Reporting guidelines for road traffic collisions

thirdcrank
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Re: Reporting guidelines for road traffic collisions

Post by thirdcrank »

My attention to detail isn't what it was.
Jdsk
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Re: Reporting guidelines for road traffic collisions

Post by Jdsk »

I though that recommendation was pretty reasonable. And especially important in brief initial coverage.

Jonathan
thirdcrank
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Re: Reporting guidelines for road traffic collisions

Post by thirdcrank »

It is and as I read through the whole thing when it was first linked, I'm annoyed with myself now that I'd already forgotten it - depressing evidence of my short-term memory.

It's indicative of something that this thread seems to have attracted minimal interest on here. More generally, I'd suggest that I'd assume that most (7/10?) of the bullet points were already considered good journalism in relation to any subject. Surely, the media haven't been waiting for some cycle campaigner to alert them to the importance of this:
At all times be accurate, say what you know and, importantly, what you don’t know.
It's easy to appear to want it both ways.
Avoid portraying law-breaking or highway code contravention as acceptable, or perpetrators as victims.
Law-breaking is law-breaking, but not following the Highway Code is often open to discussion eg "H" word and Hi-viz.

On the face of it this is one of my own hobby horses:-
If you’re talking about a driver, say a driver, not their vehicle.
I've lost count of the times I've quoted Chief Dan Mathews in Highway Patrol from the 1950s
Remember, folks: it's not the car that kills, it's the driver.
Unfortunately, usage like "The car may not see you" is common, even on this forum (and new technology may make this more of an issue.)

Perhaps these guidelines are not the place to question policing priorities (and perhaps they do and I've missed it) but bearing in mind how much journalists rely on police media releases, they must be hampered by their absence. I seem to see an increasing number of reports of crashes which the police seem not to have attended at all. eg within the last few months, a car buried into a house. IMO, It would be good if the media queried why this was so. A bit of media inquisitiveness might attract a lot more attention from your local sheriff than any amount of letters from cycle campaigners.

The reply from the Grauniad probably sums up the attitude of editors more generally: polite but not too bothered, as far as I can see.
Jdsk
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Re: Reporting guidelines for road traffic collisions

Post by Jdsk »

Response from Cycling UK:
https://www.cyclinguk.org/blog/why-repo ... ly-matters

includes some advice on how to respond to individual pieces that breach the guidelines.

Jonathan
thirdcrank
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Re: Reporting guidelines for road traffic collisions

Post by thirdcrank »

I get most of my info on press regulation from Private Eye so I don't take IMPRESS at all seriously. I don't know if it regulates freebie magazines but I see that Cycle isn't on the list.
thirdcrank
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Re: Reporting guidelines for road traffic collisions

Post by thirdcrank »

Talking of IMPRESS and Private Eye I see we are due for a poem from EJ Thribb.

Max Mosley: Privacy campaigner and ex-motorsport boss dies at 81

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-57232681

=================================================================================

Max Mosley and his Ministry of Truth

(Today's Daily Torygraph.)

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/0 ... try-truth/
Jdsk
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Re: Reporting guidelines for road traffic collisions

Post by Jdsk »

NB date.

"Transport for London has halted an ad campaign promoting road safety that featured a driver and cyclist making up after the latter was almost hit, following a backlash accusing the ad of “victim blaming”."
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... s-backlash

The advertisement;
https://twitter.com/tfl/status/1460910696087138307?s=21

Jonathan
thirdcrank
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Re: Reporting guidelines for road traffic collisions

Post by thirdcrank »

From that Guardian link
Complainants argue that it unfairly places equal blame on cyclists and drivers and shows a car making an illegally close pass on the rider.
(My emphasis)
From the context, I take this not to be a driverless car, and so any manoeuvres - legal or otherwise - are the personal responsibility of the driver.
Jdsk
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Re: Reporting guidelines for road traffic collisions

Post by Jdsk »

thirdcrank wrote: 1 Dec 2021, 3:01pm From that Guardian link
Complainants argue that it unfairly places equal blame on cyclists and drivers and shows a car making an illegally close pass on the rider.
(My emphasis)
From the context, I take this not to be a driverless car, and so any manoeuvres - legal or otherwise - are the personal responsibility of the driver.
As the Guardian put it:

In the film, a driver is seen slamming on her brakes after almost knocking a cyclist off his bike.

