Surprised to be undertaken

[TripleS]

What sort of thing are you thinking about (in these sort of terms) that would result in a recorded fault in a driving test but you don't think would amount to a Sec 3 offence?

Speeding.

You appear to be confusing a general standard of driving one might expect from a driver who is competent with a standard of care that one might expect from a driver who is competent.

The test is one of due care not due compliance.

Speeding can be a Sec 3.
But the speeding offence is preferred because it helps in removing any legal argument over whether it amounted to a Sec 3 by providing a hard clear line in the sand making it a black/white issue.
The offence provides administrative ease over sec 3.

The Sec 3 wording though is the standard expected of a competent & careful driver, not a competently careful driver.

Speeding wouldn't necessarily result in a 'worthy' fault on test either. It's a question of degrees.
The faults on a DL25 are for 'use of speed' or 'appropriate speed'. There isn't a specific speeding fault box. You don't fail a driving test or get a driving fault for exceeding the limit. You can actually exceed it on a lot of occasions by small amounts & not even end up with a recorded fault, but what you can't do is exceed it by margins that provide emphatic evidence that you are showing neither the care or attention required.

[Bernard Woolley mode]
"But Minister, you can't have a hard clear line in the sand. The next high tide will see it gone."
[/Bernard Woolley mode]

Moving on, I don't like the way that laws seem to be engineered to make prosecutions easy, rather than identifying, with reasonable accuracy, them wot's causing our problems and them as isn't, speeding being an obvious example of this.

Serious point: As we become more clever and sophisticated with technology, and our use of it, should we not be trying to more clearly identify the real sources of the problems and deal with them appropriately, and leave the rest of us alone?

Best wishes all,
Dave.

[akirk]

Serious point: As we become more clever and sophisticated with technology, and our use of it, should we not be trying to more clearly identify the real sources of the problems and deal with them approrpiately, and leave the rest of us alone?

yes, but dealing with a cancer is expensive / complicated / long-term - giving the patient an asprin to remove pain is simple, cheap and a short-term fix

sadly politics is based on the later - hence a society obsessed by symptom fixing / disguising / etc.

Alasdair

[TripleS]

You think he is driving with due care in the circumstances but as the riding doesn't satisfy your made-up test for the offence you would find him guilty. Of course you are free to apply your made-up test but what people shouldn't do is mistake it for the test applied by the courts.

I'm just applying the wording of the legislation, competent '&' careful, if the test is competently careful & not both competent & careful then that's what it should say.

The DVSA are charged by the government with setting out the national standards for safe & responsible driving.
https://www.gov.uk/government/collectio ... -standards

Let's look at another example.

You are travelling on a single carriageway NSL road, ahead of you is a LGV and 10 cars. You are all approaching red traffic lights. As you do so it becomes 2 lanes. Lane one has an ahead arrow (no wording) & the right hand lane has a right turn arrow (no wording). The LGV and 10 cars come to a halt in lane 1, while you drive down lane 2 to the head of it. The lights change to green, the LGV is slow away & you easily move off with no incident continuing ahead with a clear road now ahead of you.

Competent & Careful?

Yes, I would say so. Why should it not be so regarded? It sounds like a perfectly legitimate element of 'making progress' in 'advanced' driving terms. Being two or three vehcles back in lane 2 would surely have more potential for trouble, or at least it probably wouldn't be as profitable.

[Matt62]

The direction arrows example is an interesting one, as they are not always consistent. There is a strange example leaving the M11 at Duxford and turning left onto the A505. Direction arrows initially suggests that the right hand lane of the DC is for turning right, but just before you get to the roundabout there is an arrow suggesting that you can also go straight on. This has been the case for years and the arrows have been repainted several times so presumably must be intentional. Referring to Vonhosen's example would someone be committing an offence if they overtook on the right arrows and then went straight on at the roundabout? A defence might be 'I changed my mind'......

[akirk]

my approach is simple - I notice and take into account the arrows - as they may well determine the movements of many others - I then make a decision and would definitely in that scenario pop down and ahead of the lorry...

when I did the IAM 17 years ago my observer was keen on making use of the road - junctions and roundabouts can (in the example given) be a much safer option for overtaking than having to overtake on single carriageways...

however I would also have opt-outs, to the extent that if necessary for safety I would give way and turn right - and sort out getting lost later

Alasdair

[vonhosen]

You think he is driving with due care in the circumstances but as the riding doesn't satisfy your made-up test for the offence you would find him guilty. Of course you are free to apply your made-up test but what people shouldn't do is mistake it for the test applied by the courts.

I'm just applying the wording of the legislation, competent '&' careful, if the test is competently careful & not both competent & careful then that's what it should say.

You are applying your made-up test.

No I'm not, I'm applying the wording both competent & careful, you appear to be ignoring half of it. The question is what defines competence & care in the notional driver?

...You can undertake within convention, the highway code & on the driving test in certain circumstances. You can read about them in the highway code.

This is neither in the legislation nor case law. It is imagined and incorrect.

I'll put the question to you again. Can you give an example of undertaking that is contrary to the HC but which you think is not careless? If you can't then you are effectively arguing that all contraventions of the HC as regards undertaking are also contraventions of S3 RTA, careless driving.

