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Palace of Westminster Image by Flickr user TrodelDangerous cycling bill introduced to House of Lords
A private member’s bill to change existing legislation to introduce criminal offences of dangerous, careless or inconsiderate cycling has received its first reading in the House of Lords.
The bill, introduced to the House of Lords last Tuesday by Baroness McIntosh of Pickering, will receive a second reading in the chamber at a date to be announced.
It proposes introducing a new offence under the Road Traffic Act 1988 of causing death by dangerous cycling, punishable by up to 14 years’ imprisonment under the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988.
It would also introduce separate offences of causing serious injury by dangerous cycling and causing death by careless or inconsiderate cycling, both carrying a maximum penalty of five years’ imprisonment.
In each case the maximum penalty is the same as applies for existing offences committed by operators of motor vehicles.
There have been calls in recent years to bring in specific offences for causing death or serious injury while cycling due to the perceived inadequacy of existing legislation to deal with such situations.
In 2017, the husband of pedestrian Kim Briggs, killed in a collision with a cyclist, launched a campaign to tighten up the law on dangerous cycling.
Charlie Alliston, who had been riding a fixed wheel bike with no front brake, was acquitted of manslaughter but convicted of causing her death through wanton or furious driving under the Offences Against the Person Act 1861.
The 20-year-old was convicted of causing bodily injury through wanton or furious driving.
In the wake of that case, then cycling minister Jessie Norman announced a review of the law on dangerous and careless cycling.
A consultation ran from August to November the following year, but the issue seems to have receded into the background, much like the wider road safety review first promised by the then coalition government in 2014.
Baroness McIntosh served as an MEP from 1989-99, and was MP for Vale of York from 1997-2010 and for Thirsk and Malton from 2010-2015.
She was deselected as a prospective parliamentary candidate ahead of the 2015 general election and awarded a life peerage in that year’s dissolution honours.
Since her elevation to the House of Lords, she has tabled several questions relating to people cycling on the pavement or riding their bikes through red traffic lights.
It is the second time the Conservative peer has introduced such a bill before the House of Lords. She previously did so on 31 October last year.
Due to the dissolution of Parliament ahead of December’s general election, there was no opportunity for it to receive a second reading during that session.
In 2012, another private member’s bill regarding the creation of a new offence of dangerous also failed to obtain a second reading in the House of Commons.
That bill was introduced by Andrea Leadsom, the Conservative MP for South Northamptonshire and now Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.
On the day it was due to be given its second reading in the House of Commons, it was too far down the order paper for it to be debated in the time available and the bill was shelved.
The first reading of a bill marks the first stage of its lengthy journey through the parliamentary process.
Typically a formality, it takes place without a debate, which happens at the second reading. It then goes through committee and report stages before a third stage.
Then, for a bill originating in the House of Lords, it is passed to the House of Commons, where it goes through the same sequence before both houses consider amendments and finally it is passed for Royal Assent.
The vast majority of private member’s bills never become Acts of Parliament, however, with an average of five a year becoming law over the past decade, and only three in those 10 years originating from the House of Lords.
With bills introduced by the government taking priority in the parliamentary calendar, private member’s bills are often used instead to ensure that specific issues are highlighted and debated in the Commons and Lords.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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38 comments
i want to see how that would pan out if my argument for plowing into an old lady was [well the motorists say i have to use the bike lane, so i did my normal road speed and she was walking in the bicycle side]. Cannot count how many times ive had to tell pedestrians to get out the bike lane.
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Unfortunately, pedestrians have priority in cycle lanes, so you'd be banged up as a wrong 'un.
"This lane is my lane. Your lane is also my lane."
(Not fair, but them's the rules...).
but then why do motorists tell us to use them if thyeres a high risk of crashing into a pedestrian? why isnt there a cycle lane for bicycles, and a lane only for pedestrians? why mix 30 mph bicycle with 3mph walkers? if you use the road and ignore a shared path you get beeped at or abused, if you cycle your road speed on a shared path pedestrians want you back on the road and you get hit by cars at junctions.
You can guarentee that whenever there is a shared path with a white line painted down the centre, with a person painted on one side, and a bicycle painted on the other, the pedestrian will ALWAYS walk in the cycle lane, usually with their face glued to the little screen six inches from their face.
The bill, introduced to the House of Lords last Tuesday by Baroness McIntosh of RONNIE Pickering, will receive a second reading in the chamber at a date to be announced.
"It would also introduce separate offences of causing serious injury by dangerous driving and causing death by careless or inconsiderate cycling, both carrying a maximum penalty of five years’ imprisonment."
So if you are driving you have to be charged and convicted of dangerous driving, but if cycling careless is enough to get a conviction. How does that work?? We all know how regularly drivers who cause accidents get a charge of careless rather than dangerous driving. The CPS are often very reluctant to go for dangerous driving driving as they claim it's hard to prove, and so go for the lesser charge of careless driving as it's easier to prove. So any cyclist involved in an accident which results in serious injury or death can expect imprisonment on the basis of careless cycling. It won't make any difference if a pedestrian just steps off the pavement in front of you. You are expected to anticipate such things! And bear in mind that anyone convicted will be done so by a jury made up of people who most likely drive a car and don't ride a bike.
Does this mean that they finished the review into road safety and just forgot to tell us?
Cyclist/pedestrian collisions happen so infrequently that related metrics (who is more likely to be at fault, who is likely to be more seriously injured etc) aren't statistically reliable.
How many cyclists kill or seriously injure, due to reckless/dangerous riding.
I dont know the exact numbers compared to vehicle drivers, but it must be a factor of a thousand or more?
