most cars I see going through a red light are just after the light change whereas I often see cyclists going through lights that have been changed for a period of time.

In other words I don’t see cars going through lights whilst the green walk sign is lit, but often do for cyclists.

If a cyclist has slowed down and picks his way through so as not to endanger pedestrians then that’s not quite so bad, but when aggressive idiots just carry on at full speed then that is a big issue. If they hit someone elderly and caused them to fall and break a hip then that is almost a fatal injury – the stats for survival of old people after such a break are not good.

It’s overwhelmingly the case that pedestrians are injured and killed by cars, not cyclists.

Do you feel responsible for drunk drivers? do you feel responsible for the behaviour or this taxi driver?

Occasionally, people take me to task for the behaviour of other cyclists and that is always my response: is it your fault that other motorists drink and drive?

Wow, even with video it seems impossible to convict for dangerous driving. Is there something specific about that charge that makes it difficult to stick?

The distinction between dangerous and careless isn’t how bad the driving is, dangerous is IIRC doing the same thing repeatedly, whereas a one off is careless. So if a driver runs a cyclist off the road it’s careless, unless the video shows them repeatedly doing it.

Unfortunately it doesn’t cover crap driving (despite it being ‘dangerous’).

And unfortunately assault with a car seems to be considered ‘normal’. I do wonder how many drivers who try to edge bikes off the road or got for punishment passes would go upto someone on the pavement with a knife and expect them to move out their way.

Good job his driving wasn’t dangerous though, he could have hurt someone!

How could a jury conclude that it was not a deliberate act?

The distinction between dangerous and careless isn’t how bad the driving is, dangerous is IIRC doing the same thing repeatedly, whereas a one off is careless

It’s not as basic as that.

I couldn’t deliberately gun it down the highstreet scattering pedestrians off the bonnet and then get away with it only being careless because it’s only my first time.

from here:

http://www.cps.gov.uk/news/fact_sheets/dangerous_driving/

What is ‘Dangerous driving’?
A person drives dangerously when:

the way they drive falls far below the minimum acceptable standard expected of a competent and careful driver; and
it would be obvious to a competent and careful driver that driving in that way would be dangerous.
Some typical examples from court cases of dangerous driving are:

racing, going too fast, or driving aggressively;
ignoring traffic lights, road signs or warnings from passengers;
overtaking dangerously;
driving under the influence of drink or drugs, including prescription drugs;
driving when unfit, including having an injury, being unable to see clearly, not taking prescribed drugs, or being sleepy;
knowing the vehicle has a dangerous fault or an unsafe load;
the driver being avoidably and dangerously distracted, for example by:
using a hand-held phone or other equipment
reading, or looking at a map
talking to and looking at a passenger
lighting a cigarette, changing a CD or tape, tuning the radio.

What is ‘Careless or inconsiderate driving’?
A person drives carelessly or inconsiderately when the way they drive falls below the minimum acceptable standard expected of a competent and careful driver.

Some examples of careless driving are:

overtaking on the inside;
driving too close to another vehicle;
driving through a red light by mistake;
turning into the path of another vehicle;
the driver being avoidably distracted by tuning the radio, lighting a cigarette etc.
Examples of inconsiderate driving include:

flashing lights to force other drivers to give way;
misusing lanes to gain advantage over other drivers;
unnecessarily staying in an overtaking lane;
unnecessarily slow driving or braking;
dazzling other drivers with un-dipped headlights.

with this added distinction

The driver’s behaviour is what is important, not what the driver believes. Someone may be committing a dangerous driving offence even though they believe they are driving safely

so driving your vehicle into someone and knocking them off even if you ‘thought you were only going to scare them*’ is still dangerous by definition (as well as by common sense)

* or some other b0ll0cks excuse like ‘she swore at me so it was OK’, or ‘it’s OK because I saw another guy on a bike jump a red light once and I was paying him back by proxy’

But this shouldn’t even have been treated as a motoring offence. It was an assault.

If they hit someone elderly and caused them to fall and break a hip then that is almost a fatal injury – the stats for survival of old people after such a break are not good.

The statistics would indicate that this doesn’t happen very often at all. So much so it makes the news when it does every other year. Elderly people get run down and killed on a regular basis by cars, without any media fanfare.

Unfortunately, that sort of driving is not far below the standards that most motorists hold themselves to.

most motorists hold themselves to.

I know what you’re getting at, but the law says below the standards of a careful and competent driver, it doesn’t say below the standard you hold yourself to.