I'm not saying contrary to the HC immediately equals sufficient for a careless charge. Contrary to the HC doesn't automatically result in a fault or a serious fault in a DSA test either. Getting a fault in a driving test doesn't equate with not competent, you can pass a test with driving faults. It's the degree, as I said earlier, that matters.

So it would be with in judging what amounts to sufficient for careless driving with what I'm saying, but it's my contention that just as the degree with which you are outside the standards results in an immediate serious fault, so the degree that you are outside the standard (whether that be convention, HC, National standards etc) results in you satisfying a careless driving test.

Does the legislation or case law lead to any undertake/pass carried out whilst adhering to the HC as careless?
Can you provide a link/case where someone has been prosecuted for careless for passing whilst adhering fully to the HC?

My position is that I believe that your duty of care & attention includes a duty of care & attention towards observance of convention, the highway code & the national standards for driving & riding (which sets out what it takes to be a safe & responsible driver). I've seen no authority to suggest that these play no part in your duty of care & attention.

Is it your contention (as it appears to be) that you have no duty of care & attention to any of them?

[vonhosen]

You had the circumstances

Not the circumstances one might want to consider in deciding whether the driver should be a criminal. Is there a clear road ahead or a solid queue immediately beyond the junction?

I'll indulge.
I said it's completely clear ahead.

Is there enough space in the junction to get comfortably ahead of the LGV and move back across without having to cut them up?

I said there was, it was easy for the vehicle to get ahead of the LGV.

Ten cars back is a fair amount of time - starting from back there, can the driver be confident the lights will still be red and so the LGV not already moving by the time they get there?

He was confident with the phasing & proved correct.

Can they be confident none of the other cars will move into the right hand lane before they get there?

No different to if he'd entered that intending to turn right'

Did you mean to imply that all such concerns are satisfied and the only possible basis for questioning the manoeuvre is the use of the right turn lane to overtake straight on?

That & considerations of other road users adhering to the markings correctly.

No, I'd be dismayed because interpreting a non-mandatory road marking in such a mandatory manner would be draconian and irrational.

Just as in a driving test I'd expect 'degrees' test, how far does it fall outside what is expected in relation to care & attention of a competent careful driver.

You would fail your driving test in the circumstances I'm outlining as it would result in a serious fault.

[akirk]

You would fail your driving test in the circumstances I'm outlining as it would result in a serious fault.

I would kind of expect that, a test has to be based on testable parameters - this scenario however is one I would be very happy to consider appropriate... I think there is a lot of logic in diluting situations - and taking one driver out of a queue and onwards reduces the queue and makes it more manageable for others - also would help me - wins all around...

however - any other cars in that right lane and even if in theory we might both get past, I wouldn't risk it as the other car could easily be turning right without signalling...

Alasdair

[GJD]

Did you mean to imply that all such concerns are satisfied and the only possible basis for questioning the manoeuvre is the use of the right turn lane to overtake straight on?

That & considerations of other road users adhering to the markings correctly.

Not sure what that means? Considering what the other road users are doing - for example, are they definitely staying in lane - is all part of what I was getting at about the individual circumstances.

[vonhosen]

Did you mean to imply that all such concerns are satisfied and the only possible basis for questioning the manoeuvre is the use of the right turn lane to overtake straight on?

That & considerations of other road users adhering to the markings correctly.

Not sure what that means? Considering what the other road users are doing - for example, are they definitely staying in lane - is all part of what I was getting at about the individual circumstances.

I'm talking encouraging compliance with signs/markings. If we didn't want people to do, for instance, particular things in particular lanes we wouldn't go to the expense of having markings in them. The purpose of the marking is discourage what was being done.

[Matt62]

But what about other uses of road paint such as hatching etc? Would a safe overtake in a hatched area (without solid lines) be frowned upon because the hatching might be deemed to be there to discourage such 'activities'? I think there might be some blurring here between instruction and information?

[vonhosen]

But what about other uses of road paint such as hatching etc? Would a safe overtake in a hatched area (without solid lines) be frowned upon because the hatching might be deemed to be there to discourage such 'activities'? I think there might be some blurring here between instruction and information?

The wordings for the relevant markings explain under what circumstances you can enter them.

[GJD]

I'm talking encouraging compliance with signs/markings. If we didn't want people to do, for instance, particular things in particular lanes we wouldn't go to the expense of having markings in them. The purpose of the marking is discourage what was being done.

The purpose of the marking is to discourage the general use of both lanes for straight ahead traffic. If the junction layout is not able to support two flows entering at that point, that is a sensible thing to discourage. What was being done was something else entirely - something that the junction layout is perfectly able to support.

[fungus]

I think that many highways authorities use hatch markings with broken lines to discourage overtaking where the road layout would not be elligable for solid lines, in the knowledge that most drivers would assume that this is what they mean.

[vonhosen]

I'm talking encouraging compliance with signs/markings. If we didn't want people to do, for instance, particular things in particular lanes we wouldn't go to the expense of having markings in them. The purpose of the marking is discourage what was being done.

The purpose of the marking is to discourage the general use of both lanes for straight ahead traffic. If the junction layout is not able to support two flows entering at that point, that is a sensible thing to discourage. What was being done was something else entirely - something that the junction layout is perfectly able to support.

Yet the designers/engineers have seen fit to do so for reasons that may not be immediately apparent to you.
Whilst others have respected that, you have not.
The fact you (I or anyone else) get away with something doesn't mean they weren't right to use the markings with the layout.