[Closed] Might it finally happen automatically liability

top news that.

not before time.

heres hoping they get it pushed through.

Guilty until proven innocent - not good for anything

Guilty until proven innocent - not good for anything

unfortunately this misunderstanding is all too common.

General public do not understand civil/ criminal distinction. until they do they will believe as jambalaya (possibly) does; that people are to be found guilty of something.

lets hope this sets a precedent for other UK nations. I won't hold my breath for England though.

Why is England always the last with anything like this?

e.g.
plastic bag tax
smoking ban
Right to roam
I'm sure there are others???

Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland are often way ahead of us in these types of issues

thomthumb - Member

General public do not understand civil/ criminal distinction.

Then why don't you briefly explain the distinctions, Mr Thumb?

Guilty until proven innocent - not good for anything

Like when someone runs in the back of you - that sort of thing?

Yer I reckon, presumed liability.. I think the idea is to make you very very careful.

It's no good driving around to the letter of law, whilst ignoring actual dangers an hazards. Like would you drive at 30mph past a school where there were loads of kids milling around by the gate/road? I know I would not as I do not want to experience/inflict the pain of killing/maiming someone, even if it is their "fault" for stepping out in the road.

What thomthumb is getting at is that this applies to civil liability, e.g. insurance.

So the onus of care is put on lorry drivers to not crush car drivers, on car drivers to not crush cyclists and on cyclists to not run down pedestrians. If you can prove the 'weaker' party was at fault then fine, but otherwise the bigger, stronger, safer party has responsibility to avoid harming the more vulnerable people so they will be held (civilly) responsible in the event of a collision.

This can only be a good thing.

@tomthumb and @Junkyard I appreciate your points but making motorist automatically liable financially until proven not to be the case will just encourage more reckless riding and an excuse for higher insurance premiums. What we need is proper sentencing for causing death or serious injury on the roads, not just of cyclists but anyone including pedestrians and other motorists. Financial settlements then follow.

Junkyard - lazarus

Like when someone runs in the back of you - that sort of thing?

Any chance of a link to that particular bit of law, I've never actually seen it?

making motorist automatically liable financially until proven not to be the case will just encourage more reckless riding

Do you think the people who ride like d*cks are planning on hanging around to exchange insurance details if they scrape a car?

Or are you saying people who are safe riders now will deliberately get themselves run over to make some money?

Do you think the people who ride like d*cks are planning on hanging around to exchange insurance details if they scrape a car?

They don't need insurance.
Why not hang around for some free cash?
They haven't "scraped a car", they've just been hit by one! 😀

Bloody nightmare idea and will cause even more anti-cycling bile and hatred.

We don't need a new laws - we need to enforce the ones we have already and get the Police/CPS to investigate and prosecute bad driving/riding as appropriate, which will then help the correct decisions to be made on civil liability.

I don't know if I should admit this on here but <deep breath> I drive a car. There , I've said it. And the thought of being expected to pay a higher premium because some idiot (who happened to be on a bike) ran into me doesn't fill me with joy.

But if he ran into you it wouldn't be your fault.

Stuff your car insurance premiums.
If it reduces the chance of me being run over, it's a good thing.

Think about this another way.
God forbid you get knocked of your bike and die. Do you want your family to go without, because the driver lied, and said you swerved into their path. Meaning no insurance claim?

if this gets passed im going to reverse over myself

the systems already so ****ing stupid ill probably get a payout

God forbid you get knocked of your bike and die. Do you want your family to go without

God forbid people are sensible enough to get life insurance rather than freeload

It will be about as effective as those 'baby on board' signs, as I wasn't planning on driving into you anyway 🙄

I drive 20000 miles a year including a fair bit of urban driving and I have absolutely no issue with this at all as a driver.

Having been hit by an inattentive driver in August who did £300 of damage to clothes and bike I support as a cyclist too.

The arguments about nurturing further hostility seem weak to me because firstly it would be hard to create more and also as I just don't think it's a rational process to hate cyclists.

Who the hell is going to engineer a bike-car crash deliberately? far better to engineer a shunt in the car that involves rear ending or a flash for cash and get a definite Insurance payout.

