UK to introduce new offence of causing death or injury by dangerous cycling | Hacker News Reader

UK to introduce new offence of causing death or injury by dangerous cycling

theguardian.com

27 pointsPaulHoule34 comments

It's remarkable how it's suddenly an issue when it's an incident with a bike, but all the deaths and injuries caused by cars are just treated as a fact of life.

"Causing death by dangerous driving" is on the statute books, "... by dangerous cycling" is not (yet).

Because motorists cause thousands of deaths every year, whereas bike riders cause about 0.

Motorists kill so many people it is too logistically difficult to prosecute them for murder, or manslaughter, or even using health and safety law. Normalization of deviance in action.

> whereas bike riders cause about 0

citation needed

Indeed, and as the article points out, there are recent cases where the lack of such a law has demonstrably been an issue (the case of Kim Briggs, hit and killed while crossing at a pedestrian crossing by Charlie Alliston is mentioned but I believe there are are others where prosecution was thought to be too difficult due to the lack of specific laws).

There's already manslaughter which Charlie Alliston was charged with. I wish more motorists were charted with manslaughter rather than "death by careless driving" which has far lighter sentencing guidelines.

This is largely just culture war nonsense by the Tory party trying to get more of the right-wing vote.

Alliston was acquitted of manslaughter. Given it was a jury trial and there is little contemporaneous reporting of the trial, details of the manslaughter charge or his defence to it (as opposed to the conviction and sentencing which was widely reported), it's difficult to know why this was. But the bar for proving manslaughter (whether on the basis of gross negligence or an intentional unlawful act) is quite a lot higher than that driving was "dangerous" (and which in turn is a higher bar than that it was "careless") - this is why it's rarely prosecuted for cars.

It does seem reasonably likely that in a counterfactual world where a very similar fact pattern had occurred but in a car, he would have been convicted of causing death by dangerous driving - and his resulting custodial sentence would likely have been meaningfully longer (the offence he was actually convicted of carries a maximum sentence of only 2 years vs causing death by dangerous driving which can now carry up to a life sentence - although at the time of his offence the maximum sentence was 14 years).

Making it a crime allows you to accumulate crime stats for it, which allows you to report on how bad the crime rate is, etc.

Exactly. Using the old “wanton and furious driving” charge makes it difficult to distinguish between equestrian and cycling incidents.

I'm a Yank so forgive me but I assume the UK already has laws like vehicular manslaughter and reckless driving so I don't think this is some kind of cycling bad driving good initiative.

It's the desperate panic-driven attempt by a dying government to not spectacularly lose the next election. Throw enough macaroni at a wall and some of it will stick, and blabber on about enough non-consecutive issues and maybe you'll win some voters.

Other than that it's basically a non-issue.

It’s likely a mixture of genuine and ulterior motives, in this case.

The amendment was proposed by a politician who seems to believe in it genuinely. Furthermore, there is a genuine gap in the law. There’s a case to be made that the law is necessary for even an extremely small number of cases.

On the other hand, the governing party is on the verge of losing power and has made a LOT of moves to inflame a “culture war” to attract right-wing votes. Among attacks on minorities, immigration, homelessness, etc., this has included a “culture war on green policies”[1]. The latter has included reducing investment in cycling and walking infrastructure and opposition to safety improvements on residential roads (such as lower speed limits) if they inconvenience drivers.

The prime minister has claimed there is a “war on motorists” - in reference to local government policies to reduce air pollution, lower residential speed limits, improve bus lanes, and reduce people’s distance to businesses to promote walking over driving - and vowed to stop or limit the above[2]. Whilst there are two sides to all these policies (largely economic and cost-of-living arguments against), public statements often use emotive language to foster an “us vs. them” atmosphere.

In that environment, it is easy to see how this amendment may be a happy accident that bolsters their perceived “anti-green” and “pro-motorists” credentials.

[1] https://edition.cnn.com/2023/08/01/uk/britain-rishi-sunak-cl...

[2] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66965714

Anomalies in the law don't always reflect this kind of bias. The fact is that an increase in cycling and increased (defensive?) use of pavement (sidewalk for americans) to ride on, has led to an increase in risk. And, there is an outbreak of antisocial behaviour in places like the canal towpath which is leading to a problem.

I suspect motor vehicle drivers already have laws governing reckless driving. Thats all.

In the recent case where a cyclist killed a pensioner the police did not prosecute, they said, because the speed limit doesn't apply to bicycles.

However, careless and dangerous cycling are both offences already.

If the cyclist was dangerous why wasn't he prosecuted? If he wasn't then this new law wouldn't have applied either.

This law is just kneejerk nonsense. The problems you describe are worsening because the police won't enforce the laws we have. In particular, they ignore pavement cycling because the Home Office asked them to!

Could you link to reporting on that case?

