Careless driving after a crash

ontheroad1970

Mickey666 said:

TooManyPoints said:

Why not make it mandatory to report all motoring insurance claims to the police where a third party is involved?

What you're suggesting is completely impractical. In 2019 there were around 400,000 rear end shunts in the UK and these account for around a quarter of all road traffic collisions. So we're looking at around 1.5m collisions a year and the majority of these I would imagine, involve insurers. For the scheme to be effective every one of these incidents would have to be investigated to see if a prosecution is warranted. Even if it was automatically assumed that every rear end shunt was the fault of the driver in the rear, that would mean about 400,000 additional cases would have to be investigated and could result in either course, fixed penalty or prosecution action. If you're only going to deal with those it would be seen as unjust as possibly many more serious incidents, where blame is not so straightforward, would go without investigation. Since police often cite lack of resources to investigate far more serious crimes properly, I think this may be a non-starter.

In 2018 we managed to deal with 2.1 MILLION speeding offences [1], so 400,000 rear-end shunts should not be impossible to deal with, if there was the will to do so, or even 1.5m collisions.  You're right that every one of these incidents would have to be investigated, but you are also perhaps forgetting that they already ARE investigated - by the insurance companies themselves.  

All I'm suggesting is that when the at-fault driver has been identified by the insurance companies, which they always must be in order to determine the insurance payout, that they are also notified to the police (in much the same way that speed cameras notify the police of the offence) so that 3-points can be added to their licence.  The driver could then be issued with a NIP, as with speeding offences, and given the opportunity to defend themselves in court if they wish, or simply accept the penalty points.  The whole scheme could be paid for by also issuing a fine - after all, it doesn't seem too unreasonable for someone causing an accident having to pay, say, £150-£200 for the trouble caused.

[1] https://www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/latest-fleet-news/2019/10/25/speeding-tickets-in-2018-show-year-on-year-rise

Speeding offences are absolute offences, therefore they take up little or no time at all.  Fault finding in RTC is very very different.  

Mickey666

No one would seriously think that such a radical change to any current system is going to be adequately defined by a few posts on a public forum.  What's disappointing, however, is that no one has attempted to discuss the merits of the proposal, preferring instead to focus on why it might be difficult to implement.

If that's a fair representation of public opinion then we will continue to have a system where consistently 'dangerous' drivers who rack up numerous damage-causing accidents get off scot-free while consistently 'safe' drivers who have never caused an accident can rack up penalty points on their licences through minor speeding offences, which are more focused on revenue than safety.

Still, as long as insurance companies (ie all us premium payers) pay for the damage caused by these 'blameless' drivers then that's all ok, right?  A bit like not wasting police time on 'trivial' house burglaries because they have more important things to do and because insurance companies (ie all us premium payers) deal with all the damage and losses caused anyway.

Perhaps this principle of not bothering the police with 'trivial' offences could be expanded to cover other areas of the law and relying on insurance policies (ie all us premium payers) to deal with the resulting losses.  Be careful what you wish for

williamgriffin

Mickey666 said:

No one would seriously think that such a radical change to any current system is going to be adequately defined by a few posts on a public forum.  What's disappointing, however, is that no one has attempted to discuss the merits of the proposal, preferring instead to focus on why it might be difficult to implement.

If that's a fair representation of public opinion then we will continue to have a system where consistently 'dangerous' drivers who rack up numerous damage-causing accidents get off scot-free while consistently 'safe' drivers who have never caused an accident can rack up penalty points on their licences through minor speeding offences, which are more focused on revenue than safety.

Still, as long as insurance companies (ie all us premium payers) pay for the damage caused by these 'blameless' drivers then that's all ok, right?  A bit like not wasting police time on 'trivial' house burglaries because they have more important things to do and because insurance companies (ie all us premium payers) deal with all the damage and losses caused anyway.

Perhaps this principle of not bothering the police with 'trivial' offences could be expanded to cover other areas of the law and relying on insurance policies (ie all us premium payers) to deal with the resulting losses.  Be careful what you wish for

Would you be happy to pay more for this to happen?

ontheroad1970

Mickey666 said:

No one would seriously think that such a radical change to any current system is going to be adequately defined by a few posts on a public forum.  What's disappointing, however, is that no one has attempted to discuss the merits of the proposal, preferring instead to focus on why it might be difficult to implement.

