Safe Drivers and Vehicles

Traffic law and enforcement: Overview

By Cherry Allan on 31 May 2013

Laws against bad driving and their enforcement should aim to protect all road users, including cyclists, from intimidation and injury.

Headline Messages:

Laws against bad driving and their enforcement should aim to protect all road users from intimidation and injury.
However, the under-resourcing of roads policing, inadequate police investigations, weak charging decisions and poorly conducted court and inquest hearings can all result in derisory sentences, or in failures to prosecute or convict at all. This causes enormous distress to injured and bereaved road crash victims, whilst perpetuating society’s complacent attitudes to safety on our roads.
Fundamental reform is needed so that the legal system prevents bad driving effectively, and allows people to cycle without fear of injury through someone else’s wrongdoing.

CTC View (formal statement of CTC's policy):

‘Dangerous’ v ‘careless’ driving

Bad driving that causes obviously foreseeable danger should be classed as a ‘dangerous’ driving offence. It should not, as often happens, be dismissed merely as ‘careless’ driving.
Prosecution guidelines need to reflect this in the first instance, but changes to the law itself may also be needed.

Driving bans

Long driving bans should be more widely used to penalise drivers who have caused serious danger, but not recklessly or intentionally.
Where drivers have caused serious danger recklessly or intentionally, or have a history of breaching bans, long custodial sentences are more appropriate.

The police

The police should investigate all road crashes thoroughly and systematically, and pass all charging decisions to the prosecution services where there has been an injury.

Prosecutors and charging

Prosecution guidelines should ensure that driving that gives rise to obviously foreseeable danger is treated as dangerous and not dismissed as merely careless.
Manslaughter or assault charges should be more widely used where there is evidence that danger was caused recklessly or intentionally.

Courts and sentencing

Courts should make greater use of driving bans and not routinely accept ‘hardship’ pleas from drivers facing bans.

Coroners

Coroners should ask witnesses relevant questions and/or permit relevant questions to be asked during inquest hearings.
Coroners should be more strongly encouraged to make Rule 43 reports on actions needed to prevent future road deaths.

Resources and training

The police, prosecution services and courts all need to be adequately resourced to deliver justice to a high standard.
Better training should be provided for traffic police, investigation officers, family liaison officers, prosecutors, coroners, judges, magistrates in relation to the handling of road traffic offences and incidents – particularly where cyclists or other vulnerable road users are involved.

Transparency and data collection

The Department for Transport, Home Office and Ministry of Justice (and the relevant bodies in Scotland) should set up a national road crash investigation agency, similar to those used for rail and aviation.
These departments should collaborate to develop systems to collect, monitor and disseminate local and national level data on the justice system’s responses to bad driving offences.

Victim blaming and victim support

All those involved at any stage in dealing with road traffic offences should guard against a propensity to blame the victim automatically.
Road collision victims and their families should receive support to the same standards as the victims of other crimes with similarly severe consequences. They should be kept well-informed of the progress of their case and consulted on key decisions.

Public attitudes

To help ensure that any legal reforms are likely to be accepted by juries, public awareness campaigns should reinforce the concept that bad driving is socially unacceptable; and public attitudes should be surveyed to monitor the effect of these campaigns.
A stronger link between road safety awareness and enforcement campaigns would support the wider effort to influence public attitudes on the need for safe road user behaviour.

Terminology

The word ‘accident’ should not be used to describe road collisions – ‘collision’ or ‘crash’ should be used instead.

Compensation

If a cyclist or pedestrian suffers personal injury or damage in a collision with a motor vehicle, they should be entitled to full compensation from the driver’s insurance unless the driver (or in practice their lawyers/insurers) can show that the injury was entirely caused by the cyclist or pedestrian behaving in a way that fell well below the standard that could be expected of them, taking account of their age, abilities and the circumstances of the collision.
Passing any proportion of the legal costs of pursuing compensation to the innocent victim of a road crash is unfair and wrong. The objective of damages in these cases should be to provide full compensation for injured people both for their injuries and financial losses. They are also a way of holding the person who caused the injury to account.

