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It's time for 'presumed liability'.

I don't know why this year seems different, but the behaviour of non-cycling road users appears to be getting worse, with no sign of anything to make it improve.

This week the situation was brought home to me with this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-40680451 . I had just finished my warmup for this event when the news reached the startline. Even the tone of the reporting is negative "...his bike collided with a van...", which to me infers that he hit the van.  All the information reaching riders is that he was hit from behind by the motorist.

Drivers are automatically absolved from blame by the language used. How many times do we see that a cyclist was hit by a car. Why relate the person to the machine? Why not say a cyclist was hit by a motorist? That's the truth of the matter, and makes the responsibility clear.

The incident above happened near Tring, a long way from where I live. In the 2 miles I rode from the event HQ to the start I was shocked at the general standard of driving. I would say the majority of drivers passed too close, probably due to the presence of a narrow and ineffective cycle lane that I couldn't use.

I can't see any way to modify driver behaviour unless the consequences of their actions are far more dramatic than today. Presumed liability works elsewhere, why not here?

 

Edit: The BBC later revised the wording of their report.

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12 comments

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Jimmy Ray Will | 6 years ago
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For me presumed liability will go some way to discredit the current, growing mindset that accidents with pedestrians and cyclists are an unavoidable aspect of road use. 

Presumed liability does exactly that... it reinforces that motorists are liable for the safety of more vulnerable road users.

This flies in the face of... pedestrians and cyclists are barriers and inconveniences to happy motoring, which is currently the mantra smashed out by the press. 

I had a mate wiped out on the weekend on a roundabout. The driver admitted that he had entered the roundabout without slowing or looking as he was talking to his wife at the time. Completely admitted lack of care and attention. However, everyone my mate spoke to, from the driver, to witnesses, to the police, to his friends all questioned whether he had taken enough effort in making himself visible. Not one, not a single person questioned whether it was right or wrong that a driver should, by their own admission not pay attention whilst travelling through a junction. 

That is, to be frank, complete bullshit. Presumed liability will, at a legal level at least, show this common bullshit situation for exactly what it is. 

My final piece, and I rant on about this all the time, is this. I have never hit a cyclist or pedestrian in a car. Neither has my missus, any of my mates, or my family. These people are average people. It is not hard to use the roads and not hit and maim people. 

By the way, all of the above can recite episodes of seeing cyclists do crazy shit... however even though they have been exposed to cyclists riding without lights, through red lights, riding down the wrong side of the road... they've not hit them. Incompetent cycling, whilst annoying, is rarely the cause of a crash. Inattention very commonly is. 

Mindsets need to be changed. 

 

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froze | 6 years ago
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I think you're reading too much into it and making a mountain out of a mole hill.  Lets take your example, a cyclist is hit by a car, first off being hit by a car shows the gravity of the possiblity of major injuries, or death, that is inflicted onto the cyclist and it shows the blame is being placed on the driver and not the rider; if it had said, a was hit by a motorist, some may think a car driver got out and physcially assaulted the cyclist; or by saying a bicycle was hit by a car takes out the human aspect of the person injured on the bike.

Look there are many ways to write a sentence like that, and none of the ways would appeal to all the readers, just leave it as it is and quit worring about small stuff.

If you think that's bad I once read a newspaper article, along with a picture of the scene, where an Elk was hit by a car and the elk's head went through the drivers windshield and the neck and head ended up in the drivers compartment, the news report headline stated this: Elk hit by car, elk survives, not a word in the story about the condition of the motorist or whether or not they had to be taken to a hospital, the concern of the story was the condition of the elk!

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hawkinspeter | 6 years ago
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@Wellsprop - I like the idea of trackers being fitted to all motor vehicles, but I don't like the central control part of it as that's a bit of a privacy nightmare (e.g. crooks watching your video to get an idea of your daily schedule and home/work locations). I'd prefer it if they were made into black-box type affiars and the contents examined by police/insurers whenever there's a traffic incident.

I'm surprised that more insurance companies don't provide reduced premiums for people fitting dashcams as it must save the companies time and money with disputed claims (which most traffic collissions are). The cameras are cheap enough now that they'd pay for themselves after just one incident.

The idea of measuring driving quality would be interesting as that could probably be achieved without needing complete access to the video. A few accellerometers could measure the "smoothness" of a driver and some decent algorithms could reduce that to a simple score that could be uploaded to the insurance company. It would be easy enough to put that into a phone app as the phone wouldn't need to be anywhere special in the car and could be left in a pocket or bag whilst driving although that would rely on the driver remembering to turn it on and off for trips, so maybe a specialist device permanently fixed to the car would be better.

Data-driven safety improvements are the way forwards.