So technically that means the standards for careful and competent should be defined. I guess that means falling back on ‘can pass the test’ which he wouldn’t have done driving like that, so it’s still clearly far below the standards.

The problem is when we expect other people to make the judgement and they compare to their own standards, that’s where the careless bit is so easily subverted as people can see themselves making the same mistake, but there should never be any question that deliberately driving your car at someone and knocking them down is dangerous, not careless.

Frankly, its appalling that this continues to not get the uproar it deserves, things are changing but soooo slowly.

@amadias Any idea why judges aren’t setting this out when directing juries ?

Unfortunately, that sort of driving is not far below the standards that most motorists hold themselves to.

And that’s the problem with the wording of the charging guidelines, as Bez who posts on the main site has written about before (can’t find the blog/article now).

But ‘we’ (society/juries) excuse bad driving that probably should be (at best) ‘careless’ by thinking “oo, that could be me in the dock. He only looked at his sat nav for a few seconds before he hit that cyclist. And you know what they’re like, always weaving about with no lights”. And so “the minimum acceptable standard expected of a competent and careful driver” gets a bit lower. And so the standard of driving necessary to be charged with careless driving gets lower as well. And people get away with stuff like this: https://beyondthekerb.wordpress.com/2015/03/23/somethings-seriously-wrong-here/
(Long read, but well worth it)

edit:

I know what you’re getting at, but the law says below the standards of a careful and competent driver, it doesn’t say below the standard you hold yourself to

As you alluded to, who would stand up and say “I am neither a careful nor competent driver”? Everyone thinks they’re a competent driver (see any speeding thread on here) and most think they’re careful (enough not to crash).

I know what you’re getting at, but the law says below the standards of a careful and competent driver, it doesn’t say below the standard you hold yourself to.

No, but you’re being tried by a jury of your peers – 12 people, the vast majority of whom will drive and the vast majority who will think “hmm, I’ve exceeded the speed limit / used a phone/ not looked / blahblah and I was fine so this driver must also be fine and it’s just bad luck (or the cyclists fault)”

So because they are also shit drivers themselves, they are (however unintentionally) comparing the accused to themselves and obviously everyone considers their own driving to be exemplary. So you end up in a situation where shit driving is considered the norm and doesn’t ever register as being shit.

/edit: bugger, ‘bails beat me to it by seconds ^^

^ posts above

I get it, what I’m suggesting is that the definition should be, you know, defined, rather than allowed to continue sliding downwards by being based on how people behave now rather than how they should behave.

A good starting place at they very least would be the driving test. If that is by definition the minimum standard to which we hold people to before allowing them to drive a car on the road unsupervised then it’s a good starting point for the level of a careful and competent driver. Would you pass the test driving like that?

No = instant careless
Hell No! = dangerous

The distinction between dangerous and careless isn’t how bad the driving is

yes, it is.

Careless – below the standard of a careful and competent driver
dangerous – far below the standard of a careful and competent driver

As amedias has posted, ‘below’ and ‘far below’ are not defined in law. Successfully prosecuted cases have provided examples of the types of activity that can be considered but it’s for the court to decide on an individual basis, it’s not as simple as You did X and X is dangerous.

The wording is dreadful.
You can do something intentional (like speed or RLJ) that might be classed as careless whereas it’s not in fact careless at all, it’s quite intentional. You are intentionally jumping the light – you might even be taking a great deal of care in how/when/where you jump the light! It’s amazing how if it’s a set of lights with a camera on it how careful people are not to jump it…

Careless is losing your car keys or forgetting to put your multi tool into your camelbak.

If I ever get pulled by the rozzers for “driving without due care and attention” I’ve always wanted to use the rebuttal: “do you know how much care and attention taking the racing line requires?!”

I’ve been thinking similar things to bails/amedias/crazy-legs as well.

It seems to be a case of circular reasoning going on here.

(yeah I know it’s bindun, but for emphasis)

The definition of the law regarding careless and dangerous driving seriously needs revision, for all the reasons discussed above – current definitions give so much room for dodgy* defence solicitors to introduce reasonable doubt. Though in this particular case where from the reporting it appears that it was “proved” to be a deliberate action by the driver, I have to wonder whether the jury might have actually been more willing to convict the driver if he had been charged with some form of assault (ABH would seem to apply) – the wording for that doesn’t have all this woolly stuff about careful drivers, it just requires an injury to be caused by a deliberate act of applying force. It would certainly have set a useful precedent.