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Traffic law and enforcement: overview

Publication Date:

May 2013

Road safety and cycling: Overview

By Cherry Allan on 20 December 2011

'More' as well as 'safer' cycling can and should go hand in hand...

Headline Messages:

Cycling is essentially a safe activity, causing little risk either to cyclists themselves or to other road users. Moreover, there is good evidence that cyclists gain from ‘safety in numbers’, with cycling becoming safer as cycle use increases.
However, fear of road traffic is a major deterrent, despite the health, environmental and other benefits of cycling. 61% of people surveyed on their attitudes agreed or strongly agreed that “it is too dangerous for me to cycle on the roads." (2011 British Social Attitudes Survey).
Actual cycle safety in the UK lags behind many of our continental neighbours, because of poorly designed roads and junctions, traffic volumes and speeds, irresponsible driving, and a legal system that fails to respond adequately to road danger.
National and local government should therefore aim for ‘more’ as well as ‘safer’ cycling – the two aims can and should go hand in hand.

CTC View (formal statement of CTC's policy):

Road safety strategies, nationally and locally, should recognise that:
- Cycling is a safe activity, posing little risk either to cyclists themselves or to other road users
- The health benefits of cycling far outweigh the risks involved
- Cycling gets safer the more cyclists there are: the ‘safety in numbers’ effect
- The aim of cycle safety policies and initiatives should be to encourage more as well as safer cycling, in order to maximise its health, environmental and other benefits, and to improve overall safety for all road users
Encouraging more as well as safer cycling involves tackling factors that deter cycle use. These include high traffic volumes and speeds; irresponsible driver behaviour; the unfriendly design of many roads and junctions; and lorries.
The provision of cycle training to the ‘Bikeability’ national standard can also help people to cycle more, to ride more safely, and to feel safer and more confident while doing so. It can also help parents feel more confident about allowing their children to cycle.
Increases in cyclist casualties may still mean cycle safety is improving if cycle use is increasing more steeply than cyclist casualties. Therefore targets and indicators for the effectiveness of road safety strategies should adopt ‘rate-based’ measures for improvements in cycle safety, e.g. cycle casualties (or fatal and serious injuries) per million km cycled, or per million trips. Simple casualty reduction targets should be avoided.
‘Perception-based’ indicators, which show whether public perceptions of cycle safety in a given area are getting better, can be used alongside ‘rate-based’ indicators, or as an interim substitute for the latter if necessary.
Care should be taken to avoid cycle safety awareness campaigns that ‘dangerise’ cycling. These deter people from cycling or allowing their children to cycle and are counter-productive because they erode the ‘safety in numbers’ effect, as well as undermining the activity’s wider health and other benefits.

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Cycling and road safety: Overview

Publication Date:

April 2012

BMA's helmet stance questioned as USA safety authorities drop key helmet claim

By Roger Geffen on 14 June 2013

As American cycle campaigners persuade the US safety authorities to drop a key claim for the effectiveness of helmets, and new evidence suggesting that Canada's helmet laws had no detectable effect, the BMA's stance on helmet laws is questioned by Ben Goldacre of 'Bad Science' fame.

London Mayor Boris Johnson wants to "delycrafy" cycling

In an editorial in the current British Medical Journal (BMJ – i.e. the magazine of the British Medical Association, BMA), co-authored with risk professor David Spiegelhalter, Goldacre openly questions the BMA’s support for laws that would ban people from cycling without helmets.

Road Justice

The Road Justice campaign seeks to change driver attitudes and the approach of the law to bad driving.

Cycle helmets

By Cherry Allan on 7 June 2013

There is no justification for making helmet-wearing compulsory - it could undermine levels of cycle use and, in any case, the effectiveness of helmets is far from clear.