The driver is clearly identified as the agent. Nothing to do with driverless vehicles. And that wording is probably consistent with the reporting guidelines...

Jonathan
thirdcrank
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Re: Reporting guidelines for road traffic collisions

Post by thirdcrank »

I see that the toothless advertising watchdoggy is reported to have received some seventy complaints about this and it's possible that they all indulged in the anthropomorphism to which I object.

Let's remember that one of the points of the Grauniad's piece is "false equivalence" between road users. IMO anything which tends to reduce the driver's personal responsibility just aggravates that. I'm intransigent over this.

For anybody who missed it in my many posts about this, I first heard this point made by Chief Dan Mathews of Highway Patrol before I learned to drive a car and probably before I learned to drive a car.

And if reporting guidelines approve of the anthropomorphism of motor vehicles, then they are inadequate.
Pete Owens
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Re: Reporting guidelines for road traffic collisions

Post by Pete Owens »

thirdcrank wrote: 1 Dec 2021, 3:01pm From that Guardian link
Complainants argue that it unfairly places equal blame on cyclists and drivers and shows a car making an illegally close pass on the rider.
(My emphasis)
From the context, I take this not to be a driverless car, and so any manoeuvres - legal or otherwise - are the personal responsibility of the driver.
I don't think that is likely to be the source of the complaints - though I do agree with your point about talking about cars rather than drivers - I really don't think anyone is so dim that they assume that if a report says someone was hit by a car that somehow a driver was not involved - in the same way none of us is actually confused by a grocer's apostrophe.

My guess is that the complaints were from the two-wheels-good-four-wheels-bad brigade who take the knee jerk assumption that in any interaction involving a bike and a car it is the driver of the car that is at fault. To take the quote from the article they claim the ad shows:
"a car making an illegally close pass on the rider"
Really?
Watch the video - you see shots of a car driver happily driving interspaced with a cyclist happily cycling - but never in the same frame. You then see shots of both of them braking - but again not in the same frame. It is only after they have both come to a standstill side by side that you see them both. There is absolutely nothing (I presume intentionally so) about the nature of the incident that caused them both to brake.

The whole point of the ad is to promote empathy. For different road users to see each other as fellow human beings sharing the road, rather than as members of alien tribes to be fought off.
thirdcrank
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Re: Reporting guidelines for road traffic collisions

Post by thirdcrank »

When I've tried to watch the vid it's shown "not available" or words to that effect, but I get the intended message from the accompanying discussion.
Jdsk
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Re: Reporting guidelines for road traffic collisions

Post by Jdsk »

thirdcrank wrote: 1 Dec 2021, 3:31pmAnd if reporting guidelines approve of the anthropomorphism of motor vehicles, then they are inadequate.
The wording that I thought was probably OK was:

In the film, a driver is seen slamming on her brakes after almost knocking a cyclist off his bike.

Jonathan
Jdsk
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Re: Reporting guidelines for road traffic collisions

Post by Jdsk »

Pete Owens wrote: 1 Dec 2021, 4:17pmThe whole point of the ad is to promote empathy.
That's how it looks to me.

Jonathan
Bonefishblues
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Re: Reporting guidelines for road traffic collisions

Post by Bonefishblues »

Jdsk wrote: 1 Dec 2021, 6:16pm
Pete Owens wrote: 1 Dec 2021, 4:17pmThe whole point of the ad is to promote empathy.
That's how it looks to me.

Jonathan
And a third. I only caught it once, but thought it very powerful.
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