Pedal Power
Issue 160
September 2022
www.ldcuc.org.uk
Nonsense Policies
(Based on articles on the Cycling UK Website )
Grant Shapps, the transport secretary for England before the ascension of Liz Truss as Prime Minister, recently proposed a “crack down on dangerous cyclists” by introducing a new offence of causing death by dangerous cycling, and expressed his support for mandatory cycle registration.
With regard to his first proposal, this would be taking a sledge hammer to crack a nut.
Calls for a new offence of 'causing death by dangerous cycling' go back to the case of Charlie Alliston. He was the London cycle courier who fatally collided with pedestrian Kim Briggs in 2016. In the absence of the above offence, he was instead prosecuted in 2018 both for manslaughter and for the offence of 'wanton and furious riding'. These arise from the Offences Against the Person Act 1861, as do 'grievous bodily harm' and 'assault occasioning actual bodily harm'. Alliston was sentenced to 18 months custody, out of a possible 2-year maximum for this offence.
Following his conviction, Kim Briggs' husband Matt launched a campaign to bring in the offence of 'causing death by dangerous cycling', with a 14 year maximum sentence, equal to that for 'causing death by dangerous driving'. In response, the Government set up a review of cycling and pedestrian safety which influenced the recent revisions to the Highway Code. In addition it ran a consultation in 2018 on whether to introduce new offences of causing death or causing serious injury by 'dangerous' cycling. The outcome has still to be published.
The Government's proposed solution - namely to copy-and-paste the existing offence of 'causing death by dangerous driving' to create an equivalent cycling offence – would require legislation that would address a problem that only arises a couple or so times per decade.
It needs to deal with the much wider problem which causes terrible distress to hundreds of seriously injured or bereaved road crash victims every year. New law is needed to clarify the distinction between 'dangerous' and 'careless' road traffic offences, including their variants such as causing death, causing serious injury and driving under the influence, while disqualified, without a licence, uninsured or while disqualified.
In 1991, Parliament replaced 'reckless' with 'dangerous' driving. The new legal distinction was supposed to have nothing to do with the driver's 'subjective' state of mind and instead intended to be an 'objective' test, with 'dangerous' driving being defined as that which had caused 'danger' that should have been "obvious to a competent and careful driver".
Unfortunately this admirable aim was undermined by two flaws which remained in the legal framework. Firstly, Parliament also chose to distinguish 'careless' and 'dangerous' by saying that a person drove 'carelessly' if the standard of their driving fell "below what would be expected of a competent and careful driver", whereas it was 'dangerous' if it fell "far below" that standard.
Yet judges and jurors have inconsistent views of what can be expected of "a competent and careful driver", or whether particular acts of bad driving fall "below" or "far below" that standard. 'Careless' still sounds to most people like a state of mind - and clearly you can cause real 'danger' by driving while in a 'careless' state of mind. This is an obvious recipe for legal confusion.
No doubt many jurors find themselves thinking, "I'm a pretty competent and careful driver, but I could have made the same mistake as the driver in the dock in front of me - there but for the grace of God go I - and I don't want to convict them for 'dangerous' driving if that means they'll be sent to prison." Legally of course that is entirely wrong, though it is also very understandable.
The result it that road crash victims still regularly face the injustice of absurdly lenient sentencing. This is often because the driving which caused their injuries or death has been dismissed by prosecutors or the courts as being merely 'careless', despite having caused 'danger' that surely ought to have been "obvious to a competent and careful driver".
The main reason for advocating for clarity in the distinction between 'careless' and dangerous' driving is not so that more drivers are locked up for causing death or serious injury - even though that is evidently what Shapps wants to happen to cyclists. The objective is to deter. Most people guilty of dangerous driving are not a danger to the public in their normal lives. A much fairer and more effective remedy is to ban them from driving for a suitable time-period, and only allow them to resume driving once they have passed an extended re-test.
