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news
SUV driver harrassing cyclists“Dangerous driving is a choice”: Cycling and walking MPs call for tougher sentences for motorists driving larger cars, as well as strict enforcement of speed limits
Motorists who commit driving offences while behind the wheel of larger, heavier cars should receive tougher penalties, with the size and weight of the vehicle seen as an “aggravating factor” when it comes to sentencing, a new report by the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Cycling and Walking (APPGCW) has advised.
The cross-party group’s report, set to be published tomorrow morning, also calls for speed limits to be strictly enforced, with the current tolerances for inaccurate readings scrapped, along with recommending that anyone who is banned from driving for a period should be forced to undertake a fresh driving test, while criticising those who use the “exceptional hardship” excuse to avoid bans.
In June, the Sentencing Council published 12 new and revised sentencing guidelines for those convicted of motoring offences in England and Wales. According to the guidelines, which came into effect on 1 July, the status of the victim in fatal and non-fatal collisions as a vulnerable road user now qualifies as an aggravating factor for judges to consider, increasing the severity of the offence and potentially increasing the sentence, and reflecting last year’s changes to the Highway Code.
The offender’s status as a commercial driver, or if they’re behind the wheel of a heavy goods vehicle or large goods vehicle, is also now listed as an aggravating factor, recognising the extra responsibility of those driving the most dangerous vehicles.
And now, in their new report, the MPs of the APPGCW have called for the measures to be expanded to include those driving the largest and heaviest private cars on the road.
“Passenger cars vary greatly in weight so the aggravating factors should, we argue, take this into account,” the report states.
However, the recommendation has been criticised by motoring campaigners, who claim the measure would do little to make the roads safer.
“Driving a 4x4 does not make you a more dangerous motorist and driving a smaller car does mean you are safer,” Claire Armstrong of the anti-speed camera campaign group Safe Speed, told the Telegraph.
“It makes no sense to suggest that killing someone while driving an SUV is worse than killing someone while riding a motorbike.”
Meanwhile, Ian Taylor, director of the Alliance of British Drivers added: “I am not anxious to be knocked down by any vehicle. That is what they should be seeking to avoid rather than fiddling with the rules to make life more restrictive.”
According to new large-scale analysis, published last month, of more than 300,000 road collisions between 2017 and 2021, the risk of serious injury increases by 90 percent and the risk of fatal injuries increases by almost 200 per cent when a pedestrian or cyclist is hit by a pick-up vehicle.
A pedestrian or cyclist hit by a car with a bonnet that is 90cm high was also found to have a 30 percent greater risk of fatal injuries than if they are hit by a vehicle whose bonnet is 10cm lower.
In the case of a crash between a 1,600kg car and a 1,300kg car, the risk of fatal injuries decreases by 50 percent for the occupants of the heavier car, while it increases by almost 80 percent for the occupants of the lighter car.
Elsewhere, the report called for all speed limits to be strictly enforced, bringing an end to the current guidelines which advise that motorists are only prosecuted if they exceed the limit by 10 percent plus two mph, a tolerance purported to account for inaccuracies in speed cameras.
The MPs argue that the current leeway offered to drivers encourages them to ignore speed limits, with the report pointing to data from 2021 which suggests that half of all British drivers exceed 30mph limits.
“If drivers exceed posted speed limits, their capacity to avoid collisions reduces and the gravity of any collision increases,” the report says. “Moreover, if the working assumption is that one can speed (to an extent) with impunity, this fosters a belief that traffic law does not need to be taken seriously.
“We hold the view that speed limits and their enforcement represent the foundation of road justice because speeding accounts for the lion’s share of offences committed on the roads. We therefore recommend that tolerances in the enforcement of speeding be removed.
“Without entering a debate about whether the removal of tolerances would be fair or feasible, we point out that mechanisms for measuring speed are now both more sophisticated and more accurate than they were when guidance was last revised.”
The group also criticised the use of the ‘exceptional hardship’ loophole by motorists seeking to avoid a driving ban after receiving 12 or more points on their licence.
Between 2017 and 2021, almost twenty five percent of motorists who amassed 12-plus points each year escaped a ban after pleading mitigating circumstances.
“If nearly one quarter of any group is treated as exceptional, there is something wrong with either the definition of the term or its application,” the report states.
“The consequence is that many drivers who should be serving a ban are instead allowed to continue driving. This is unacceptable, first because they may pose a threat to other road users and second, because it sends a signal that the totting-up disqualification can be circumvented.”
Instead, the report recommends that magistrates should no longer be able to grant exceptional hardship exemptions for points-accruing drivers, who made be made to appeal to the Crown Court.
The report also argues that anyone banned from driving for a period should be forced to take a fresh driving test before they are allowed back on the roads.
“This report is a key step in our work to redress that balance and ensure that there is true road justice. Doing so is essential if we are to unlock the walking, cycling and wheeling potential, and reap the associated benefits of that,” the APPGCW’s chair Ruth Cadbury said.
