Most drivers in fatal collisions with cyclists avoid jail says Cycling UK research

Shades wrote:

I was on my way to work today (a car/cycle combo) with the usual chaos that accompanies first day back after half term and thought, after 30 odd years of driving and cycling, just how depressingly toxic the roads are these days.  Something's got to give, but the government sure as hell won't do anything that upsets motorists.

Latest Health Twat Matt Hancock today said (paraphrasing): 'We spend way too much on curing illnesses and not enough on prevention. That's to give you the impression that I might not actually be a useless fuckwit. To shatter that illusion and revert back to the 'stopped clock' image you already had of me and my colleagues, I'm not going to give any details of how 'prevention' might work, and will leave you all feeling that it's just an excuse to be made to feel guilty for our fucking ineptitude. If anything flukily falls out of my arse at some point, it sure as shit won't involve active travel.'

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-46093750

Transport Twat Chris 'Failing' Grayling earlier this year felt motivated to write to the Competitions and Markets Authority pointing out that motorway services charged more than service stations that weren't on motorways - to the tune of up to 19p per litre.

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-43590387

Other things Grayling has felt motivated to do include dooring a cyclist and then trying to blame the cyclist and living underground for 3 months earlier this year while Northern Rail did a Southern (only emerging to announce he wasn't really in charge of the railways). He generally bumbles around being shit, which is better than when he actually tries to do something  - ask the probation service.

davel wrote:

Latest Health Twat Matt Hancock today said (paraphrasing): 'We spend way too much on curing illnesses and not enough on prevention.

BBC R4 prog "You and Yours" is having a phone in tomorrow about Hancock's proposal, and since we all know and all the data shows that riding a bike is the single most beneficial thing anyone can do for their health, why not call them?  Or send them an email stating your views and include your phone number, like I did youandyours [at] bbc.co.uk.  It starts at 1215.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0001131

rjfrussell wrote:

If you look at the figures, in the 70's deaths were in excess of 7,000 a year.  this fell through 80s and 90s but by turn of millennium figure was about 3,500 deaths a year.  So it has halved again in last 18 years.

The biggest reduction in road deaths has been to vehicle occupants because of better collision survival systems for them; seat belts, air bags, side impact protection, crumple zones, collapsible steering wheels etc, and better emergency response and treatment.  A senior traffic cop at a meeting some time ago said that the number of collisions hadn't fallen, but many more people survived.

Any reduction in the number of dead pedestrians and cyclists is explained by the fall in their numbers, not better laws, road layouts or government policies, and there have been several times where the government has ignored their needs e.g. the proposed HC rule to make cyclists use any cycle facility, no matter how bad.

I'm struggling to think of any initiative by this government which has positively affected the safety of cyclists, it all seems to come from charities like Cycling UK, who were the ones who fought the HC changes.

rjfrussell wrote:

"468 per day were injured or killed on the roads of the UK in 2017. Of that, 5 people per day were killed ! 1 child was killed every week. And what gets done? Next to nothing."

 

This is actually rather unfair, because over a 20 to 30 year time span there have been huge advantages in road safety-  more low speed/ 20 mile an hour zones;  better road infrastructure / junction design (admittedly, mostly for cars adn peds, not bikes); huge crackdown on drink driving;  crack down on speeding/ red light jumping (many more cameras);  and of course, much better car design.

 

If you look at the figures, in the 70's deaths were in excess of 7,000 a year.  this fell through 80s and 90s but by turn of millennium figure was about 3,500 deaths a year.  So it has halved again in last 18 years.

Falls continued year on year till about 2012, and have plateaued since then at about 1750 a year.

 

Still far too many of course, everyone a tragedy for the family involved, and the plateau is a concern (though in context of ever increasing road usage).

 

But to say that nothing has been done in relation to road deaths is just not true.  In fact, I'd say it is one area of public policy over, say, 30 years that can genuinely be called a big success. 

That's a bit of a rose-tinted view itself though.  The "better car design" (with the possible execption of improved braking) is mostly irrelevant to anyone not in a car.  Indeed, much of it seems to have made things worse for non-drivers - bigger blind spots, and larger vehicles clogging up roads, for example.

You also need to put in the other column the increased mortality due to declining physical activity, due to more driving and less active travel.

  Plus the deaths due to increased traffic pollution (granted that increase in pollution due to traffic has been more than offset, in total, by the massive decrease in pollution caused by coal-burning power stations, but, nevertheless, more people are dying than need to, due to the efforts made by the state to encourage more driving).