Long prison sentences, by contrast, should be reserved for those who have driven so obviously recklessly, or who have already flouted past driving bans, so that imposing (or re-imposing) a ban would not provide sufficient public protection. Drivers should not be able to routinely avoid driving bans by pleading that this would cause 'exceptional hardship'. There was evidence of progress when the then Justice Secretary Chris Grayling MP announced a full review of road traffic offences in 2014. Yet his successor, Liz Truss MP, opted to consult on a much more limited set of reforms in 2016-7.
However, the Sentencing Council (SC) is currently consulting on a draft set of revised guidelines to the courts on the sentencing of motoring offences. Its guidelines influence how the courts use their sentencing powers within the current legal framework. The draft guidelines say nothing whatsoever about driving bans.
Action. Please respond to the Sentencing Council's consultation. Urge them to include the use of driving bans in their revised guidelines. You could make the following points:
Shapps’ second proposal was for policies successive governments have dismissed as unworkable, impractical and costly. He appears to have been advocating number plates for cycles and for people cycling to be subject to speed limits in the same way as when driving. Presumably cycles would then have to be fitted with speedometers as well as number plates.
He also called for a review on insurance for cyclists, though he did not state whether as “a keen cyclist” himself he had insurance when he was out on his bike.
While Mr Shapps' proposals drew support from organisations such as FairFuelUK, which campaigns against cycle lanes and the need for action on climate change, well-respected organisations such as the AA questioned their value. AA President, Edmund King, called the proposals “retrograde”, and said, “Most adult cyclists are also drivers, and therefore more should be done to encourage harmony on the roads.”
With around 25 million children and adults aged five or over owning a bicycle in Great Britain, successive governments have viewed the necessary licensing body and compulsory training system for cyclists and/or their cycles as complex and very costly. Estimates show it would cost not much less than the current system for drivers (of which there are almost 38.5 million) and private cars (over 29 million).
With the Government pledged to reduce the civil service by 90,000, news reports did not make it clear how the Transport Secretary proposed the extra workload would be managed. Reports also did not say who would bear the cost for such licensing – the Exchequer, the individual or both.
The Active Travel Challenge
Active Travel England (ATE) has one key objective: ensuring that 50% of trips in our towns and cities are walked, wheeled or cycled by 2030. It is inviting bids from local authorities for around £500m of grant funding to support both capital and revenue schemes nationwide ATE, chaired by the National Active Travel Commissioner, Chris Boardman, will act as a statutory consultee in the planning system, and review active travel provision in major planning applications.across a multi-year settlement period 2022/23 to 2024/25.
ATE, chaired by the National Active Travel Commissioner, Chris Boardman, will act as a statutory consultee in the planning system, and review active travel provision in major planning applications.
ATE will have available funding of £710 million over three years (which is equivalent to five miles of the M74). It will aim to work with councils that have the highest levels of leadership, ambition and ability to deliver. So its first initiative has been to ask England’s councils to assess their ability to deliver against a new set of criteria.
In assessing applications for funding, ATE will be looking for proposals that enable people to consider active travel as a normal part of everyday life and help them to address real issues such as the cost of living crisis. Much of the discourse around walking and cycling has been about end-to-end trips such as home to work, but attention needs to be paid to multipoint trips that families might need to make.
Rural communities being left behind
On July 21, ATE’s framework confirmed it will act as the ‘Ofsted’ for highways authorities, as commissioner and inspectorate. Its focus is to deliver modal change for 50% of all short journeys to be walked or cycled in towns and cities by 2030.
If we look to maximise the number of people likely to benefit from this initiative, arguably the best ‘bang-for-buck’ investment will always to be focussed on major cities. So are market towns and remote villages destined to be neglected?
Some transport bodies are acutely aware of the challenges they face. Transport East identified only 1 in 3 rural residents could access education or employment through sustainable modes. Can car-dependency even be addressed in these regions?
To address the problem will require some creative thinking and acceptance that no one size fits all. Can existing infrastructure be built upon? Are there greenways or public rights of ways, which could be repurposed for active travel? Can some footpaths be upgraded to bridleways and surfaced appropriately. Could a default 20mhp speed limit on rural roads improve the perception of how safe it is to walk or cycle?
