho. And therefore sheer idiocy!
Grayling is wrong but the cyclist is triple wrong, and should as a London road-user (and yes, Grayling, he is a “road-user”) know better. But then again, I never cease to be amazed by the reckless road behaviour of far from a few London cyclists.
Plebgate was bigger. Beneath the surface was a power battle between government and police, a very big deal.
Not unrelated, I expect our new friend Rollo Tomassi is not just a concerned fellow cyclist... https://theintercept.com/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipulation/
The name kept bothering me so I googled it - wasn't Rollo Tomassi the name given by one of the main characters in L A Confidential to the unknown person who had killed his father? So, a made-up person.
Just to play Devil's Advocate here:
Yes he was responsible for knocking someone off their bike but he did so sorry and stop to check on the cyclist.
He may not have exchanged details but I think that legally it is the driver who needed to do this.
The parlimentary pass may have been hidden, but if it is anything like my place of work badges are not supposed to be visible outside of the grounds.
He may not have reported it but I believe that it is technically the drivers responsibility to do so not the passenger.
As he's the Transport Secretary, I would expect him to go above and beyond just the legal obligation in this instance. As he caused the accident (unless you subscribe to Rollo's theory), I'd expect him to provide details for himself or at least prod his driver into providing some.
I don't think anyone is accusing him of deliberate assault - it looks like he was simply careless, so he should ensure that the cyclist is absolutely fine before leaving him.
Maybe compare and contrast with this thread.
http://road.cc/content/news/212905-red-light-jumping-cyclist-causes-cras...
That thread is talking about the driver. Whilst Grayling did not fulfil his moral obligation he did fulfil his legal obligation as he was not the driver and therefor legally not responsable for reporting it.
In which case, you’re now shifting the focus of discussion. You were claiming Rule 163 is “recommended” behaviour, which is “not supported by force of law”.
Well, Rule 163 is expected, because it’s subject to law - civil law. And as I've previously mentioned, also criminal law, judging by West Midlands Police’s recent steps to prosecute drivers for not abiding by what the Rule says about giving cyclists sufficient space when overtaking.
Wrong. Failure to read my posts properly on your part does not constitute selectively ignoring on my part. I’ve already pointed out that this rule applies to where a road has more than one lane in any direction. That’s why the sentence before what you state says “Stay in your lane if traffic is moving slowly in queues”. It doesn't say anything which permits lane-splitting.
And it certainly doesn’t justify undertaking. Because it only justifies passing on the left when traffic ON YOUR RIGHT is moving more slowly. Undertaking is not about that. It’s about passing traffic AHEAD OF YOU moving more slowly than you want to. That traffic’s only on your right AFTER you’ve already started to undertake.
"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
I. Montoya
You're just talking nonsense now. Please supply an example of contributory negligence that supports your views or just accept that you are wrong.
Careful WiznaeMe, what with your facts and evidence, not in this post-truth world.
There was a link on the old CTC website to a High Court decision from about 1909 on filtering which specifically stated that filtering was legal. Unfortunately I can't find it as the website has changed to CyclingUK.
However in the more recent case of Davis vs Shrogin (2006) the High Court judge said that "a filtering motorcyclist passing stationary or very slow moving traffic could not be to blame if a collision occured if the rider had no chance to take avoiding action."
Until the High Court changes its mind or new legislation is enacted, filtering (carefully) remains legal.
I did no such thing. You're fixated with the idea that people are either pro-cyclist or anti-cyclist. Because I've dared to challenge some cycling practice, that must make me anti-cyclist.
Well my fluffy friend, that's totally wrong. I've stated the cyclist was primarily at fault, not because they're "the vulnerable party", but because they were best placed to prevent the collision from occurring. Their decision to breach Rule 163 was the first link in a chain of causation which led to the collision.
And that principle applies in my mind equally if the tables were turned between motor vehicle and bicycle. If a car pulled out of a junction in front of a cyclist, and the cyclist had the opportunity to react had they been cycling carefully but didn't, then (as in this case) both parties would have committed breaches of the Highway Code which led to a collision arising. But the primary responsibility would rest with the driver, as their breach was the first, and it started a chain of causation leading to the incident.
In the second example does the cyclist begin their careless cycling after the car pulls out?
I watched Shutter Island last night. That experience was about 285,945.27 times less mind-bending than reading a post claiming that someone filtering on a bike, just past the end of a bike lane, caused a collision with a door opened by someone who didn't look.
Anyhoo, let's see you deal with JS's deconstruction.
That's what you _say_ but it clearly isn't true. You are so mired in unexamined recieved-ideas that you don't even notice what you are doing. Your reasoning is specious (pretending a 'should' takes priority over a 'must') because your underlying idea is that the more powerful party mustn't be held responsible.