Anyway, the point is what has been done is not enough.  For all the measures you cite progress has involved doing the bare minimum.  Just because it started from a very low starting point doesn't mean the authorities get a pat on the back for that.  Junction design, for example, is still frequently awful for anyone not in a car.

Speeding is still commonplace, as is red-light jumping (I constantly encouter it as a pedestrian crossing the road - one new trend seems to be driving on the wrong side of the road in order to skip past a queue of traffic in order to jump the lights, had to jump back as a ped twice for that in the last year - left me wondering 'did I fail to look?' before realising the driver was jumping the red _and_ coming from the wrong direction).

The one real success story seems to be making drunk-driving socially unacceptable.

I'm also curious as to how much of the decline in RTC deaths is due to more people being inside cars rather than outside them.

rjfrussell wrote:

"468 per day were injured or killed on the roads of the UK in 2017. Of that, 5 people per day were killed ! 1 child was killed every week. And what gets done? Next to nothing."

 

This is actually rather unfair, because over a 20 to 30 year time span there have been huge advantages in road safety-  more low speed/ 20 mile an hour zones;  better road infrastructure / junction design (admittedly, mostly for cars adn peds, not bikes); huge crackdown on drink driving;  crack down on speeding/ red light jumping (many more cameras);  and of course, much better car design.

 

If you look at the figures, in the 70's deaths were in excess of 7,000 a year.  this fell through 80s and 90s but by turn of millennium figure was about 3,500 deaths a year.  So it has halved again in last 18 years.

Falls continued year on year till about 2012, and have plateaued since then at about 1750 a year.

 

Still far too many of course, everyone a tragedy for the family involved, and the plateau is a concern (though in context of ever increasing road usage).

 

But to say that nothing has been done in relation to road deaths is just not true.  In fact, I'd say it is one area of public policy over, say, 30 years that can genuinely be called a big success. 

To be honest, as a non-driver I kind of read this as "hey, show some gratitude, we used to massacre you by the thousands every year, now we don't kill as many of you".  Not good enough.

mpdouglas wrote:

Cars get bigger and bigger with every iteration making many roads impassable to two way traffic as the whole of society engages in an arms race to have the biggest, most ridiculous vehicle possible.

Mungecrundle wrote:

The cynic in me says that putting people in prison costs too much money, but surely a basic premise of losing your driving licence for good should you kill another person through your negligence or incompetence is not too much to ask?

I'd agree but follow any traffic cop feed on Twitter for a while and just see how many people they mention stopping that are already banned from driving,so shouldn't even be on the roads in the first place. it seems a shockingly high percentage, let alone they then seem to be multiple offenders,who are in unsafe vehicles,excess speeding,drugs,drink etc etc & I don't think they filter it just for effect.

And the worst part is you then realise you share the roads with these people everyday

Awavey wrote:

Mungecrundle wrote:

The cynic in me says that putting people in prison costs too much money, but surely a basic premise of losing your driving licence for good should you kill another person through your negligence or incompetence is not too much to ask?

I'd agree but follow any traffic cop feed on Twitter for a while and just see how many people they mention stopping that are already banned from driving,so shouldn't even be on the roads in the first place. it seems a shockingly high percentage, let alone they then seem to be multiple offenders,who are in unsafe vehicles,excess speeding,drugs,drink etc etc & I don't think they filter it just for effect. And the worst part is you then realise you share the roads with these people everyday

I'd thought this, too.  There aren't enough roads police to stop people using mobiles, speeding, etc - the idea that they'd be able to enforce stopping people from driving who'd had their licence revoked... Never going to happen, I'm afraid.

brooksby wrote:

I'd thought this, too.  There aren't enough roads police to stop people using mobiles, speeding, etc - the idea that they'd be able to enforce stopping people from driving who'd had their licence revoked... Never going to happen, I'm afraid.

The only way for licence revokation to be successfully enforced is with technology. As long as human beings are relied on to check it it will never happen as there are not enough of them, and you can't expect every traffic officer in the land to know the faces of those banned from driving well enough to stop them on the road when they are not actively breaking the law at that moment. 

When the day comes that your driving licence doubles as the key to your car and has to be placed in a slot in the dash and checked for validity before the engine can be started, things might be different. But even then, you would have to combine that with facial recognition to check you haven't just borrowed someone else's valid licence.

Jetmans Dad wrote:

brooksby wrote:

I'd thought this, too.  There aren't enough roads police to stop people using mobiles, speeding, etc - the idea that they'd be able to enforce stopping people from driving who'd had their licence revoked... Never going to happen, I'm afraid.