Headline Messages:

CTC is opposed to both cycle helmet laws and to helmet promotion campaigns, as these are almost certainly detrimental to public health. Evidence shows that the health benefits of cycling are so much greater than the (relatively low) risks involved, that even if these measures caused only a very small reduction in cycle use, this would still almost certainly mean far more lives being lost through physical inactivity than helmets could possibly save, however effective they might be.
There are in any case serious doubts about the effectiveness of helmets. They are (and can only be) designed to withstand minor knocks and falls, not serious traffic collisions. Some evidence suggests they may in fact increase the risk of cyclists having falls or collisions in the first place, or suffering neck injuries. Neither enforced helmet laws nor promotion campaigns have been shown to reduce serious head injuries, except by reducing cycling. The remaining cyclists do not gain any detectable reduction in risk, and they may lose some of the benefits from 'safety in numbers'.
So instead of focusing on helmets, health and road safety professionals and others should promote cycling as a safe, normal, aspirational and enjoyable activity, using helmet-free role-models and imagery. Individual cyclists may sometimes choose to use helmets – either for confidence or because of the type of cycling they are doing – however they should not feel under any pressure to wear them. For the sake of our health, it is more important to encourage people of all ages to cycle, than whether or they use a helmet when doing so.

CTC View (formal statement of CTC's policy):

Government and other bodies concerned with health or road safety should simply aim to encourage people to cycle, regardless or whether or not they choose to wear helmets when doing so. Enforced helmet laws cause deep and enduring reductions in cycle use, undermining its very substantial health and other benefits. Given that the risks of cycling are low – they are not greatly different from those of walking or other forms of active recreation – even a very small reduction in cycle use would be counter-productive to health and other public policy objectives, regardless of the effectiveness or otherwise of helmets. In practice, this disbenefit is potentially very substantial, not least because the deterrent effect is likely to be strongest among key target groups for physical activity promotion, e.g. women, teenagers, less well-off communities and ethnic minority groups.
Cycle helmets have in any case not been shown to be an effective way to reduce cyclists’ injury risks. Indeed they might even be counter-productive, by encouraging drivers or cyclists to behave less cautiously, and/or by increasing the risks of neck and other injuries. By deterring people from cycling, they may also reduce the benefits that cyclists gain from ‘safety in numbers’.
Enforcing helmet laws would require levels of police activity that would be grossly disproportionate to any possible benefits. Conversely, unenforced helmet laws make no long-term difference to helmet use, and therefore cannot provide benefits in any case.
Road safety policies should prioritise measures that reduce the risks that deter people from cycling – traffic speeds, hostile roads and junctions, dangerous or irresponsible driving, and lorries – and offering quality cycle training for people of all ages, to give them the confidence and skills to ride safely on the roads.
Individuals should be free to make their own decisions about whether or not to wear helmets, with parents making these decisions in the case of younger children. Their decisions should be informed by clear information about the uncertainties over the benefits or otherwise of helmets.
CTC supports politicians, celebrities and other role-models who chose to cycle without wearing helmets. Far from “acting irresponsibly”, they help to boost the perception of cycling as a normal, safe, aspirational and stylish activity that anyone can do in whatever clothes they would normally be wearing.
Schools, employers and the organisers of non-sporting cycling events (e.g. sponsored rides) should not seek to impose helmet rules for their pupils, staff and participants respectively. These rules are not justified in terms of health and safety, they are likely to reduce both the numbers and the diversity of people who take part in cycling, and they may in some circumstances be illegal.
There is limited evidence on the risks involved in different types of off-road recreational cycling (from family riding to downhill mountain biking etc) and cycle sport. Likewise, evidence on the potential for helmet use to mitigate (or exacerbate) these risks is equally limited. These are in any case not matters for road safety policy.
For sporting events, CTC recognises the right of governing bodies to require the wearing of helmets in line with their own and international regulations for these events, given the different types of risk to which sport cyclists are exposed.

