Cycling UK Forum

JimL wrote:

Shootist wrote:

JimL wrote:Is it not the case that the statistics show that in motor /bicycle collisions where blame can be attached the motorist is to blame in 70/80% of cases . So it is surely reasonable that when the the facts cannot be independently established and it is the word of the cyclist v the motosists ( or the cyclists is dead ) the presumption should be , for civil cases where the balance of proability attains, that the motorist is to blame

Ok, so you are arguing that the responsibility for a road traffic collision involving a cyclist, the motorist should be blamed because of what some other motorists did? OK, it's a point of view I suppose. Trial by similarity, the burden of proof being that the majority of motorists were guilty so you must be.

No

The law is trying to assign probabilities to events so use all relevant information to get a better answer. The injustice suffered by a blameless motorist (a few hundred pound out of pocket) is nothing compared to the injustice suffered by a blameless cyclist.

Ah! Right! I understand now. You seek to replace justice with financial expediency.

You seek to replace justice with financial expediency.

The justice isnt there to be replaced. It is just a better type of injustice being proposed.

meic wrote:

You seek to replace justice with financial expediency.

The justice isnt there to be replaced. It is just a better type of injustice being proposed.

Only if you're riding the bike.

And the justice is there but unfortunately the police and the courts don't seem to be very good at it. But By God they'll make damned sure that nobody else is going to get their hands on it.

Tangled Metal wrote:I've only come close to taking a cyclist out once as a motorist. Under presumed liability that one case would have.been my fault.

The only thing is it wasn't my fault. The road design was very poor. I was at a t junction waiting to turn off right. The left side was a left sweeping bend . Both directions had parked cars and vans on both sides of the road. I crept out very slowly until I was sticking right out into the road. I could still not see far so I decided I had to go for it. A cyclist sped round the corner and nearly into the side of the car. I was shaken because it was so close. I apologised which annoyed me greatly because I had not done anything wrong and could not have.done anything better than I had. The cyclist was highly abusive and threatening. Doors locked I waited.for him to go then drove off.

Have i got this right - You pulled out into a road that you couldn't see was clear and it wasn't your fault? Did someone have a gun at your head? were you being chased by dragons? If you couldn't see it was clear, you shouldn't have pulled out. The cyclist was going too fast? What if it'd been a motorbike? I doesn't need presumed liability to make it your fault, it would be now. This is civil rather than criminal law, the cyclist may have done something negligent enough to have contributed to the accident, that would have an affect on the award it wouldn't alter the liability.

You pulled out into a road that you couldn't see was clear and it wasn't your fault?

That is the way it is, there are roads without good visibility, lots around here. When entering them you gently crawl out so that any coming vehicles can see you and if needed take action. Until eventually you are far enough out to see it is clear enough to proceed with normal speed.

If you come flying down the road too fast to stop when a vehicle is doing this then the fault is your own.

I say this as along term motorcyclist who has had many a car and lorry do this to me in the past. Of course there are drivers who dont bother with the niceties and just fly through blind junctions stretching this "allowance" past breaking point.

To be fair that largely depends on the geometry of the junction, which we don't know (Google Street view link would be handy).

But to take what you've said to a logical conclusion, should you come to a junction where, due to bend/parked vehicles, it is not possible to see very far, are you just supposed to wait there forever, or turn around and go back? And this would apply whether one was in a car or on a bike.

That's a little daft, the best you can do is make a cautious pull out. It should be noted though that if you cannot see someone on the main road then they cannot see you either. The highway code is pretty clear in that you should travel at such a speed that you can stop within the distance that can be seen.

It was like that. A junction you could not see beyond a car length because of the bend, parked cars/vans.

What are you supposed to do if you are at that type of junction? Perhaps PH could explain a safer way to take the turn other than crawl out very slowly until you realise you still cannot see much further. Then just as you come to the conclusion that you won't be able to see anything going at remotely close to the speed limit you make the decision to make the turn. But before that the cyclist has come round the bend. He swerves around you in a screech of brakes. You weren't even moving forward at that point, because you'd made the decision to turn but hadn't turned that into action yet.