‘’We will be campaigning hard in Parliament for change on the recommendations within the report, and welcome support from those who share our commitment to this issue.’’
Active Travel England Commissioner and former world champion Chris Boardman, whose mother was killed by a careless driver while riding her bike, added: “We should remember that dangerous driving, law breaking, and endangering others is a choice.
“The recommendations in this paper simply seek to support laws that people should already be obeying and, if implemented, these measures would only negatively affect those that break the law, especially repeat offenders.
“I know personally the horrific consequences of road danger and I think these recommendations are completely consistent with what a civilised society should pursue. No one should have to go through what my family did.”
After obtaining a PhD, lecturing, and hosting a history podcast at Queen’s University Belfast, Ryan joined road.cc in December 2021 and since then has kept the site’s readers and listeners informed and enthralled (well at least occasionally) on news, the live blog, and the road.cc Podcast. After boarding a wrong bus at the world championships and ruining a good pair of jeans at the cyclocross, he now serves as road.cc’s senior news writer. Before his foray into cycling journalism, he wallowed in the equally pitiless world of academia, where he wrote a book about Victorian politics and droned on about cycling and bikes to classes of bored students (while taking every chance he could get to talk about cycling in print or on the radio). He can be found riding his bike very slowly around the narrow, scenic country lanes of Co. Down.
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86 comments
It's a truly fascinating reflection on society that we rigorously enforce speed limits on e-bikes and e-scooters (indeed, GPS geo-fencing e-scooter speed limits) but it's seen as an attack on personal liberty to do the same with cars.
Truly this is "what you grow up with sets your 'normal'."
Like so many things first "follow the money" and look at the history. Cars are long-established as both "the engine of the economy" and individually as markers of wealth or value. Even though they are not just expensive for individuals, they cost the whole of society to run.
Even smart people armed with the figures find it hard to get beyond this assumption because we've all grown up with this as a cultural norm.
Scooters make some people lots of money (hence the push for them) but a) nowhere near as much as cars b) they're new and haven't yet become high-status c) they're sometimes in pedestrian spaces (danger, danger! Like cyclists!) Sadly, fatally, cars are also of course. Quite often. When that happens though we categorise those occurrences as one-offs - exceptional aberrations. Because "cars are on the *road*".
Just so - although the freedumbs allowed to cars and their often inept pilots are also to do with the fundamental nature of the car itself, permed with those features of human nature amplified, demanded and celebrated by our rabidly individualistic kulture.
The car is highly seductive to the minds of folk raised on hero-men and gimlet-eyed rebels distainful of authorities other than their own whims. The car represents immediate power, dominance-possibilities and a general means to inflate the egos of individualistas everywhere.
Incidentally (or is it) there's a not dissimilar appeal of the racing bike "weapon" to similar minds as those easily seduced by the car. Having cycled with others in clubs, events and other collective pedalling for many decades, it's become easy to spot those addicted to ego-inflation via often stupid inconsiderate actions on their bike. The attitudes and actions can also be seen as they drive to or from such cycling events.
*********
There are all sorts of possible means to reduce such attitudes and behaviours. But humans don't really control any of them. Ideas, attitudes and conseqient actions evolve and infest us all by themselves, with only the laughable hubris of humans enabling them to claim that they thought up and instigated matters as a matter of choice. Deep unconscious churns make the "choices". Is this not obvious from himan history and our planet-wide current condition? Apparently not, to most.
Speed-limit enforcement by police using speed traps, observation and cameras is from a previous era.
Why in "modern" Britain is it even possible for motorists to break speed limits that have been agreed as the law by a democratic process?
Most recent vehicles have all the technological ingredients in their make-up to have GPS-enforced speed limits. Since most drivers don't obey the limits why give them the choice?
Following the same argument that people can't be trusted to properly train "dangerous" dogs that can klll and are therefore banned, the same principle should apply to vehicles capable of ignoring and grossly exceeding speed limits. Ban vehicles that don't have e.g. GPS-based speed limiters. Make it an offence to disable or jam it.
The UK should take the lead in the world and do the right thing. Make speeding impossible.
There are an extremely few instances where driving over the speed limit for a very short period of time can be safer, where driving a vehicle with a hard limit could be more dangerous.
The one that comes to mind is when performing an overtaking manouver on a country roads. It can be safer to accellerate until you pass what you are overtaking and then returning to the speed limit once the manouver is over.
That allows you to be in the oposite lane for a shorter period of time, and a hard limit could potentially make the manouver more dangerous.
Though I am aware that in the case that there is a hard limit, the safest manouver is no manouver.
Personally if I'm cycling on a 30mph country road and get to a short straight, I would rather a car following accellerate to 40 and giving me lots of room to get passed then go back to 30mph rather than have them up my arse for the next few miles. But this implies that they would A. give more room and B. not already be driving above the limit anyway.
