Strict Liability: if you want it, ask for it.

If there's one reason why more people don't cycle, and one reason only, it's because the majority of people don't feel safe cycling on our roads.  There are many things that can be done to combat this; the provision of better cycle infrastructure, as I've previously espoused, will go a long way.  Maps providing 'quiet routes', free or subsidised cycle training, and behavioural campaigns can all help too, but to a much lesser extent.  The big wins come from reducing the fear of cycling.

I don't think it is irrational to be afraid of cycling in traffic.  I'm a 6ft tall twenty something lad.  I keep fit and can pick up the pace with the best of them when I want to.  I consider myself to be a strong, attentive and considerate cyclist; always looking ahead in the road and assessing what obstacle I might need to navigate next.  But that's not to say I don't sometimes feel genuinely terrified on our roads, no matter what my 'right' might be to ride there.  Being overtaken at speed whilst riding wide on the narrow back streets of Covent Garden by a 40-tonne supermarket truck whilst the driver screams out of his window "Get out of MY way!" is an experience that would deter most people.  It deterred me for a while.  If I had kids would I let them cycle in similar conditions?  Would my dear old Mum who rides at a stately but sedate pace be able to dodge and swerve at speed to avoid getting sucked under said supermarket lorry as I did?  Would I even feel comfortable letting her try?

Navigating Holborn Circus

And even if my Mum, or my hopefully never-to-materialise-rhetorical-children did feel they could manage the streets, how much of a disincentive would it be to their riding if they knew that were they to be hit by a car, or a bus, or a truck that they would have to chase the Police to collect evidence properly, be treated like idiots by coroners, endure months of Court Room anguish only to have their collision essentially pooh-poohed and shrugged off as 'one of those things'?  That's what Eilidh Cairn's family have just been through, and the lorry driver who ran over and killed their beautiful daughter, their marvellous sister, was fined just £200 for driving with defective eye sight and was not even prosecuted for the collision.

The family of Catriona Patel are in Court this week going through the same broken, painful Judicial system essentially trying to prove that someone who was unfit to drive is guilty because his actions led to her death.  It's a sick set up that puts all of the onus on the bereaved to pursue Justice as fast as they can as it flees in the name of 'fairness'.

Critical Mass against lorry danger, March 2010. Lauriston Road, Hackney, where flowers were laid on the spot where Shivon Watson was hit and killed by a skipper lorry.

If tomorrow I take a gun, point it at a cyclist and pull the trigger, I would do so in the knowledge of what the consequences of such actions would be.  The Law would not hesitate to find me guilty and serve up a suitable punishment.

If I drive past a cyclist in a car I know that bikes, by their very nature, can behave erratically (swerving pot holes, wobbling in the wind etc).  I should follow the advice given in the Highway Code and give that cyclist as much room as I would another car should I decide to overtake.  If I come to the traffic lights and pull up to the Advanced Stop Line, having passed my driving test and therefore having been deemed to understand the rules of the road, I should wait outside the box and "mirror, signal, manoeuvre" before driving off on green, checking for other road users before I set off.  Common sense, you'd think?  But there are plenty of  instances where a driver has hit a cyclist or a pedestrian in similar circumstances and gotten away with little more than a wrap across the knuckles.

Carlton Reid's take on Strict Liability, from his website I Pay Road Tax

"Strict Liability" (Wiki) is a legal process in force in all but 4 EU Countries for road traffic law, of which the UK is one.  Essentially it introduces a 'food chain' to the road environment; the more dangerous the vehicle you drive the more onus there is on you, as the source of danger, to be the one to look out for more vulnerable road users.  Cyclists are expected to look out for pedestrians, car drivers for cyclists, truckers in 40-tonne rigs for everybody else.  Under Strict Liability if you hit a cyclist in a car it's up to you to prove that you are innocent, as oppose to the injured cyclist (or their bereaved family) trying to prove that the bigger threat was guilty. 

Opponents to the EU 5th Motoring Directive, which will potentially bring 'Strict Liability' to our shores, will tell you that it will give errant cyclists free reign to ride as they please, even if it puts them and other road users in danger.  This is clearly nonsense; if the actions of a cyclist directly lead to the collision then the Courts of Law are still there to prove this and find the perpetrator of a collision guilty.  Furthermore I see potentially few cyclists flinging themselves into the paths of oncoming motorists in order to make a point.  Opponents also say that our laws are based on the bold principal of everyone being "innocent till proven guilty" but this is just a convenient soundbite.  If you rear-end a car in the UK you are guilty by default for being too close to the car in front, no matter how erratically or oddly that car might have been driving.  Strict Liability will introduce the same concept for more vulnerable road users, and already exists in other sectors of law such as commercial law with regards to dangerous practices.

Once upon a time in the UK it was socially acceptable to drink and drive; everyone did it and therefore it was what a Lawyer friend of mine called "a shruggable offence", that is to say something so common that it hardly seemed a big deal.  Social attitudes have changed on that front, and they can again for Strict Liability.  Right now if you overtake within inches of a cyclist it is a "shruggable offence".  No one will think any more of it, nor that it is especially serious.  Indeed, we even have cycle campaigns built around the whole inevitability of it all with "Sorry Mate I Didn't See You".  Strict Liability could help to change this, essentially forcing people to take the level of care they know they ought to around more vulnerable road users.  Twisting the arm of the worst perpetrators of road incidents is a course of action I'm prepared to ake if it increases the desirability and feasibility of walking and cycling for more people, and most importantly if it helps to make our roads safer.

The headline-driven backlash against even the idea of Strict Liability will, when the time comes, be so loud and so poisonous that it could, in true tabloid fashion, seriously compromise the likelihood of it ever being introduced here.  Indeed Petronella Wyatt of the Daily Mail has already had a good bash at it and wasn't afraid to use lies, damn lies, to push her agenda on this subject.  There will be many others too, and if they all shout loud enough don't be surprised if our leading politicians stand up in the House of Commons and say the very thought of this legislation makes them sick.

The key to getting legislation passed is to ensure that our elected officials have heard loudly and often from their constituents that said legislation is desirable to them.  Before the tabloids start their engines it would be no bad thing if every cyclist in the country dropped their MP and MEP a quick line telling them how MARVELLOUS they think Strict Liability is and how you simply won't be able to WAIT to vote for them again should they help usher in this legislation.  Do it, do it now, before Petronella Wyatt and her ilk get there before you.

You can write to you MP or MEP using the automated email service They Work For You.

With regards to lorry danger; Catriona Patel's hearing takes place this week at Inner London Crown Court.  The London Cycling Campaign is calling for signatures to a petition requesting all London Councils introduce cyclist awareness training for their lorry drivers.  Why not sign it over here? 

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