No need for legislation when the law is not implemented currently for vehicle users
Each year, in the UK:
-about 1 pedestrian dies in a collision with a cyclist
-about 1 cyclist dies in a collision with a pedestrian
-about 450 cyclists and pedestrians die in collisions with cars (of whom 45 are on the pavement
-about 1,000 car occupants die in collisions
I did see a stat somewhere that 12 people die a year in incidents that involved mobility scooters (but no motorised vehicles). Whether this was mobility scooters crashing into people/things, or crashes as a result of people on mobility scooters dying at the wheel, was not recorded. I'll have to dig out the data.
Scrap that - downloaded the stats from the Dft for 2018 for road deaths by victim
Pedestrian 456
Pedal cycle 99
Motorcycle 354
Car occupant (Includes taxis and minibus) 777
Bus or coach occupant 8
Van / Goods 3.5 tonnes mgw or under occupant 38
HGV occupant 14
Other vehicle 38
Wow! Yet another tory loses their seat due to the public not voting for them because they were useless, only to be given a seat in the Lords so that they can continue to push their unpopular views. It's called democracy. A bit like more people voting against you than for you, but still getting a massive majority in parliament.
Whatever way you look at it, democracy has been hijacked in the UK.
Not really ... as far as I can tell it has always been this dysfunctional. We are just more conscious of it nowadays.
Which is a good thing and, hopefully, the first step to being able to do something about it. Not holding my breath though.
I'm all for reforming the Lords, but in this case, I think more people will be in favour of this than against.
Glancing at the front page of my copy of the horrible Telegraph in my basket in the till queue today (Waitrose give it away free with myWaitrose and it's the only broadsheet option, and those big sheets collect the mud under my bicycle) someone in power is proposing upping the top tarrif for causing death by dangerous driving to life. So less likely to get a jury of drivers for something that "there for the grace of god.." to convict.
I'm not opening it up to read further.
One of the reasons causing death by.. was put in because juries wouldn't convict on manslaughter.
Not that the full sentence will ever be giern out anyway.
Anyone seen the full 14 being given?
Or 9 years 4 months for pleading guilty?
Pretty sure it's never been given, at least that's what some study a few years ago found. However, given that cyclists don't have the same built-in lobby acting for them throughout the legal system, and don't tend to get police, CPS teams and juries stuffed-full of their own kind, I strongly suspect the first 14 year sentence given will be to a cyclist.
Aidan McAteer,the driver in the case which prompted the family of the 4 year old hit & run victim,Violet Grace, to petition to parliament to bring in tougher sentences for such cases,& thats now being discussed,got 9 years 4 months for pleading guilty to death by dangerous driving.
So would that be the 14-year maximum minus some discount for a guilty plea? I presume, if so, that's a new record sentence?
That this unelected Lords' hate-campaign against cyclists is set against the consistent leniency towards killer drivers, most of whom get no jail time at all, even when convicted, is beyond infuriating. First that idiot Robert Winston uses his platform in the Lords to peddle nonsense about pollution, now this (not to mention Lord Monckton's drivel about climate change).
[noise of teeth grinding]
yes it was the maximum sentence allowing for the guilty plea, he was unlicensed, driving a stolen car at excess speed, lost control hit the young girl and her grandmother on a pavement, crashed then got out the car and ran past them to get away, escaping to Amsterdam before flying back to Manchester where he was arrested https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-41345828
this was also the case where the barrister defending McAteer successfully argued the victim impact statement should be altered to spare his feelings.
Please tell me that isn't true. I know we live in a society where many people refuse to accept responsibility for their actions, but I cannot conceive that such an argument would succeed.
Nope. I remember reading about it (and i put a link to it as a conversation starter in the forum at the time). So: horrible, disgusting, frustrating, but true.
Rather depressingly, I think that juries will be far more likely to convict in cases of death or serious injury by careless/dangerous cycling than they are in cases of careless/dangerous driving.
.
at-me-bro-you-come.jpeg
Yes, this certainly sounds like a waste of time at best and at worst it'll be used to persecute people.
If it gets passed then maybe there should be a call for pedestrians to wear helmets and hi-viz. It's for their own safety after all.
Cool, a £35 fine and a slap on the wrist due to various technicalities like
"the sun was in my eyes"
"the pedestrian was not wearing hi-vis or a helmet"
"the pedestrian came out of nowhere"
"the defendant is a good upstanding citizen and has to cycle for his/her charity work so it would not be in anyone's interests to jail them"
"the defendant has been cycling for 20 years and has an unblemished cycling record, it was a momentary lapse of attention that could have happened to anyone"
Look forward to that!
a moment of madness
must have had my music blaring
a grandparent
A moist fart?
Given that:
a) according to DfT data, in collisions between cyclists and pedestrians, cyclists are slightly more likely to suffer harm (though to be honest, the differences are not statistically signficant because not that many incidents are recorded)
b) according to DfT data, the pedestrian is slightly more likely to be at fault (again, the differences are not statistically significant for the same reason)
we can therefore expect a bill to come forward for "Dangerous pedestrianing", to protect cyclists from harmful pedestrian idiots who wander out into cyclists' paths without looking.
Not worried at all about the legislation, it will be dusted off once a blue moon for actual use in a case brought against some muppet on a bicycle who probably deserves it.
Of much more concern is the utter waste of legislative time and effort for little contribution to road safety other than as a sop to a vocal anti cycling lobby with powerful backers and the consequent loss of focus on the road users who are killing hundreds of pedestrians and cyclists every year. As has been mentioned the raging fire of the long awaited road safety review appears to be stalled whilst those in charge ponder the dangers of a tea light.
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