TL:DR. Junction, car length visibility, 30mph, crept out, stopped, decided to go but cyclist came flying round the.bend before I moved. No clear sightlines = no possible action to avoid collisions if your luck is out. You have to rely on others realising the bend/junction is a hazard. Unfortunately that cyclist hadn't. I had but could not act to prevent the near miss.

Stop within the distance that can be seen.

That was what I did, I pulled out a little, stopped, looked, no better visibility so repeated pulling out a little more. Looking down the road in the direction of least visibility. The way to I was going had clear visibility because of no parked cars and the straight road to the main road junction and lights. I could see no cats that way to the main road junction. That meant I could fully concentrate on checking the poor sightlines side. Hence the cautious pull out slightly, stop and check pattern.

I was about 6 months out from my test and several months into a road safety training course for motorists (youngest one on it by possibly 5 to 10 years). I had Roadcraft as my bedtime reading for a few months and I was practising my commentary every time I was on my own in the car. Nothing I had read or been taught would have prevented the near miss. In fact if I hadn't been on the course it is possible that the cyclist would have hit me. Or perhaps my cautious approach meant it created the problem. Could a typical teenage driver without safety as a priority have been.more gung ho and made the turn before the cyclist got there? Possibly but only with hindsight can you know when to be cautious and when to just go for it.

karlt wrote:It's actually possible to be prosecuted as a result of a collision but not be liable in civil law. Consider a dead straight road with excellent sightlines, but a speed limit of 30mph. Consider party A is travelling along this road at 50mph when party B pulls out of a side road in front of him and a collision occurs. Party A could be prosecuted for speeding, but since party B pulled into his path and should have seen party A, party B would be liable for the collision in the civil court.

Not an accurate picture. When B pulls out of the junction he is entitled to expect that the approaching vehicle is travelling at the speed limit for the road it's on, i.e. 30mph. Judging the speed of approaching vehicles can be difficult. If A had been driving at 30 mph then B would not have collided with him. In the days when any road traffic collision resulted in a prosecution file I would have prepared a case against A for speeding (assuming the evidence was available) and careless driving. I would not have put in a similar file for B. As said, if evidence of speeding could be shown then I would have no doubt that B would be convicted. The same equivalent verdict should go for civil court. The only problem arises is proving the speeding aspect.

Shootist wrote:

karlt wrote:It's actually possible to be prosecuted as a result of a collision but not be liable in civil law. Consider a dead straight road with excellent sightlines, but a speed limit of 30mph. Consider party A is travelling along this road at 50mph when party B pulls out of a side road in front of him and a collision occurs. Party A could be prosecuted for speeding, but since party B pulled into his path and should have seen party A, party B would be liable for the collision in the civil court.

Not an accurate picture. When B pulls out of the junction he is entitled to expect that the approaching vehicle is travelling at the speed limit for the road it's on, i.e. 30mph. Judging the speed of approaching vehicles can be difficult. If A had been driving at 30 mph then B would not have collided with him. In the days when any road traffic collision resulted in a prosecution file I would have prepared a case against A for speeding (assuming the evidence was available) and careless driving. I would not have put in a similar file for B. As said, if evidence of speeding could be shown then I would have no doubt that B would be convicted. The same equivalent verdict should go for civil court. The only problem arises is proving the speeding aspect.

As regards the criminal aspect you are quite correct, and that's what I said. However, whilst you may think that the same verdict should go for the civil court, that doesn't mean it would. This is because the criminal prosecution is not asking "who was to blame for this accident?", it's asking "did either party commit a criminal offence?"

karlt wrote:

Shootist wrote:

karlt wrote:It's actually possible to be prosecuted as a result of a collision but not be liable in civil law. Consider a dead straight road with excellent sightlines, but a speed limit of 30mph. Consider party A is travelling along this road at 50mph when party B pulls out of a side road in front of him and a collision occurs. Party A could be prosecuted for speeding, but since party B pulled into his path and should have seen party A, party B would be liable for the collision in the civil court.

Not an accurate picture. When B pulls out of the junction he is entitled to expect that the approaching vehicle is travelling at the speed limit for the road it's on, i.e. 30mph. Judging the speed of approaching vehicles can be difficult. If A had been driving at 30 mph then B would not have collided with him. In the days when any road traffic collision resulted in a prosecution file I would have prepared a case against A for speeding (assuming the evidence was available) and careless driving. I would not have put in a similar file for B. As said, if evidence of speeding could be shown then I would have no doubt that B would be convicted. The same equivalent verdict should go for civil court. The only problem arises is proving the speeding aspect.

