Non-accidental “accidents”

follow-up story here

follow-up story here:

Woman arrested after boy knocked off bike in Weymouth

Following enquiries, officers have arrested a 60-year-old woman from Weymouth on suspicion of attempted grievous bodily harm and driving offences.

https://www.dorsetecho.co.uk/news/25253024.woman-arrested-boy-knocked-off-bike-weymouth/

 

chrisonabike wrote:

chrisonabike wrote:

(Not news but only because I can’t unsee these things now) what appear to be the parking lots appear to take up more space than the buildings (OTOH perhaps the business is to do with vehicles?).

Not really, it’s an R&D lab for a company that mainly makes big yellow machines. I’m in the engine test lab.

We are utterly car dependent, but it’s a good thing we’re nowhere near housing as we have dozens of smokestacks. No bus service, surrounded by 45-55 MPH roads with no bike infrastructure or even shoulders. Maybe five out of 1000+ people ever bike to work. I’m by far the most consistent at it.

chrisonabike wrote:

chrisonabike wrote:

I think the “elf and safety” perspective is a useful one.

This. I work in a large facility with six main buildings and internal roads. The speed limit is 15 MPH because there are also pedestrians going between buildings. The speed limit for forklift trucks indoors is “a walking pace” for the same reason. In the 25+ years I’ve worked here, we’ve cut way down on driving between buildings. It’s only supposed to be allowed when carrying heavy or bulky cargo, tools, etc.

Outdoors or indoors, vehicles are no closer to pedestrians than they would be on a city road with a pavement.

Aerial view. The east-west dimension is just over half a mile.

David9694 wrote:

New Forest: High numbers of animal deaths in 2025 so far

https://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/25244869.new-forest-high-numbers-animal-deaths-2025-far/

“I was out changing signs and putting out massive signs saying foals in the roads in high vis, and people were still speeding past me.”

Maybe they sped on, reassured that they should have no difficulty spotting them. Fragment, consider revising.    

I think the “elf and safety”
I think the “elf and safety” perspective is a useful one. Hence I think the “sustainable safety” approach would be helpful. (I think getting to Dutch levels of understanding of the needs of vulnerable road users may take even more than that eg. it needs an organisational set-up that means real political responsibility for the safety and sustainability of our transport systems. And even NL may have failed to act on some recent negative cyclist safety trends).

Of course there are some other differences (besides motonormativity):

– Roads are public spaces. Our state is currently limited in the overt control it exercises on the public there. Athough seeing how protest policing rules have changed that isn’t set in stone; but protest is much less important to most people than driving about.

– Given the state’s limited control it “makes sense” that most stuff happening here is then “not our responsibility”. And we view that either as an individual fault via criminal justice system, or “just one of those things”.

– Again going back to the Dutch example about organisational responsibility – here some council / agency and/or its staff would be in trouble if they delivered motorway designs which sent the motorway across a railway with a level crossing, or when building one forgot to mark lanes etc. But the equivalent unsafe design for lower-speed roads seems to attract less censure and we quickly get to a point where for active travel infra it doesn’t seem to be an issue. At worst Active Travel England may now reject your design. And if it passes muster but what you deliver then turns out to be nonsense you just won’t get more money next time round (I hope…)

The “accident” narrative is

The “accident” narrative is an important fig leaf for the driver/ oil /car lobby to maintain.

Given that 1,600 people are getting killed every year (by drivers), that is an unsafe system.  Private motoring is the only area where this level of harm is tolerated – no airline, no industry or rail operator would be allowed to continue to operate like that. Getting people to think of each episode making up the total as an individual “accident” is a good way to stop them seeing the annual sum total for what it is. 

If there weren’t 1.5 tonne lumps of metal going around at speed, there wouldn’t be 1,600  people a year killed by them, and the 60-70 serious injuries.  You don’t need crash investigators and witness statements to reach that overall conclusion. Drivers like to defend each other on social media – for some it’s about never taking responsibility.

There is criminal lawyears talk of the actus reus meaning the guilty act and the mens rea – the guilty mind. Malice aforethought, i.e. the criminal action was planned is the strongest evidence of mens rea. It’s more complicated when it comes to actions that perhaps weren’t intended, but your reckless actions led to it happening, or turning out worse for someone than might have been expected.  

An example would be that it would be murder if you arsoned a farm barn one night and there was someone sleeping in there who was killed by the fire you started.  The “single punch” cases are another example.  

Drivers have, from the very beginning, done themselves a pretty good job of dismantling the idea of recklessness in the legal system and in the popular mind.  We all expect a degree of recklessness from drivers – that’s how it is, right?  

Despite so many cases where never been in trouble before drivers have been given the benefit of the doubt and cases either never make it to court, or derisory penalties are given, drivers are very good at being the persecuted victims who are always held to account the moment they do anything wrong. I always wonder at the degree of convincing you have to do with yourself to come to that view and to repeat it, but that’s cars for you. 

Finally, I happened on this story today – the driver actually got a decent jail term and the point of Lillie’s law would be to ensure lifetime driving bans in cases like this. 

Grieving family want law change after Lillie, 22, killed by 100mph driver

Her inquest takes place this week

https://www.stokesentinel.co.uk/news/stoke-on-trent-news/grieving-family-want-law-change-10272835?int_source=nba