Possible way to protect vunerable road users

bdu98252

I was cycling to work the other day and was thinking would it not be great if cyclists and other road users had better protection prior to death at the hands of the vehicle. I then thought about how conventional safety is managed in the nuclear and other industrial industries. We are trained to identify all the near miss accidents as these are at the bottom of a pyramid with death and serious injury at the top. Statisticians identified that if you only analyse the deaths or serious injuries with a view to preventing the next death then given the small sample more this is difficult. Where if you measure the near misses with potential to cause serious incidents then you can potentially prevent a serious accident from happening.

If we take this theory to cycling and sharing the same space as motorists then we can see from the cycling forums and our own experience there are more near misses than fatalities. It is entirely likely that a large number of these near misses are caused by the same drivers. If a web site was set up to log these events then this information could be used by the police to monitor where there next undercover car should roam or by insurers to assess peoples premiums. After all if you have five independant cyclists all reporting various incidences against one car then you are statistically more likely to be involved in an accident. This information could also be used by the court system in the case where a driver is in court for injuring a cyclist as it can be shown that the driver is in fact a habitual bad driver and this may even prove and element of premeditation.
Drivers being accused of murder now that may makepeople show some more respect.

I open it up to the forum and please tell a friend. Good idea bad idea you decide.

Kind regards

John Reekie

spen666

Sorry John, This is not a workable idea on so many levels


Firstly, a semi anonymous post on the internet is never going to be evidence against a driver

Secondly, how are you going to verify the posts are not made by someone with a grudge against a driver

Thirdly, the fact someone is a "habitual bad driver" is not evidence of pre meditation to kill or cause serious harm. Even if you over come thie first 2 problems, all you would have is possible evidence that X was a bad driver

There are so many other reasons why such a forum would not work but I will content myself with the above for now.



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I do agree with your initial idea about more examination of "near hit" incidents though

Anonymous

What Spen says.

Soz John.

What would be better are more reports of near misses but also more visible traffic officers who would be able to deal with incidences of careless driving. (whether they should have the power to issue fixed penalties for a subjective offence is another matter entirely!)

Clank

Unworkable and ineffective.

It offers me no protection (the accident can still happen) and serves to villify the motorist.

There is a legal framework already for reporting bad driving, the suggestion adds nothing to a currently ineffective process.

bdu98252

I was more thinking of the website as a bank of information that could be used by interested parties. The problem with the law at the moment is that when a cyclist or pedestrian is injured and the fault is established on the driver then the sentencing treats that incident as a one off. The police generally only investigate injuries where serious injuries are sustained. There is no real effort put into prevention.

A website with a body of data like this could connect the police of a civil procecution with a number of individuals who woud be able to testify in court that they to had a near miss with this driver. On the issue of false allegations I do not really see this as a problem as the driver would be no worse off if the people making the claims could not be identified or contacted to allow the law assess the truth of their statement.

Cheers John

bdu98252

I have found a website that does most of the above at stop smidsy.

Cheers John

Clank

bdu98252 wrote:

I have found a website that does most of the above at stop smidsy.

I really bet it doesn't. Might claim it tries to, but intent and actuallity are probably way different. I stand by my previous statements.

Seen it tried for rights of way issues and that just landed in threats of injuntions from key parties. Solved nothing.