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Canyon48 replied to hawkinspeter | 6 years ago
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hawkinspeter wrote:

@Wellsprop - I like the idea of trackers being fitted to all motor vehicles, but I don't like the central control part of it as that's a bit of a privacy nightmare (e.g. crooks watching your video to get an idea of your daily schedule and home/work locations). I'd prefer it if they were made into black-box type affiars and the contents examined by police/insurers whenever there's a traffic incident.

I'm surprised that more insurance companies don't provide reduced premiums for people fitting dashcams as it must save the companies time and money with disputed claims (which most traffic collissions are). The cameras are cheap enough now that they'd pay for themselves after just one incident.

The idea of measuring driving quality would be interesting as that could probably be achieved without needing complete access to the video. A few accellerometers could measure the "smoothness" of a driver and some decent algorithms could reduce that to a simple score that could be uploaded to the insurance company. It would be easy enough to put that into a phone app as the phone wouldn't need to be anywhere special in the car and could be left in a pocket or bag whilst driving although that would rely on the driver remembering to turn it on and off for trips, so maybe a specialist device permanently fixed to the car would be better.

Data-driven safety improvements are the way forwards.

Central control is a bit... 1984 - so probably not ideal!

My black box has accelerometers and GPS etc. My insurance premium was £1700 last year (as much as my car!) renewal only cost me £400 this year due to my good driver score  4

So, like you, I'm surprised this isn't almost standard for insurers.

 

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hawkinspeter | 6 years ago
2 likes

@Wellsprop - I also cycle around Bristol and there's a big variability in drivers' behaviour. My estimation is that 95% of drivers are well-meaning and semi-competent and 5% are useless/aggressive.

Presumably, similar percentages apply to cyclists/skateboarders/joggers etc. but it's the tonne of metal that makes all the difference. Now the idea of presumed liability is to assign liability in lieu of other evidence and statistics support assigning blame to the big, heavy dangerous thing moving at speed as opposed to the slower, less protected fleshy things.

Also, if you're in a motorised vehicle, it's quite easy and cheap to get a dash-cam and thus provide evidence if your involved in an incident and thus protect yourself against all the RLJers throwing themselves onto your car.

I don't really see a down-side with presumed liability apart from people's prejudice against non-motons.

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Canyon48 replied to hawkinspeter | 6 years ago
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hawkinspeter wrote:

@Wellsprop - I also cycle around Bristol and there's a big variability in drivers' behaviour. My estimation is that 95% of drivers are well-meaning and semi-competent and 5% are useless/aggressive.

Presumably, similar percentages apply to cyclists/skateboarders/joggers etc.

I'd probably say a higher percentage of cyclist and pedestrians are utterly unaware and a liability to themselves...

Here's my suggestion for road law reforms;

All cars to be fitted with trackers linked to some sort of national database to monitor driving, congestion and usage etc. This data would also be provided to insurers, traffic policing and tax - so the better you drive the cheaper the insurance and if you don't drive much you'd pay less road tax - seems fair.

I'd even go as far as saying all cars should have front and rear dash cams - that way, if anyone is involved in an accident - there is a huge amount of evidence to prove who is liable. 

My car has a tracker and I find it very useful, it's reduced my insurance HUGELY! Somehow, I doubt this would go down well with most motorists - despite public opinion being that motorists are very careful and law abiding...

All it requires is to take a look at the advances in commercial aviation of tracking, monitoring, and data recording - this has massively increased the safety of commercial aviation - apply the same to cars and hopefully, there would be far fewer KSI's.

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Canyon48 | 6 years ago
1 like

I'm going to have to go against the grain here - despite this I wholly agree things need to change! I don't think presumed liability is the correct solution.

I find that most motorists are respectful and overtake carefully, giving plenty of room - I always give a courteous acknowledging wave to good drivers and usually receive a wave in return.

In Bristol, this is an entirely different story. Taxis, vans and buses tend to be very aggressive and have no second thoughts about cutting you off or trying to force you out the way etc - its quite disconcerting.

Yesterday, I was cycling across Bristol, I watched another cyclist sail through a red light over a junction; fortunately, he noticed the HGV (rightfully) crossing the junction and came to a skidding halt about a metre before being mown down - my hands were shaking just watching it! As I passed, I gave the idiot some choice words of advice.

Similarly, when I drive home from work I pass a large factory - as the workers pour out, they cycle on the wrong side of the road, ignore junctions, go the wrong way up one way roads, cycle whilst texting/drinking/smoking.

When winter comes round and the light disappears, without fail, every time I cycle/drive to work, I see plenty of cyclists without lights on the roads (I get to work at 7am, so in winter it really is dark!).