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Cycle helmets (CTC views)

Cycle helmets: an overview of the evidence

Publication Date:

May 2013

London takes a step towards risk-based approach to road safety

By Chris Peck on 7 June 2013

A new road safety plan for the next 7 years has been launched for London. CTC was critical of earlier drafts for failing to include the means to measure the risks of cycling, rather than simply the number of people seriously injured or killed.

TfL's new Road Safety Action Plan has been published

The most crucial aspect of an overarching plan such as the Road Safety Action Plan is its target and the way it is measured.

For ease and simplicity, local authorities and Government have historically adopted a target based solely on the number of people killed and seriously injured.

Intuitively, this seems to make sense: a target based on numbers killed or seriously injured tackles the public health problem of road injuries directly.

Careless driving fixed penalty welcomed

By Chris Peck on 5 June 2013

CTC welcomes the fixed penalty notice for careless driving and the associated 50% increase in all motoring fixed penalties to £90, but urges that dangerous driving still needs to be dealt with by the courts.

More traffic police are needed to make best use of the new FPN

The idea of a 'careless driving' fixed penalty notice (FPN) isn't new - the previous Government mentioned it in a consultation in 2008 and last year the Government's Strategic Framework for Road Safety introduced the idea formally into policy. Now they are consulting on how best to introduce the FPN, with the intention to divert many of the drivers who receive the penalty onto 'better driving courses', a practice already common with speeding.

CTC launches Road Justice campaign

By RhiaWeston on 4 June 2013

4 June 2013

CTC has launched its Road Justice Campaign, which will take to task the police, the prosecution services and the judiciary over the way they treat bad driving and bad drivers.

The launch of the campaign, which is supported by Slater & Gordon Lawyers, comes just days after the success of CTC’s campaign for an appeal of the ‘unduly lenient’ sentence given to Edinburgh driver Gary McCourt, who killed two cyclists.

Compensation for injured cyclists

By Cherry Allan on 3 June 2013

The rules about liability for road crashes need to be changed to make it easier and quicker for cyclists and pedestrians to be compensated if they are injured in collisions with motor vehicles.

Headline Messages:

Cycling causes little harm to others and it is not a hazardous activity. However, the actions of those engaged in a hazardous activity (i.e. driving), can put cyclists at risk.
While most drivers are generally considerate, the fact remains that non-motorised road users are disproportionately affected by road crashes and the compensation process is often complex and protracted.
This imbalance could be corrected by introducing ‘presumed liability’ (also known as ‘stricter liability’). This is the legal presumption made in civil law that injured cyclists and pedestrians are entitled to compensation from drivers who hit them, unless the victim was obviously at fault. ‘Presumed liability’ has been adopted by most west European countries.

CTC View (formal statement of CTC's policy):

The UK should introduce ‘presumed liability’ rules to compensate cyclists and pedestrians for road crash injuries, as is normal in most west European countries. They should be entitled to full compensation from the driver’s insurance unless the driver (or in practice their lawyers/insurers) can show that the injury was caused by the cyclist or pedestrian behaving in a way that fell well below the standard that could be expected of them, taking account of their age, abilities and the circumstances of the collision.
Findings of ‘contributory negligence’ – i.e. a partial reduction in compensation where the injured party is at least partly at fault – should be exceptional, and certainly not be found against cyclists for: riding without a helmet; riding without high visibility clothing; not using a cycle facility; or for mere technical breaches of the Highway Code’s non-statutory rules for cyclists.
Particularly vulnerable people (e.g. children, the elderly and those with learning or physical disabilities), should receive full compensation from the driver’s insurance in any event, unless they evidently wanted to harm themselves.
Passing any proportion of the legal costs of pursuing compensation to the innocent victim of a road crash is unfair and wrong. The objective of damages in these cases should be to provide full compensation for injured people both for their injuries and financial losses. They are also a way of holding the person who caused the injury to account.
Taking out third party liability insurance is a sensible precaution for regular cyclists, but it should not be compulsory for everyone wanting to cycle.