*sadly you’ll find that solicitors are legally obliged to provide their clients the best defence possible even apparently if that involves suggesting doubt where they have none themselves

The quite correct rebuttal is “everybody drives like that”, and if they get upset, simply point out that defence has a long history in case law.

BTW can you see the link I gave up there from WCC – not sure whether you need to be logged in – location is somewhat closer to you than me!

why would you stop for those lights anyway? 😀

My point is that in a jury of peers (ie drivers), if the drivers don’t think that the standard of driving displayed is well below what they expect of themselves and other drivers, then they (rightfully) won’t convict. Even if the driving is appalling.

i’ve said it before on my ‘falling down’ style commuting rant, there is no back up, you ride a bike on the road – you are on your own. The TDF/Tour of Britain positivity is finished with, there is no legislation to protect you, courts/judges/sentences are useless, everyone in anything other than 2 wheels hates you.
Its war and **** bring it on.

aracer – Member
current definitions give so much room for dodgy* defence solicitors to introduce reasonable doubt. …

*sadly you’ll find that solicitors are legally obliged to provide their clients the best defence possible even apparently if that involves suggesting doubt where they have none themselves

I think your suggestion is rather unkind. Defence solicitors serve a very valuable function in the effective trial of the accused, without which people who are genuinely not guilty would run the risk of unfair conviction. It is for the Crown to prove their case beyond reasonable doubt, if the Crown fail to do so that is not the fault of the defence; it may be the fault of an individual Crown prosecutor, it may be the fault of the prosecution system for lack of preparation or training but if we blame the defence we are saying it is OK to convict with ropey cases. It may also be that what you believe constitutes a crime is not, or is interpreted as not being a crime, either intentionally or accidentally through the quality of the legislation that parliament passed. You can’t blame defence lawyers for the failings of parliament. It is however a fundamental right to a fair trial that the defence should be allowed to challenge and cross examine the evidence, to suggest that defence solicitors doing so are “dodgy” is unreasonable and unfair on people who we all assume we will never need (good people don’t do they?).

No, but you’re being tried by a jury of your peers – 12 people, the vast majority of whom will drive and the vast majority who will think “hmm, I’ve exceeded the speed limit / used a phone/ not looked / blahblah and I was fine so this driver must also be fine and it’s just bad luck (or the cyclists fault)”

Its dangerous to try and guess what goes on in Jury rooms, and the reality is nobody knows quite how their collective minds work. Remember a conviction in E&W requires 10 jurors to agree. There is a suggestion that if you offer a “half way” house verdict (Careless as an alternate to Dangerous) then it becomes easier to get 10/12 agreement on the “compromise” than the full conviction. Whilst sentencing is not the Jurors prerogative they may not feel that the offending warrants a long ban and potential prison sentence and so pick the lesser conviction to avoid being “too harsh”.

Also if you think about 12 random people. They will include some quieter and some “more vocal / assertive” types. If you want to generalise massively the aggressive drivers who dislike cyclists are more likely to be vocal about it than the reasonably competent driver who generally avoids confrontation (and perhaps being really stereotypical here would be a little softer on “sentence”). Now put those 12 people into a room and ask them to agree on a verdict of Dangerous, Careless or not-guilty. Just my guess, and it is only a guess as we can never know what goes on in the Jury room – but I can see many scenarios where even the vocal singletrack big hitter might be willing after three hours in a jury room with 11 strangers to plump for Careless to ensure that at least they were convicted of something.

My bit at the end was supposed to clarify that it was what they were legally required to do, and therefore not actually dodgy, though clearly it doesn’t read like that, for which I apologise. I have no objection at all to challenging and cross examining the evidence, clearly that is the correct thing to happen, it’s the sort of thing the chap in the Helen Measures case came out with I’m not so happy about.

Clearly the big problem here is the legal definitions of motoring offences – we need to get more specific definitions of what constitutes dangerous driving which jurors can work with – IMHO hitting a vulnerable road user in the absence of any genuine mitigating circumstances should be dangerous driving by definition (based on the amount of space the HC says you’re supposed to give them – if it can be shown beyond reasonable doubt that the victim did nothing wrong, I don’t see how there can be a problem with that). Though I’d also suggest there is a problem with the judiciary not properly following the guidelines – not taking proper care around vulnerable road users is supposed to be an aggravating factor when sentencing, but that doesn’t appear to be applied in reality.

Surprise, surprise
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/london-black-taxi-driver-cleared-of-ramming-cyclist-with-car-a3151971.html