You don't hear many people fixing rear end shunts in front of hgvs do you?

Why should I have to pay for life insurance.
Why not the thiefing bastard insurance company of the shit driver in a 2 ton killing machine?

Why should I have to pay for life insurance.

worlds not safe is it?

some [s]evangelists[/s] cyclists would blame shit drivers if they had a heart attack whilst taking a shit (more common than you think)

Massively in favour of this - if it means a few more drivers actively paying attention to the roads, and driving more carefully around cyclists, it's simply a good idea.

"Lifes not fair"
No, but this will make it a bit fairer.
As an HGV driver, this will affect me more, because everyone is more vulnerable compared to me. But I still think it's a good thing, it might calm people down on the roads.

Got to be a good idea. Might not stop drivers driving like ****s but will make it a lot easier to get compensated for any loss or injuries. And you never know, the publicity that a new law for this might make drivers a little more aware when they're over taking.

Who the hell is going to engineer a bike-car crash deliberately? far better to engineer a shunt in the car that involves rear ending or a flash for cash and get a definite Insurance payout.

You don't hear many people fixing rear end shunts in front of hgvs do you?

How can you be so naive?
The less desirables will be getting cheap bikes and just nudging down the side of cars. The car doesn't have to even be moving for someone on a bike to claim personal injury in a 2mph 'collision' It is strict liability remember so you could just pick a random reg plate off ebay and accuse. There may not be any marks from a car hitting a bike. There will be in a car crash.

People don't often fix rear enders in front of hgv's as:
a) many are camera'd up now
b)there is a lot more risk of serious injury
c)there is a big up front cost to set up something like this
ie. people you can 'trust' to lie
the cost of the car you use to crash
the cost of the insurance the car will need to have to be on the road
d) the fact that it isn't strict liability
e) a host of other costs associated with a scam

Not having a pop at you personally but I guess you must have more faith in the human race than I do. See this for reference

[url= http://http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/10398573/Widower-forced-to-pay-carer-Jayne-Wakefield-3500-compensation-because-his-wife-died.html ]Carer sues for loss of earnings after patient dies.[/url]

So, two lines of thought then:

We have sufficient laws - they just need to be better applied
Vs
We need something to make drivers better - perhaps an easier to apply legal position

At the moment - from all the comments on previous threads relating to motor vehicles and cyclists deaths - it seems that there is a defacto presumption that cyclists are to blame. So why not formalise a position that unambiguously offers greater protection to the more vulnerable road user?

I still think the biggest problem for cyclists is that the Police don't take cyclists' rights seriously and when a case does go to court the judge / jury don't take cyclists' rights seriously either. The case of the manslaughtering doctor that was covered at length here yesterday being just the latest in a long line of examples.

God forbid you get knocked of your bike and die. Do you want your family to go without
God forbid people are sensible enough to get life insurance rather than freeload

Are insurance premiums prohibitively expensive in Europe? Because virtually every country in the EU has such laws. How do they manage ( & why are drivers so much more considerate to cyclists in those countries?)

Is dying not a really poor way of freeloading?

its probably a pretty poor way of doing a lot of things truth be known

Are insurance premiums prohibitively expensive in Europe? Because virtually every country in the EU has such laws. How do they manage ( & why are drivers so much more considerate to cyclists in those countries?)

we covered this last time round bay saying people in europe were more honest and less likely to screw each other over at every opportunity ,

"Lifes not fair"
No, but this will make it a bit fairer.
As an HGV driver, this will affect me more, because everyone is more vulnerable compared to me. But I still think it's a good thing, it might calm people down on the roads.

Why will it affect you more? Im assuming as a cyclist your driving your HGV with a more cautious approach

Tbark I don't consider I am being naive just making a judgement based on what I assess to be the benefits and pitfalls of using a fake bike crash as a cash generating scam.

In particular I think people may be under estimating the insurers ability to fight when things look dodgy.

My view its that a 2mph rigged crash won't bring the rewards that overtaking someone in a car and hauling on the anchors with four of your mates will. In addition if they cock it up then they go unprotected under a car.