Presumably, one could prove they weren't at fault if they hit a cyclist who had no lights, however, I don't think guilty until proven innocent is the correct solution. I would suggest that the driving test is changed and more effort is put in to teaching ALL road users who to behave around each other to prevent incidents - not trying to lay the blame with either side when things go wrong.

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oldstrath replied to Canyon48 | 6 years ago
1 like

wellsprop wrote:

I'm going to have to go against the grain here - despite this I wholly agree things need to change! I don't think presumed liability is the correct solution.

I find that most motorists are respectful and overtake carefully, giving plenty of room - I always give a courteous acknowledging wave to good drivers and usually receive a wave in return.

In Bristol, this is an entirely different story. Taxis, vans and buses tend to be very aggressive and have no second thoughts about cutting you off or trying to force you out the way etc - its quite disconcerting.

Yesterday, I was cycling across Bristol, I watched another cyclist sail through a red light over a junction; fortunately, he noticed the HGV (rightfully) crossing the junction and came to a skidding halt about a metre before being mown down - my hands were shaking just watching it! As I passed, I gave the idiot some choice words of advice.

Similarly, when I drive home from work I pass a large factory - as the workers pour out, they cycle on the wrong side of the road, ignore junctions, go the wrong way up one way roads, cycle whilst texting/drinking/smoking.

When winter comes round and the light disappears, without fail, every time I cycle/drive to work, I see plenty of cyclists without lights on the roads (I get to work at 7am, so in winter it really is dark!).

Presumably, one could prove they weren't at fault if they hit a cyclist who had no lights, however, I don't think guilty until proven innocent is the correct solution. I would suggest that the driving test is changed and more effort is put in to teaching ALL road users who to behave around each other to prevent incidents - not trying to lay the blame with either side when things go wrong.

It's not about "guilty until proven innocent", it's about recognising that the driver of the larger, more powerful, vehicle has an obligation to take more care. 

And you can put all ethe effort you like into teaching cyclists to " behave", but if some numpty accidentally or deliberately drives his death machine into them it will achieve precisely nothing.

 

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Canyon48 replied to oldstrath | 6 years ago
1 like

[/quote]

It's not about "guilty until proven innocent", it's about recognising that the driver of the larger, more powerful, vehicle has an obligation to take more care. 

And you can put all ethe effort you like into teaching cyclists to " behave", but if some numpty accidentally or deliberately drives his death machine into them it will achieve precisely nothing.

 

[/quote]

Yeah, fair point. It is all too easy to kill someone whilst driving!

Presumed liability could make drivers more aware of their obligation. Having passed my driving theory and practical only last year, I was quite surprised at how little there is in the way of focus on the safety aspect. I don't remember a thing of the theory, didn't bother revising there wasn't anything even slightly testing in it. The practical was a piece of cake too, just drove the local roads for 20 mins, really very little to do with making you aware how much chaos you could cause.

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HurdyGurdy replied to Canyon48 | 6 years ago
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wellsprop wrote:

Presumably, one could prove they weren't at fault if they hit a cyclist who had no lights, however, I don't think guilty until proven innocent is the correct solution. I would suggest that the driving test is changed and more effort is put in to teaching ALL road users who to behave around each other to prevent incidents - not trying to lay the blame with either side when things go wrong.

 

Wouldn't agree this is a case to not advocate presumed liability.

In pretty much any other european country I lived and cycled, having no lights would pretty much cause you to lose the benefit of presumed liability if visibility was deemed a contributing factor.  I actually cannot understand why police don't issue on the spot fines for no lights in this country. Don't try it in Netherlands or Belgium, you will be stopped. There is no excuse for not riding without one in my view.

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davel | 6 years ago
1 like

Yes I agree too.

The situation currently seems to be that cyclist and pedestrian KSIs* are acceptable collateral in the shared roads puzzle. I don't accept that, but something drastic is needed to shape behaviour. I can't think of a better solution.

* I think 5 people dying daily - most in/on motor vehicles - is an unacceptable price to pay for road use anyway, but car occupant KSI rates are dropping and I don't ride a motorbike, so my dog in this fight is the dismal attitude shown by the government to cyclists and ped KSIs.

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hawkinspeter | 6 years ago
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I agree. The problem is that cyclists are a minority group, so it's going to be difficult to get the majority (motons) to give up their advantage voluntarily even though the statistics clearly show that most road incidents are caused by moton's lack of attention.

I personally think that the ubiquity of cameras will help. If a few insurers realise the huge cost savings of getting customers to run dash-cams and with the increase in cyclists using cameras, there will be better evidence to decide liability.

I'm often conscious of the choice of words used in reporting of traffic incidents, but there is some logic in describing a vehicle hitting a cyclist as physically, that's what happens even though the driver may have been the cause. When they phrase it as "cyclist hitting vehicle" though, that's rarely accurate and definitely disingenuous.

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