If that's a fair representation of public opinion then we will continue to have a system where consistently 'dangerous' drivers who rack up numerous damage-causing accidents get off scot-free while consistently 'safe' drivers who have never caused an accident can rack up penalty points on their licences through minor speeding offences, which are more focused on revenue than safety.

Still, as long as insurance companies (ie all us premium payers) pay for the damage caused by these 'blameless' drivers then that's all ok, right?  A bit like not wasting police time on 'trivial' house burglaries because they have more important things to do and because insurance companies (ie all us premium payers) deal with all the damage and losses caused anyway.

Perhaps this principle of not bothering the police with 'trivial' offences could be expanded to cover other areas of the law and relying on insurance policies (ie all us premium payers) to deal with the resulting losses.  Be careful what you wish for

You don't want to consider the reality of the situation.  That's called living in cloud cuckoo land.  I wouldn't want to leave insurance companies in charge of criminal convictions, nor any other commercial company.  

Ditzy_Mitzy

Mickey666 said:

No one would seriously think that such a radical change to any current system is going to be adequately defined by a few posts on a public forum.  What's disappointing, however, is that no one has attempted to discuss the merits of the proposal, preferring instead to focus on why it might be difficult to implement.

If that's a fair representation of public opinion then we will continue to have a system where consistently 'dangerous' drivers who rack up numerous damage-causing accidents get off scot-free while consistently 'safe' drivers who have never caused an accident can rack up penalty points on their licences through minor speeding offences, which are more focused on revenue than safety.

Still, as long as insurance companies (ie all us premium payers) pay for the damage caused by these 'blameless' drivers then that's all ok, right?  A bit like not wasting police time on 'trivial' house burglaries because they have more important things to do and because insurance companies (ie all us premium payers) deal with all the damage and losses caused anyway.

Perhaps this principle of not bothering the police with 'trivial' offences could be expanded to cover other areas of the law and relying on insurance policies (ie all us premium payers) to deal with the resulting losses.  Be careful what you wish for

This sounds rather more like you've got a bee in your bonnet about speeding than a plea for greater numbers of prosecutions.  The bottom line is that I, personally, believe there is no merit at all to your proposal.  The offence of careless driving, or driving without due care and attention, is existent and triable summarily.  Prosecutions for said offence are brought and disposal methods available include driving courses/training programmes, fixed penalty tickets and penalties issued by the courts.  The system works as well as it can.  I dare say that action isn't always taken because of budgetary constraints, but that's speculation. 
The point is that the police, when made aware of a possible instance of careless driving, retain discretion as to whether to take action.  You have not, thus far, explained why you feel this model is not fit for purpose.  You have also not explained why you feel it should be illegal, in the criminal sense, to inadvertently collide with property belonging to someone else.  Ramming another's property with a car is illegal.  Hitting something by mistake is not, and should not be, illegal.  Making it so would be a grossly intrusive and unfair action by the state.  
The state recognises, sensibly, that there is a distinction between speeding, a deliberate action; hitting another car by accident, not a deliberate action; and careless driving, a deliberate action that may or may not lead to a collision.  
Where do you feel this should stop?  Should someone who trips on the pavement, falls onto a shop window and cracks it be charged with 'careless walking'?  Should a patron who breaks a plate in a café be charged with 'careless eating'?  
There are certain matters which are, and should remain, private.  The private realm has means of dealing with them vis a vis insurance and the civil courts.  It works well enough.  Accidental damage, caused by a car or otherwise, is a private matter.  

[Deleted User]

williamgriffin said:

Deleted_User said:

Driver who hit me when cycling got offered a course or a careless driving fine/points. IMHO anyone who uses the "sorry I didn't see you" particularly for incidents involving bikes or motorbikes (due to the relatively higher chance of injury) is automatically pleading guilty to driving without due care and attention and should get points and a fine plus a course.

You can't change the criminal justice system because an organ donor was involved. 

It not always a case of careless just because they didn't see someone on two wheels. What if it's dark and the cyclist is in dark clothing and has no lights?

Sorry I didn't see you = admitting you were not paying attention to the road. 
Not difficult to comprehend is it?

What has organ donation got to do with anything?
Who said anything about dark / lack of lights etc? Why do people like you always come out with irrelevant extra factors? What if the bike was ridden by a nun taking kittens to an orphanage? Plenty of cars don't have lights, plenty of pedestrians don't - should we excuse drivers running over walkers for not having lights on?  What if what if what if.

We're talking about normal situation that happens time and time again, car pulls out in front a motorbike, car drivers into a cyclist, car doesn't pay attention and turns in front of a person riding a bike, car does a close pass on a cyclist on a country road, car goes into a bike lane and hits a commuter on their brompton etc etc. 