When I combine those aspects and what is being talked about here is assumed but not guaranteed liability and that insurers won't want to pay when there is a hint of fraud I come to the view that it's not going going to be a wholesale issue that affects vast numbers of motorists

I could be proved wrong and I accept there is a risk but I think the risks outweigh the benefits. On the flip side how many cyclists get screwed when they deserve to get paid now? No justice system is perfect and there will always be some innocent victims.

some evangelists cyclists would blame shit drivers if they had a heart attack whilst taking a shit (more common than you think)

[img] [/img]

I think it's fair.

There's no way you can hit a cyclist if you have left a safe amount of room and are travelling at a safe speed while passing.

Can of worms...

compositepro - Member

God forbid people are sensible enough to get life insurance rather than freeload

I was going to post a more considered response but it basically amounted to WTF, LOL so I'll just leave it at that.

I don't know if I should admit this on here but <deep breath> I drive a car. There , I've said it. And the thought of being expected to pay a higher premium because some idiot (who happened to be on a bike) ran into me doesn't fill me with joy.

If you are worried about your premiums then I'd be looking at the ambulance chasing lawyers rather than cyclists.

We were involved in a minor bump (not at fault) 18 months ago. Very minor, but enough to dent the bumper on what was then a brand new car, so I put in a claim with our insurance company. Somehow our details must now be on some database, which shows that we never claimed for personal injury (because there wasn't any). I kid you not, we have had at least one call a day for the last six months from companies offering to get us money for the injury we suffered. Pointing out that there wasn't any injury doesn't help. Once they've finished listing all the things you can "self certify" (i.e. lie about) and how much you could get (four figure sum seems be be a favourite phrase) they'll then tell you that they are happy to claim for the "inconvenience you suffered". Off course all these awards (plus their nice fat fee) go back on our premiums. To be honest it's almost worth claiming for something just to stop the damn phone calls, but I'd love to know how much of my premiums is due to scams like these.

I'm reluctant to support this as automatically assuming one party is guilty because they're bigger/ faster/ more dangerous doesn't sit comfortably with me.

However, the swaying aspect may be the fact that it will hopefully stop drivers acting like dicks around cyclists, but in addition cyclists will have to stop acting like dicks too. In addition to all the mind boggling driving I see, there's plenty of horrendous cycling moves including

Riding along the pavement then suddenly veering onto the road or vice versa
Red light jumping and riding through pedestrian crossings
Riding the wrong way down one way streets
No lights or high visibility clothing
Filtering up the inside of lorries, buses etc
etc

So if this law makes EVERYONE behave and follow the road laws, then it'll be a good thing

People do the scams in cars because it's relatively low risk (in a KSI sense of the word).

I cut someone up and hit the brakes. The result is a dent in the back of my car and the front of their car. No independent witnesses so it's decided that at worst it's 50/50 but likely to be 100% their fault.

I then claim for my whiplash, my 4 mates in the car also claim. The worst case scenario, realistically, is that we all really do have whiplash. But there's a good chance we're all fine and are lying about the injuries.

Even with a HGV, I'm unlikely to be seriously hurt. That's why there [i]were[/i] so many 'brake test' crashes which led to lots of HGVs having cameras fitted.

On a bike, I decide I want some money so I throw myself infront of a car. The realistic worst case scenario is death or lifelong disability. If I'm very lucky I get away without any injuries but can make a claim by lying (as in the car example).

I have had plenty of opportunities to not avoid a dangerous move by a car while cycling. With the helmet cam as evidence each of those could have meant compensation. Earlier this year, for example, I could have let myself go under the wheels of a HGV. but I didn't think "just stay here and I'll be dragged under, then it's payout time". I thought "Holy jesus **** I'm going to die unless I move", so I moved. Being hit by motor vehicles hurts. Being rearended by a car, while you're inside a car, is much less risky and much less unpleasant.

I should say that I'm also a driver, not some rabid anti-car loon, but I don't think this will have a significant impact on insurance premiums. 😉

The text of the debate (thrilling!) is available online. It was disappinting to see the debate immediately derailed into "but some people ride bikes on the pavement, so we won't do anything to help any of them". Ignoring the fact that if a cyclist hits a ped then the cyclist would be presumed to be liable.