By the way I wouldn't say I'm 'pro-cyclist'. I don't even know many cyclists (and I can well believe a fair share of them are knobheads, what with their being human beings). If a cyclist hits a pedestrian I'm likely to be on the latter's side.
I've spent far more of my life as a pedestrian than a cyclist.
I am, however, opposed to motor-car-worship. You are mired in a car-centric way of thinking. Group-think, sums it up, I think.
Cyclists can fiter wherever they want, left/middle/right side of slow or stopped motor traffic. British cycling had a good guide for the practical decisions of how to filter:
https://www.britishcycling.org.uk/knowledge/skills/article/izn20130830-E...
All Vehicles have a duty of care to those filtering, as mentioned by multiple HC rules.
The cyclist was filtering cautiously, a door opened close in front of them, leaving not enough to avoid a collision.
But for the door opening, the cyclist and their property would have been undamaged and no incident would have occurred.
All highway users (drivers and passengers) owe others a duty of care, Grayling owed a duty of care to the cyclist. Therefore he was negligent.
Damage to the bike is easily proved. Therefore he should be fined for the negligence, and be ordered to compensate the cyclist for their property damage and any Costa associated with their injuries.
@trollotommasi
couldn't resist: I am only kidding, but...
How are you meant to ride that stretch of road?
What a fascinating series of posts. I suppose it's what's to be expected when you challenge Groupthink.
Some just can't tolerate having their prejudices challenged, and resort to accusing me of trolling.
Fluffykitten appears to hold this strange black/white binary notion that either cyclists are responsible for their own safety or motorists are responsible for cyclists' safety. S/he claims I believe the former, and then argues that the latter should be the case.
As far as I'm concerned, neither position is right. All road users have a mutual responsibility for their own and others' safety. So, for instance, drivers are rightly under a duty of care for the safety of other road users, especially those more vulnerable. But by the same token, cyclists should take all reasonable steps to stay safe.
Hawkinspeter's reference to a cyclelaw article is interesting for a couple of reasons. One is that it strangely doesn't refer to Rule 163 at all. The other is that, even so, the article highlights the hazards of undertaking (e.g. "Cyclists should keep in mind that undertaking on the left is dangerous even where vehicles are stationary or where there is a cycle lane on the road.").
And as for Fluffykitten's final comment that
...the more relevant point is that, if the road designers had intended cyclists to be able to pass on the left for the full length of the road, they would have built a continuous cycle lane. The fact there's a break in the cycle lane strongly suggests there is a reason why cyclists should not pass on the left at that part of the road.
So do you think cyclists should
(a) stop dead at the end of the discontinuous cycle lane and wobble slowly forward for for the next five minutes while the traffic next too them crawls forward to the next bit of cycle lane?
(b) squeeze between vehicles to get to the outside, ride a bit, then squeeze back again to the kerb (assuming the traffic didn't start up in the meantime, trapping them on the outside)?
(c) teleport
(d) (what I sometimes do) get off and walk along the pavement for a bit, and think yet again that maybe its time to get the message that cyclists just aren't wanted on the roads.
I note you have resorted to the desperate line of 'people disagreeing with me mysteriously proves that I'm right' and 'everyone else's arguments are just prejudice, though I can't actually show that, I'll just assert it anyway as I've run out of rational arguments'. Given you explicitly supported the dominant ideology of 'the primary responsibility is on the more vunlerable party', I'm not sure you are in a strong position to accuse others of 'group think'.
You explicitly said 'the cyclist was primarily responsible'. Dont' try and wriggle out of what you said. You have been arguing for the former, don't pretend otherwise.
You then went on to accuse cyclists of expecting other road users to 'take responsibility for their safety' - implying that its wrong to expect anyone but cyclists to take such responsibility.
Please at least try and argue honestly rather than constantly shifting your argument.
Bender, I thank you. I didn't use the term lawyer as I'd always thought of it as more of an americanism, I thought we had solicitors, QCs, barristers and judges, I also realise there are overlaps there. If you are one, and are prepared to admit it, could you resolve my issues? Cheers.
Don't professional legal experts find it difficult to agree on anything? Sometimes it would seem that their beliefs change depending on who is paying them.
As in 'lawyers?'
Yes. That's pretty much why we exist. That said, don't rule out the fact that a lot of clients, properly advised, want you to run their case anyway using the strongest 'other' argument you can muster.
After all, that's pretty much what the Supreme Court Brexit case is about. The lawyers representing the government don't really believe what they're saying
Too many amateur lawyers on here! The non law graduates here would be better off looking at how real lawyers and judges have interpreted the law in the past, instead of trying to interpret it themselves. The Google archives are littered with examples of previous verdicts, mainly involving motorcyclists rather than cycles, filtering through traffic, being involved in accidents of various types. Contributory negligence is the usual verdict, which serves only to reduce the sentence against the other party.
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