Ancient wrote:Of course its no longer the responsibility of the driver to be able to stop in the space they can see to be clear! It's no longer the responsibility of the driver even to ensure they've seen the road ahead to be clear (cf Michael Mason or this list https://beyondthekerb.wordpress.com/2014/01/31/at-the-going-down-of-the-sun/).
Whilst CPS (and hence police) and juries no longer consider basic awareness of what is in front to be a reasonable expectation of competent and careful driving, HMIC and HMCPSI believe too many poor motorists are prosecuted for this unreasonable expectaion (http://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/cjji/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/CJJI_FRTI_Feb15_rpt.pdf "Four of the eight cases arose from a pedestrian being killed by a car driver during the hours of darkness. The ability of the driver to see the pedestrian early enough for him or her reasonably to be expected to be able to avoid a collision was poorly assessed in the decision-making. In other words prosecutors and police investigators (to some extent) imposed an unrealistic standard of driving on the suspects in these cases.").
akirk wrote:one of the interesting discussions with my observer when I did my IAM 17 years ago related to view behind and in front...
his view (which I would support) was that you need to have more awareness than you would expect of the scene behind you...
- you control whether or not you drive into the scene ahead (i.e. you can choose to stop and not hit the car ahead)
- you don't control the scene behind you driving into you (i.e. you can't stop them rear-ending you)
therefore you need to re-balance your awareness of what is behind, and AD / defensive driving needs to also make you think about how you do start to control that scene behind you - keeping yourself more space so that changes are less abrupt is a big part of that - but definitely being aware of how the decisions you make impact those behind - not just assuming that they must stop...
therefore it is quite reasonable to consider that the driver dose play a role / have responsibility on how their actions affect those behind them, and therefore can be liable...
Alasdair
akirk wrote:....you don't control the scene behind you driving into you (i.e. you can't stop them rear-ending you)
Alasdair
jcochrane wrote:I have the pleasure of meeting Mike Fuller (HM Chief Inspector of the CPS) regularly and find him extremely pleasant and level headed so the comments you highlighted in the report came as no surprise.
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