And I think what's proposed is actually presumed liability, not strict liability. Strict = less vulnerable party is always at fault. presumed = less vulnerable party is presumed to be at fault unless it can be proved otherwise.

And that's "at fault" in a civil sense. Not "guilty" in a criminal sense. This has nothing to do with criminal proceedings.

This is pretty normal in other countries and they've not imploded in a circle of cyclists in a crash for cash scheme.

I don't see the issue, don't hit the cyclist and it won't matter, do hit the cyclist because he's riding like a tit and I'll use the camera footage from my roadhawk to prove he was being a tit.

o hit the cyclist because he's riding like a tit and I'll use the camera footage from my roadhawk to prove he was being a tit.

Isn't the point that you see him being a tit and so give him the time and space to be a tit without running him over?

i think the only progress on this thread is some folks do realise some folks drive like tits and blame the others others cycle like tits and blame the others

Isn't the point that you see him being a tit and so give him the time and space to be a tit without running him over?

Indeed but there may be instances where this isn't possible. Or else you would never had road accidents either.

Composite pro. Do you understand presumed liability?
The reason why it affects an HGV more is they're bigger than everything else. So if a car drives into me, I'm at fault until I prove otherwise.

Jeesus wept, there are so many monumental bell-ends on this thread 😐

I think the way this will be seen as potentially unjust is that there's plenty of poor cycling behaviour about (there's a cycling forum with a lengthy thread for "today's worst cycling", and we all see it most days) which is what will cause controversial incidents, rather than deliberate scamming.

Though ultimately an innocent motorist will be cleared by the courts, assuming there are witnesses of course, he will still have to suffer years of loss of no claims bonus - the claim will have been paid out so I can't see insurance companies reinstating the bonus (and, on a side issue, I think insuring against loss of no claims bonus should not be permitted as that can't help improve driving standards generally).

I'm not against the proposal per se but don't feel it will produce the cycling nirvana that some seem to think it will. There are other, more cultural, reasons why continental cyclists fare better.

Composite pro. Do you understand presumed liability?
The reason why it affects an HGV more is they're bigger than everything else. So if a car drives into me, I'm at fault until I prove otherwise.

well kind of but im very cynical of it

for example if motorists were told we will fit a black box in everycar to monitor you driving like a tit and therefor have 100 percent proof of who we can apportion blame there would be a public revolt

see that's what its all about in my opinion finding the easiest way to apportion blame or beat one group of road users with a stick till they perform in a nicer manner and it kind of smacks of hypocrisy when cycling groups are saying education and respect for all

ffs the circus stopped training animals like this a long time ago and even then you didnt educate the animal ,you made it fearfull to do anything else ,its not educationg anyone is it

we covered this last time round bay saying people in europe were more honest and less likely to screw each other over at every opportunity ,

see that's what its all about in my opinion finding the easiest way to apportion blame or beat one group of road users with a stick till they perform in a nicer manner and it kind of smacks of hypocrisy when cycling groups are saying education and respect for all

I think you are forgetting that cars and lorries kill people quite badly, its bloody hard for a cyclist to kill a pedestrian.. (I know it does happen, but its uncommon and quite hard to achieve)

The point is a ton or more of metal is a lethal weapon, and I reckon the law needs to recognise this more explicitly.

In the workplace moving rotating machinery is guarded and heavily regulated for safety, it baffles me that similar levels of safety are not applied on the road. Standing on the kerb, holding my kids hand, waiting to cross, whilst a lorry goes past at 40mph is basically terrifying and unbelievably risky, why is this legal or sensible?

I think the way this will be seen as potentially unjust is that there's plenty of poor cycling behaviour about

Except that in the grand scheme of things there isn't. Not compared to the amount of poor driving around, and certainly not if you do a proper risk analysis ie look at the consequences as well. The amount of risk due to poor cycling is incredibly low compared to that from even "careful and considerate" driving (as defined by a court recently).

The fundamental all the antis are missing is that the current presumption of liability is very different to the reality and this measure will go a long way to correcting that. Overall it will be far more fair - what's not to like about that?