AdrianC

There are reasonable expectations in play.

A cyclist in poor visibility without lights and in dark clothing can easily be all but invisible to somebody driving perfectly appropriately until it's too late to avoid them.

Somebody who pulls out of a junction or changes lanes then stops suddenly - perhaps without working brake lights - can be all but impossible to avoid rear-ending by somebody driving perfectly appropriately.

vacheron

Aretnap said:

MEM62 said:

sevenhills said:

I have noticed that drivers, more often than not, don't get any sort of driving conviction after crashing their vehicle, even when the police are aware. 

From where are you getting your assumption that any driver involved in a crash has automatically committed an offence? 

Obviously it's not true that any driver involved in a crash is guilty of careless driving. OTOH there are certain things - hitting a stationary object, hitting a pedestrian, crossing a white line in the middle of the road - which can be taken as prima facie evidence of careless driving. In other words, if a driver does one of those things then the court should convict him of careless driving unless he can offer a reasonable alternative explanation. If he does offer a reasonable explanation then it falls to the prosecution to disprove his account - but not to disprove any other unlikely but theoretically possible explanation of why he had the accident.

It may not have been intentional. but the way your post reads suggests that it is inevitable that hitting a pedestrian or stationary object would mandate a careless driving charge by the police (with potential future court proceedings), but from my experience I have never once seen this happen.

I can only speak from my first hand experience, but I personally know 3 different drivers who have hit pedestrians resulting in injuries (one very serious) and the police being involved, and 2 drivers who have crashed into stationary objects (one on two separate occasions!), yet not a single one of these incidents resulted in a careless driving charge by the police, nor did they go to court. The only evidence given was to the police at the time, and in a couple of cases a request for some follow-up evidence by the police at a future date.

williamgriffin

Deleted_User said:

williamgriffin said:

Deleted_User said:

Driver who hit me when cycling got offered a course or a careless driving fine/points. IMHO anyone who uses the "sorry I didn't see you" particularly for incidents involving bikes or motorbikes (due to the relatively higher chance of injury) is automatically pleading guilty to driving without due care and attention and should get points and a fine plus a course.

You can't change the criminal justice system because an organ donor was involved. 

It not always a case of careless just because they didn't see someone on two wheels. What if it's dark and the cyclist is in dark clothing and has no lights?

Sorry I didn't see you = admitting you were not paying attention to the road. 
Not difficult to comprehend is it?

What has organ donation got to do with anything?
Who said anything about dark / lack of lights etc? Why do people like you always come out with irrelevant extra factors? What if the bike was ridden by a nun taking kittens to an orphanage? Plenty of cars don't have lights, plenty of pedestrians don't - should we excuse drivers running over walkers for not having lights on?  What if what if what if.

We're talking about normal situation that happens time and time again, car pulls out in front a motorbike, car drivers into a cyclist, car doesn't pay attention and turns in front of a person riding a bike, car does a close pass on a cyclist on a country road, car goes into a bike lane and hits a commuter on their brompton etc etc. 

Not all accidents involving cyclist are a "normal" situation and not all cyclists are without blame 

thegentleway

Ditzy_Mitzy said:

Mickey666 said:

No one would seriously think that such a radical change to any current system is going to be adequately defined by a few posts on a public forum.  What's disappointing, however, is that no one has attempted to discuss the merits of the proposal, preferring instead to focus on why it might be difficult to implement.

If that's a fair representation of public opinion then we will continue to have a system where consistently 'dangerous' drivers who rack up numerous damage-causing accidents get off scot-free while consistently 'safe' drivers who have never caused an accident can rack up penalty points on their licences through minor speeding offences, which are more focused on revenue than safety.

Still, as long as insurance companies (ie all us premium payers) pay for the damage caused by these 'blameless' drivers then that's all ok, right?  A bit like not wasting police time on 'trivial' house burglaries because they have more important things to do and because insurance companies (ie all us premium payers) deal with all the damage and losses caused anyway.

Perhaps this principle of not bothering the police with 'trivial' offences could be expanded to cover other areas of the law and relying on insurance policies (ie all us premium payers) to deal with the resulting losses.  Be careful what you wish for

The system works as well as it can. 

That’s the assumption everyone makes who’s never been involved with or looked into it but the reality is our criminal system does *not* work very well at all! It’s woefully inadequate and in dire need of overhaul/reform.