The only way for licence revokation to be successfully enforced is with technology. As long as human beings are relied on to check it it will never happen as there are not enough of them, and you can't expect every traffic officer in the land to know the faces of those banned from driving well enough to stop them on the road when they are not actively breaking the law at that moment. 

When the day comes that your driving licence doubles as the key to your car and has to be placed in a slot in the dash and checked for validity before the engine can be started, things might be different. But even then, you would have to combine that with facial recognition to check you haven't just borrowed someone else's valid licence.

You raise a great point.

The tech is, I am sure there, for car immobilisers to be set up to work with some form of identification, that verfies against the person in the driving seat. 

The problem is getting this tech put into cars, driving licences upgraded etc. Time and money hey?

It would however, over night answer the problem of unlicenced drivers being on the road. Hell it could be extended to include insurance and MOT as well. 

How about this... instead of the tech sitting in the licence / key, it is app based, and to drive your car, you have to slot your phone into the car. Pick the phone up and it stops the car... two birds in one stone! 

Jetmans Dad wrote:

brooksby wrote:

I'd thought this, too.  There aren't enough roads police to stop people using mobiles, speeding, etc - the idea that they'd be able to enforce stopping people from driving who'd had their licence revoked... Never going to happen, I'm afraid.

The only way for licence revokation to be successfully enforced is with technology. As long as human beings are relied on to check it it will never happen as there are not enough of them, and you can't expect every traffic officer in the land to know the faces of those banned from driving well enough to stop them on the road when they are not actively breaking the law at that moment. 

When the day comes that your driving licence doubles as the key to your car and has to be placed in a slot in the dash and checked for validity before the engine can be started, things might be different. But even then, you would have to combine that with facial recognition to check you haven't just borrowed someone else's valid licence.

The Swedes do have a method which helps with this problem. IF someone without a license is driving a car, the car gets crushed, unless the car has been reported stolen. Because of that people are far less inclined to loan thier car to a mate without a license. It's far from perfect, but personally I think it's an improvement on what is in place now

madcarew wrote:

The Swedes do have a method which helps with this problem. IF someone without a license is driving a car, the car gets crushed, unless the car has been reported stolen. Because of that people are far less inclined to loan thier car to a mate without a license. It's far from perfect, but personally I think it's an improvement on what is in place now

Do they allow the driver out first?

burtthebike wrote:

madcarew wrote:

The Swedes do have a method which helps with this problem. IF someone without a license is driving a car, the car gets crushed, unless the car has been reported stolen. Because of that people are far less inclined to loan thier car to a mate without a license. It's far from perfect, but personally I think it's an improvement on what is in place now

Do they allow the driver out first?

Probably. If you get organic matter in many recycled things you can't recycle them, so in order to save the planet they probably let the drivers out. Priorities, they're such strange things.

madcarew wrote:

Jetmans Dad wrote:

brooksby wrote:

I'd thought this, too.  There aren't enough roads police to stop people using mobiles, speeding, etc - the idea that they'd be able to enforce stopping people from driving who'd had their licence revoked... Never going to happen, I'm afraid.

The only way for licence revokation to be successfully enforced is with technology. As long as human beings are relied on to check it it will never happen as there are not enough of them, and you can't expect every traffic officer in the land to know the faces of those banned from driving well enough to stop them on the road when they are not actively breaking the law at that moment. 

When the day comes that your driving licence doubles as the key to your car and has to be placed in a slot in the dash and checked for validity before the engine can be started, things might be different. But even then, you would have to combine that with facial recognition to check you haven't just borrowed someone else's valid licence.

The Swedes do have a method which helps with this problem. IF someone without a license is driving a car, the car gets crushed, unless the car has been reported stolen. Because of that people are far less inclined to loan thier car to a mate without a license. It's far from perfect, but personally I think it's an improvement on what is in place now

Brilliant idea.  Unfortunately, in this country we'd get Mr f-ing Loophole then trying to sue the authorities for unlawful crushing or some such sh!t...

rjfrussell wrote:

it would be interesting to know, for comparison purposes what % of drivers who kill (a) pedestrians (b) drivers/ passengers in other cars are jailed.

i would imagine that it is pretty much the same. There is still very much the mindset that it was ‘just an accident’ by the time it hits the judicial system if it actually gets that far. The ‘honest and true’ twelve are unable to comprehend that someone has allowed their standards of driving to drop below the levels expected from them and deliver a ‘not guilty’ verdict. This is then compounded by the judge/magistrate issuing the minimum sentence rather than the harsher sentence. 