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Compensation for injured cyclists

Publication Date:

June 2013

Prosecutors and courts

By Cherry Allan on 31 May 2013

To reinforce the message that driving that endangers other road users is socially unacceptable, prosecutors and courts should not dismiss 'dangerous' driving as merely 'careless'.

Headline Messages:

Injuries to cyclists rarely lead to prosecution of the driver involved and, when they do, the accused often appears to escape lightly. This reinforces fears that the roads are lawless, dangerous places for cycling and walking.
To ensure that ‘dangerous’ driving is recognised for what it is, prosecutors and courts should interpret the law correctly and never dismiss such driving as merely ‘careless’.

CTC View (formal statement of CTC's policy):

The prosecution of bad drivers should reinforce the message that it is unacceptable to endanger and intimidate other road users, not least cyclists and pedestrians who are disproportionately affected by road crashes. Offending drivers should not be treated more leniently than those who kill or injure through non-traffic crime.
The law states that driving is ‘dangerous’ when “…it would be obvious to a competent and careful driver that driving in that way would be dangerous.” All too often, however, prosecutors and courts dismiss such driving as ‘careless’ and the result is lenient sentencing.
Prosecutors and courts should understand and apply the current legal definitions of ‘dangerous’ and ‘careless’ correctly. Prosecution policy and guidelines should provide accurate advice on these charges and be drafted accordingly. Equally, juries should not be misdirected on the definitions of ‘careless’ and ‘dangerous’ driving.
Prosecutors and courts should not take the driver’s intentions into account when deciding between a charge of ‘dangerous’ or ‘careless’ driving. If the driving in question caused obviously foreseeable danger, it is irrelevant whether or not the driver meant to do harm and a ‘dangerous’ charge should be brought.
Manslaughter or assault charges should be more widely used where there is evidence that danger was caused recklessly or intentionally.
Specifically, looking but failing to see a cyclist at a junction is inherently dangerous, and should be prosecuted as such.
Both the police and prosecutors should be more open and transparent about how they decide whether to charge a driver or not and, if they do charge, what charges to bring.
Cases of bad driving should not be prosecuted in the lower courts when death or very serious injury has occurred.
Juries should not be misdirected on the definitions of ‘careless’ and ‘dangerous’ driving.
Courts should not let drivers off driving bans on the basis of pleas of ‘hardship’.
Courts should not pass sentences that demean the victim who may have been killed or seriously injured. Whilst CTC does not advocate long prison sentences for dangerous driving offences arising purely from lapses of attention by generally responsible drivers, the courts should nonetheless signal disapproval by considering substantial driving bans.
Courts should not indulge in ‘victim-blaming’ when directing juries in criminal cases or making judgements over civil compensation to the extent that it plays a part in downgrading, sentencing, acquittal and lower insurance payouts.
Coroners should ask witnesses relevant questions and/or permit relevant questions to be asked during inquest hearings.
Coroners should be more strongly encouraged to make Rule 43 reports on actions needed to prevent future road deaths.

Download full campaigns briefing:

Prosecutors and courts

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Data appendix

Publication Date:

May 2013

Safe Drivers and Vehicles

Traffic law and enforcement: Overview

‘Dangerous’ v ‘careless’ driving

Driving bans

The police

Prosecutors and charging

Courts and sentencing

Coroners

Resources and training

Transparency and data collection

Victim blaming and victim support

Public attitudes

Terminology

Compensation

Road safety and cycling: Overview

BMA's helmet stance questioned as USA safety authorities drop key helmet claim

Road Justice

Cycle helmets

London takes a step towards risk-based approach to road safety

Careless driving fixed penalty welcomed

CTC launches Road Justice campaign

Compensation for injured cyclists

Prosecutors and courts

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