Accident liability (Scotland Tonight 15/4/13 & STV Player)

Teddy Westside

If you have access to STV, you can see what is effectively round 2 of a discussion between Alan Douglas, former BBC Scotland reporter and now motoring writer/campaigner and Scottish cycling blogger David Brennan on the bicycle versus motorist debate.

I only caught the last 90 seconds of it so will be recording it on STV+1

"Round 1" was on BBC's Newsnight Scotland and did end up as a lop-sided event with presenter Gordon Brewer clearly siding more with the motoring lobby. Viewable on YouTube

David Brennan's response to the Newsnight show is here.

Teddy Westside

Well, that was certainly more civil than the BBC interview a few weeks ago. As I expected, it was generated by the proposal to place liability on the driver following an accident, unless proven otherwise: as reported on bikeradar.

Naturally, Douglas thinks it's unfair and, like many car-owning responders to the proposals, happily skirts round the fact this doesn't automatically make the driver guilty and is more about easing insurance claims than criminalising all drivers.

Teddy Westside

Viewable now on STV Player, specifically from the 23:06 mark.

Wirral_paul

Teddy Westside wrote:

Naturally, Douglas thinks it's unfair and, like many car-owning responders to the proposals, happily skirts round the fact this doesn't automatically make the driver guilty and is more about easing insurance claims than criminalising all drivers.

What a great idea - so a motorist who isnt to blame in any way can end up paying the cost through increased insurance premiums for the next 5 years (unless they can prove they weren't responible in any way). Insurance companies are far too quick to accept "knock for knock" as often as they can it seems - to save any legal arguments and hence reduce costs when looking at the bigger picture overall (ie a business decision). I cant see this being any different if this law is brought in - they will pay out and pass on the costs to motorists.

Frankly whilst i'm a cyclist and do several thousand miles a year, i think this is a ridiculous proposal. Would you be happy if an out of control cyclist hit your car, claimed, and bumped your premiums up by say £200 per year?? i'm more inclined to suggest that compulsary 3rd party insurance for cyclists (and any other road user) would be more acceptable to me.

snorri

Wirral_Paul wrote:

What a great idea -

It is, and has existed in the majority of European countries for some time, the rest of your post misrepresents the scheme.

priory

''so a motorist who isn't to blame in any way can end up paying the cost''

or we could have the opposite: motorists going to the shops in 2 ton machines with the power of 180horses ; when they ram a cyclist from behind because the sat-nav in the windscreen hid him from view or they just were not paying attention for a moment they could just say he appeared to lose control and swerved in front of them and if he has no witnesses , even if he can speak , the cyclist(or his widow) gets nothing and the driver gets expressions of sympathy from the coroner.
come to think of it, that's the system we have isn't it.
and that is not a misrepresentation, but one of many actual cases.

the principle underlying the proposal that we get in line with most civilised countries is that if you take a tiger for a walk you are liable if it bites someone, so make sure it doesn't.

The Mechanic

At the risk of thread resurection, the debate on strict liability in the Scottish parliament was a couple of weeks ago and the end result was a statement from the Minister to the effect that he was not convinced.