What constitutes a reportable RTA?

[[XAP]Bob]

As title...

(Details to follow - I'm fine)

[yakdiver]

I always thought it was if you were injured, but saying that if you think they have been drinking or using a mobile that caused the accident I would

[[XAP]Bob]

What counts as an injury though - grazes, blood, bruises, breaks, severed appendages?

Actually - isn't damage also mentioned?

[gaz]

This advice looks interesting:-

http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/index/you ... _accidents

Not crystal clear on it's definitions but it gives a good gist.

[irc]

Full definition as per RTA 1988 S170 (as amended)

But in short ...

The duty to report only applies to drivers not cyclists.

A reportable accident is where a driver causes damage to another vehicle or trailer, to other property like fences walls etc, or personal injury, or if certain animals are injured or killed.*

Any physical injury counts. Even shock has been held to be injury.

However while accidents are reportable there is no need to report to the police if other conditions are complied with.

1. To stop
2. To supply details of the driver, owner, and vehicle to anyone requiring them.
3. In the case of an injury accident also supplying insurance details.

*The animals can be remember by the neumonic SHAMPOG+dog -sheep, horse, ass, mule, pig, ox(cattle), goat,dog.
So run down a cat and you don't need to report it.

[[XAP]Bob]

Cycling in to work this morning, down the hill where I just free wheel for a good while. It's about a half mile and I pedal to 20ish mph before letting her go (maxing out at 23ish), dodging the potholes and traffic "calming" islands, chicanes and offset parking all the way...

There have been sporadic roadworks down here for a while, at the moment the uphill lane is blocked for about 2 car lengths near the bottom.

As I approached a blue car turned left before the roadworks, a driving instructor passed the obstruction (safely) and a White Audi A4 blindly followed her through.

My (successful) evasive action resulted in some damage to the trike (somewhat buckled right wheel, bent mudguard support on that side, bent rack) and minor damage to me (grazed wrist and elbow) as I managed to put her on her side.

I'm not convinced that he actually hit the brakes, he claims he did - there was no evidence of braking on the road. The driving instructor watched the whole thing unfold in her rear view mirror (as she had thought "he's going too fast" when she moved to pull round the roadworks) then turned round and gave me her details (Bonus).

I need to wire up an extrnal battery pack for my cameras.

The Audi driver opened with "where were you?" or "why were you there?" something along those lines, before admitting that he had seen me before the instructor pulled round. Personally I think he assumed I was doing <10mph downhill

I have his plate, and his mobile number, and his place of work. He said to sort him out with an invoice and he'd cut me a cheque. I'll probably text him with the quote from ICE and pointing out that it is a reportable incident later today.

[[XAP]Bob]

Thanks irc - most helpful to have someone with a clear head around

[[XAP]Bob]

However while accidents are reportable there is no need to report to the police if other conditions are complied with.

1. To stop
2. To supply details of the driver, owner, and vehicle to anyone requiring them.
3. In the case of an injury accident also supplying insurance details.

That's interesting - I wonder why, did they want to make the roads look safer?

[meic]

Or imagine two vehicles trying to pass on a narrow lane. Both halt, one slowly attempts to pass, the mirrors bang. Are the Police needed?
Nothing criminal, nothing dangerous.

If however one just drives through like a nutter you are still free to involve the Police.

[[XAP]Bob]

Or imagine two vehicles trying to pass on a narrow lane. Both halt, one slowly attempts to pass, the mirrors bang. Are the Police needed?
Nothing criminal, nothing dangerous.

If however one just drives through like a nutter you are still free to involve the Police.

True - but that's just a damage - no injury.

It's the "injury caused, but you exchanged insurance details so we don't need to know" that I find really odd.

EDIT: Actually I still think that the hypothetical incident should be reported, not that the police should do anything other than record it..... But the statistical division should be aware of it.

[thirdcrank]

I think it's easy to have confusion between accidents which must be reported to the police(and that's legally defined, as posted above by irc) and what the police are going to investigate thoroughly. Once upon a time, the latter was just about everythng that came to police attention, and very time-consuming it was, too. For better or worse, there has been a significant reduction in that area. At one point, some (possibly all) police forces had an explanation on their websites of what they would normally investigate (for example, an allegation of a specific offence.) I've looked for that info a couple of times recently to answer queries on here and not found it. I only checked a couple of forces so that's hardly conclusive, but I'll guess those guidelines (which will have had their origins in something from ACPO) have caused so many complaints from people who did not get even that dwindling level of service that they were removed from view.

The simple fact is that as most collisions only indicate a "momentary lapse of judgment" (or whatever the CPS guidelines say) there's going to be no prosecution so it's futile anybody preparing a prosecution file (the only usual reason for a detailed police investigation.) On top of that, independent witnesses, on which the CPS places great emphasis, are nowadays a rare commodity.

On the subject of exchanging details, IME people have not been prosecuted for technical breaches. If a driver stops and complies with the spirit of the law, ie identifies himself, gives proper contact details and genuinely co-operates with the other party, nobody is going to look at the small print of the Road Traffic Act. (A couple of years ago, my wife was shunted in heavy snow. She exchanged names and telephone numbers with the other driver. That evening, I telephoned him - his main concern was that he might have hurt my wife - and we sorted everything out amicably over the phone. Once upon a time, he would almost inevitably have been prosecuted for due care, but failing to report would never have come into it.) That is all separate from the difficulty of proving the offence, if both parties stop and there is subsequent disagreement about who said what.

[Hypocacculus]

EDIT: Actually I still think that the hypothetical incident should be reported, not that the police should do anything other than record it..... But the statistical division should be aware of it.

I agree. I think those barrier thingies are a menace to cyclists and the more incidents reported, the better.

[[XAP]Bob]

I have no interest in the police doing more than just recording the incident.
If that driver does the same thing several times a year, then they might want to do something, but I expect no more than a brief report filing.

[thirdcrank]

Ironically, given the official British attitudes to road safety, comprehensive reporting of collisions involving pedal cyclists would probably not benefit cyclists.

In all the time of which I have any knowledge, back to the 1960's, the only collisions to be included in the stats were those involving personal injury - "injury accidents" in the lingo. The most spectacular "damage only" bumps don't make it into the stats. It seems pretty obvious to me at least, that this means that cyclists and pedestrians inevitably appear as a problem because something that would damage a lot of car bodywork but would leave the occupants of a modern car unscathed would generally kill or maim a cyclist or pedestrian. Now, if the authorities ie police and highwaymen, are judged against casualty reduction, it's the vulnerable road users who are seen as the cause of the problem, rather than its victims, and that's only going to be aggravated when minor injury accidents are ignored so that KSI (killed, seriously injured) can be prioritised.

[[XAP]Bob]

Ironically, given the official British attitudes to road safety, comprehensive reporting of collisions involving pedal cyclists would probably not benefit cyclists.

In all the time of which I have any knowledge, back to the 1960's, the only collisions to be included in the stats were those involving personal injury - "injury accidents" in the lingo. The most spectacular "damage only" bumps don't make it into the stats. It seems pretty obvious to me at least, that this means that cyclists and pedestrians inevitably appear as a problem because something that would damage a lot of car bodywork but would leave the occupants of a modern car unscathed would generally kill or maim a cyclist or pedestrian. Now, if the authorities ie police and highwaymen, are judged against casualty reduction, it's the vulnerable road users who are seen as the cause of the problem, rather than its victims, and that's only going to be aggravated when minor injury accidents are ignored so that KSI (killed, seriously injured) can be prioritised.

Don't see why that makes a fleshbag look like a problem. Makes cars look problematic to me - two cyclists are far less likely to collide.