When did overtaking become a human right? How many times per year (being chased by murderous types, carrying donor organs / a ticking bomb) does doing this outweight the increased risk to both self and others?
Surely if you can't do the manouever within the law, it's really clear cut - you just don't do it. And if you start and realise you can't finish the worst thing you can do is add additional kinetic energy to the situation (and reduce your control / the time you have to do anything else)?
I think this is why one nation has effectively banned this completely in many situations. Probably the given risk per overtake is very small, but at population level the numbers add up, and it's just not necessary. The one way to guarantee you'll be slower is to go so fast you crash.
An initiative like this will certainly hasten mass acceptance of autonomous vehicles, and the myriad technologies resultant. Good for the economy?
Nearly fell off my chair reading the article! I'll believe it when I see the actual sentences being handed down. A shame that will be too late for the recent tragic case of the wankpanzer launched into a primary school garden tea party.
I recommend cycling and driving on the correct side of the road.
Can't wait for the fair & impartial reporting of this in the "meeja" tomorrow.
It started yesterday, Sunday, on LBC at 5pm. The full bingo card in the presenter's introduction, starting with the "war on cars".
When drivers use the "exceptional hardship" loophole, it would make sense to tightly monitor their driving habits (e.g. a black box device) and re-consider their hardship if they are shown to be speeding at any time.
If a driver has refused to change their driving after being caught breaking the law enough times to get 12 or more points (in some cases a lot more) then their attempt to play the 'hardship' card should be ignored.
If someone's financial position is so precarious or they lose their job without a driving licence then they need to either drive legall or sell the car and ride a bike / take the train / pay for a taxi. Crying about the situation in which they've deliberately put themselves is truly pathetic.
These are people we really need to remove from public roads.
Like kil0ran, I'd be happy to see extended retests required for points; and also if they can get away with doing a speed awareness course.
Absolutely with the totting up of points. If not being allowed to drive would cause you exceptional hardship, you really should be going out of your way not to put yourself in that position.
I thought that was part of the rationale for a totting up system - to allow leeway. If people use it all up, that's on them.
So they originally allowed 12 points before you were definitely banned. Which was supposed to focus people's minds. But then those people reached 12 points surprisingly easily and had to plead exceptional hardship.
I suppose it's a bit like "its a 30 mph speed limit but then we'll allow X mph beyond that as a bit of leeway..."
It should IMO be a strict cut-off. No exceptional hardship. No "but my speedometer isn't properly calibrated". No "there's a bomb on the bus which will explode if I go below 50mph". Get caught doing above the speed limit and you get points. Get enough points and you get a ban.
These stories you read from time to time about people who've claimed exceptional hardship time and time again until they have 60 or more points but are still driving... IMO those people should be charged with careless driving or something above and beyond whatever points they have. And be ordered to retake their theory and practical driving tests.
In my whole life as a driver, going on 32 years, I've never had more than one point off my licence, and it's only ever happened twice...
How do you get one point?
I was under the impression that having an improperly calibrated speedometer (i.e. one that UNDERreads the speed of the vehicle) was, in itself, an offence.
Virtually all vehicles have leeway built into the speedo such that indicated speed is higher than actual. Both my cars do about 28mph at indicated 30. So if the prosecution threshold is 35mph chances are their speedo is showing 38, maybe even 40. So there really is no excuse. At motorway speeds one of my cars reads 77 at 70mph actual (based on GPS).
Personally I'd be in favour of mandatory retest for any points.
The leeway referred to in the article was to allow for inaccuracy in the speed camera, not the vehicle's speedometer.
I think that kil0ran's point is that, with the speedometer erring on the high side, there is little excuse for speeding in the first instance.
This is not something i'd ever thought about but it makes me realise that's why when i drive past the sign on the way into the village it always shows 2 mph less than the indicated speed.I was convinced the sign was lying to me now i realise the cars lying.I'm gonna go and do a Basil Fawlty on it right now.......the lying sod.
The main issue is getting the police to prosecute in the first instance. Lancashire police have been sent numerous clips of dangerous driving including one where the angry driver steers his van towards me as I jump into the pavement for safety.
I was told that my cycling was dangerous because I filtered between 2 stationary lanes of cars so if they prosecute the drivers they'd also have to prosecute me. I'm wondering whether the effort of constantly charging my GoPro is worth it...
The answer would be "bring it on then".
They have zero chance of that going anywhere for filtering in accordance with the HC.
Wtjs was threatened with prosecution by a Sgt
I'm sure he'll be along to describe it in full !
Legislations for everything....
which means at 30mph ("true speed") a vehicle's speedometer must not show more than 39.25mph! (the reverse is not true - if your true speed is 30mph, you speedometer must be showing at least 30mph)
Legally, if you are caught doing over 30mph, then your speedometer could have been telling you you were doing over 40mph....
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