In the US we added laws to make it less illegal to kill people as long as you are driving. It’s not “manslaughter” it’s “vehicular manslaughter” which I guess we’re all just supposed to accept in the name of progress.

As the saying goes: if you want to kill someone, wait till they get on a bike and then just run them over with a car.

There are laws that deal with cars.

Where I live, in the last 12 months or so, there is a marked increase in totally insane cycling. Ploughing through red lights on busy junctions, going on roads down the wrong way or zooming on the pavement. Often on e bikes that are clearly not road legal (too fast, or go without pedalling). I'm not talking about confused old ladies.

It's dangerous and annoying as hell. I'm a keen cyclist but for goodness sakes, within the rules of the highway code!

That's not really the case. The new law came about because Matt Briggs wife was killed by a reckless cyclist who got 18 months because it was a bicycle but would have faced life if driving a car.

The new law evens things up. Clearer article in the Telegraph https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/05/19/justice-dangerou...

> The government said it had agreed to introduce new laws so those who kill or seriously injure people because of dangerous or careless cycling face the same penalties as drivers and motorcyclists.

As far as I know, hitting someone with a car is currently the least penalized way of killing someone, as long as alcohol or specific intent can't be proven.

So that sounds to me like more lenient and less agressive pursuing of severe penalties, which doesn't match the tone of the article...which direction would that go ?

I guess there aren't many other ways a regular person can accidentally kill someone. You can't accidentally stab or shoot one.

If driving is legal, and people aren't assumed to be superhuman, then lapses of attention and judgments are to be expected, and so you're right - it is as if killing someone in a car is less penalizable.

I'm all for lower speed limits and separated bike lanes. I just guess we can't be surprised that people die when multi-tonne vehicles are driven around towns by mostly competent drivers.

Also many fatal car accidents have some level of shared fault, which is rarer in other forms of accidental death.

For example, one person might forget to indicate a motorway lane change whilst the other is driving at 120mph.

They said Dick Cheney accidentally shot someone.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Cheney_hunting_accident

TIL. But case in point actually - it was deemed an accident and Cheney got away scot-free, even though shooting someone ought to be about as serious an attempt to kill as it gets. Because it was an accident.

Of course people are shot by accident all the time. There are even a few cases of hunting dogs shooting their owners (by stepping on the trigger).

I think it’s more about having reliable penalties. Using Victorian era horse related laws to prosecute cyclists might have a lot of weird case law and language gaps that a defence lawyer could take advantage of.

There is a scene in "Thick of It" where ministers, in a cash-strapped government, are brainstorming laws and policies that cost nothing in terms of budget.

The latest Tory proposals sound just like that. Banning floating bus stops, crackdown on "rainbow" lanyards, dangerous cycling. Perhaps in the future people will only be able to have yellow flowers in their gardens or bake bread on odd numbered days.

In a time where big infrastucture investment is needed they are like the middle management that changes the Jira workflow every 3 months just to appear to be doing something.

I imagine one just claims they had a "medical issue" and the pedestrian "came out of nowhere" and nothing much changes. So long as you're not outrageously the lunatic on a fixie who intentionally laughs at a death, you'll probably get away with it.

Seems a sensible change. If you kill someone by idiotic behaviour it shouldn't make much difference which tool you use. Dangerous cycling is a bit out of hand in London.

Ah yes, it's urgent... See this egregious case, in... 2016. That's how far back they had to look back for a compelling case to illustrate the urgency of this?

> causing .. injury .. by .. inconsiderate .. cycling.

This frightens me.

Me too, but I suspect we have differing reasons. I’ve been very nearly mowed down by cyclists, on the sidewalk, on numerous occasions, multiple of which looked like acts of attempted assault. Cyclists are insane, and between their negligence or their malice, are a clear and present danger to my safety as a pedestrian. Not to throw all of them under the bus, and surely cars cause far more suffering, but cyclists have proven to be enough of an issue that I’d like to see them chill out, or be forced to chill out somehow.

I cycled to work in Central London in 2009-2011 and again in 2018. The infrastructure wasn't great, but I always kept to the road (you aren't allowed to cycle on standard pavements in the UK) and never had any major incidents or altercations.

Car drivers do stupid stuff, but it's also somewhat predictable compared to pedestrians - especially kids. If there is a junction, there's a good chance a car will pull in or out and not see you, so you know to be cautious and triple check your surroundings when cycling past in that situation. If there is a kid running who knows which way they are going to go next.

I had co-workers who regularly got into incidents while cycling, however they all appeared to have some deep seeded anger issues. I think the "holier-than-thou" view a lot of cyclists have is because of this, the sport attracts people with this personality. It's the same way most people who buy a sports motorcycle don't do it to drive behind other cars sticking to speed limits, they drive because they want to feel the adrenaline of swerving between cars.

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