The only times that there seems to be prosecution and jail time is when the motorist has killed multiple people while tanked up on booze and drugs and speeding away from a pursuit vehicle. 

giff77 wrote:

rjfrussell wrote:

it would be interesting to know, for comparison purposes what % of drivers who kill (a) pedestrians (b) drivers/ passengers in other cars are jailed.

i would imagine that it is pretty much the same. There is still very much the mindset that it was ‘just an accident’ by the time it hits the judicial system if it actually gets that far. The ‘honest and true’ twelve are unable to comprehend that someone has allowed their standards of driving to drop below the levels expected from them and deliver a ‘not guilty’ verdict. This is then compounded by the judge/magistrate issuing the minimum sentence rather than the harsher sentence. 

The only times that there seems to be prosecution and jail time is when the motorist has killed multiple people while tanked up on booze and drugs and speeding away from a pursuit vehicle. 

And too many prosecutions disregard the serious offences and settle for the easy to identify motoring offences such as driving with unroadworthy vehicle following an accident.

giff77 wrote:

...There is still very much the mindset that it was ‘just an accident’ ... The ‘honest and true’ twelve are unable to comprehend that someone has allowed their standards of driving to drop below the levels expected from them and deliver a ‘not guilty’ verdict.

I had a discussion with a friend who is a legal professional & I asked why they don't use the objective test for the standard of driving, the driving test, eg Q "if you did this on your test would you fail?" A "Yes" ergo the driving has clearly fallen below that of a careful & competent driver.  The only thing to consider is then how far below it had fallen.

They said that a Law Lord said it is for the jury to decide on the standard of driving and they should apply the standard of the ordinary motorist as represented by themselves.

So as driving standards get worse, the jury think "who hasn't [insert subjective bad thing here], there but for the grace of god go I" so it becomes harder & harder to get a conviction.

giff77 wrote:

The only times that there seems to be prosecution and jail time is when the motorist has killed multiple people while tanked up on booze and drugs and speeding away from a pursuit vehicle.

The difference is when the aggravating factor is so obviously bad (as you say drink, drugs, racing, evading police etc) that even the most moton driver, even if they do it themselves, realise it is not an 'innocent accident'.
 

tarquin_foxglove wrote:

I had a discussion with a friend who is a legal professional & I asked why they don't use the objective test for the standard of driving, the driving test, eg Q "if you did this on your test would you fail?" A "Yes" ergo the driving has clearly fallen below that of a careful & competent driver.  The only thing to consider is then how far below it had fallen.

This excellent and objective definition needs to be adopted instead of the wishy-washy, all to easily avoided current laws decided by a jury of drivers.  Can't all the cycling and walking groups get together and propose this, without wasting time waiting for the government inquiry of course.

tarquin_foxglove wrote:

giff77 wrote:

...There is still very much the mindset that it was ‘just an accident’ ... The ‘honest and true’ twelve are unable to comprehend that someone has allowed their standards of driving to drop below the levels expected from them and deliver a ‘not guilty’ verdict.

I had a discussion with a friend who is a legal professional & I asked why they don't use the objective test for the standard of driving, the driving test, eg Q "if you did this on your test would you fail?" A "Yes" ergo the driving has clearly fallen below that of a careful & competent driver.  The only thing to consider is then how far below it had fallen.

They said that a Law Lord said it is for the jury to decide on the standard of driving and they should apply the standard of the ordinary motorist as represented by themselves.

So as driving standards get worse, the jury think "who hasn't [insert subjective bad thing here], there but for the grace of god go I" so it becomes harder & harder to get a conviction.

 

And of course that's massively compounded by people's over-estimation of their own ability.

Many studies and surveys have shown that most people rate their driving as 'above average', so you've got a jury of people who think they are better drivers than they are, judging others' behaviour, and concluding that, if the defendant's behaviour was on a par with what they might do, then the defendant is probably better than average, too. Maybe just 'unlucky'.

rjfrussell wrote:

it would be interesting to know, for comparison purposes what % of drivers who kill (a) pedestrians (b) drivers/ passengers in other cars are jailed.

Without prejudging the result, I am curious to know this figure.  It might be identical (statisically-speaking) or it might be significantly different - neither would surprise me.

Maybe it's just the leniency accorded to anyone behind the driving wheel, and the figures are the same? But on the other hand, there does _seem_ to be more effort put into finding things cyclists did wrong.