As regards the criminal aspect you are quite correct, and that's what I said. However, whilst you may think that the same verdict should go for the civil court, that doesn't mean it would. This is because the criminal prosecution is not asking "who was to blame for this accident?", it's asking "did either party commit a criminal offence?"

One of the benefits of criminal prosecutions for road traffic collisions means that if the criminal prosecution results in a conviction then in the case of careless driving it has been proved beyond reasonable doubt that the convicted person, in my scenario that's A, was at fault, i.e. negligent, i.e. to blame for what happened. It is correspondingly easy to win a case in civil court, where the burden of proof is on the balance of probabilities with such a conviction on your side when you have proved the other party's negligence beyond reasonable doubt.

You are also quite wrong when you say:

This is because the criminal prosecution is not asking "who was to blame for this accident?", it's asking "did either party commit a criminal offence?"

A criminal investigation examines who was potentially breaking the law, who is to blame for this collision (not accident, the cause is negligence). Once it reaches the stage of being a prosecution then it is simply down to proving whether the accused, in this case A, was guilty of the offence charged. You may be right to say that because a person is convicted in a criminal court that he may not necessarily lose a civil case that is about the same issues, but I can assure you that it's the way to bet. How difficult is it to lose a civil case on a road traffic collision where you are trying to establish who is probably to blame for the accident, when you have already proved beyond doubt who was to blame?

If the conviction is for something that's relevant to the accident, and if it's significant enough to significantly absolve the other party of blame. You could be convicted for, for example, having a bald tyre but that wouldn't make it your fault if someone pulled out in front of you, unless it actually made the difference between stopping in time and not doing so.

Perhaps we need to moderate my example a little. The speeding party is doing 40mph. The other party pulls out immediately in front of him, so that there would have been a collision even if the first party had been driving within the speed limit. Would you accept that in this case the speeding party could get a criminal conviction for speeding but it wouldn't render him liable for the collision?

incidentally, I'm not sure I agree on the use of the term "accident" here. If something happens I didn't intend, that's what the word "accident" means to me, even if you can claim I was negligent. I knocked a glass on the floor the morning and smashed it. Didn't watch properly where I was putting my hands. Nevertheless, I still call that an accident.

Tangled Metal wrote:

Stop within the distance that can be seen.

That was what I did

I was more referring to the cyclist at that point.

When B pulls out of the junction he is entitled to expect that the approaching vehicle is travelling at the speed limit for the road it's on, i.e. 30mph. Judging the speed of approaching vehicles can be difficult. If A had been driving at 30 mph then B would not have collided with him.

If someone is incapable of judging the conflict time of another vehicle they shouldn't be driving. It's a pretty fundamental requirement. What on earth else are you supposed to do, judge on distance and think that's far enough because it's normally far enough? Do that and you could be caught out by non speeding drivers in the case of a speed limit raise or a road where the average speed is lower than the limit. The law even allows a defence against speeding under certain circumstances (life and death situations usually), it's rarely accepted but can happen. Not to mention bicycles to which speed limits do not strictly apply.

If someone can see a vehicle but are incapable of judging if it's safe to pull out I'm not sure they should be entitled to drive, they certainly are not entitled to make assumptions based on posted limits.

Tangled Metal wrote:Perhaps PH could explain a safer way to take the turn other than crawl out very slowly until you realise you still cannot see much further.

Simple one is not to turn, at a T junction I assume you would have the option to turn left. Do you think you'd have passed a driving test if you'd pulled out when you couldn't see the road to be clear?
How much of the Highway Code do you want, let's start here;
Rule 170
look all around before emerging. Do not cross or join a road until there is a gap large enough for you to do so safely.
You MUST stop behind the line at a junction with a ‘Stop’ sign and a solid white line across the road. Wait for a safe gap in the traffic before you move off.

If you can't see a gap, then you can't know a safe gap exists, can you?

PH I think you are a bit harsh on TM. The scenario seems to be a cyclist travelling too fast, coming round a blind bend and not being able to stop in time. Might have hit a car stopping to let a little old lady cross the road.