"Car Crash Britain"

[Graham Wright]

Last night we were presented with some horrific accidents recorded by in-vehicle cameras.

Some of these involved the vehicle with the camera, colliding with the vehicle in front.

That would never happen to expert drivers like wot we all are, would it?

Surprisingly, some culpability was laid at the door of the vehicle in front.

How can that be justified?

[akirk]

it is no longer automatically the fault of the car behind I believe - haven't we seen a lot of cases of people causing accidents from in-front to then claim for whiplash etc.

I would hope that it would normally be possible for the car behind to avoid a collision - however a simple example could be the car in front reversing into you!

Alasdair

[Ancient]

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.").

[Astraist]

It is not necessarily the fault of the driver behind. A few examples that come to mind, all from real life:

Lead driver braking hard needlessly.
Driver swerving (while braking and/or sliding) into the way of the driver "behind".
Lead driver misses turn, brakes hard and puts car into reverse.
Lead driver involved in a collision that stops them more quickly than otherwise possible.
Lead driver with faulty brake lights, which of course shatter after the collision...

However, an advanced driver should be able to cope with these situations through all-around observation, maintaining sufficient space around the vehicle and, in the extreme cases, some practice at sudden braking and avoidance braking.

In the most extreme of cases, the car's secondary safety measures would come into play and since the advanced driver would have managed to wipe off a good deal of speed and take a glancing blow rather than straight-on, it's unlikely to result in anything serious or tragic.

The advanced driver can also avoid being shunted from behind, by keeping larger front margins for the driver behind, by slowing down early and not pulling at the end the queue and, if the driver is forced to stop at the end of the queue - stop early and wait for two more cars to stop behind them.

[Rick101]

I'm not sure those excuses are acceptable for a advanced driver.

If the lead car does an emergency stop, you should still be able to come to a stop safely behind them, furthermore you should be able to do it in a controlled fashion so as not to have an impact from the rear.

[jcochrane]

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.").

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.

[BigWheeler]

It's a myth that it's always been automatically the fault of the driver behind. It's just that it was difficult to prove that the driver in front caused an accident, as it usually was the driver behind's fault. Now, with dashcams, things are different.

I was once a witness to an accident. I was exiting a layby on a 70mph DC, two lanes in each direction. It was one of those laybys that go off behind some trees. About ten feet beyond the layby, there was a broken-down HGV, stopped in the left lane, meaning I had to drive straight into lane 2 (he'd had a blowout going past the layby).

There were three cars fast approaching, already in lane 2, and I was at the give-way line, waiting for them to pass. Then the first car stopped to let me out!

Well, you can guess what happened. All three piled into each other and it went to court, as the lady in the first car said it wasn't her fault, saying the other two were too close (which they patently were, as they didn't manage to stop in time).

Their argument was that, given that they were too close, stopping suddenly was bound to cause an accident, so it was a stupid thing to do. The court agreed, and so did I. I mean, you should drive according to the situation you're in, not the situation you should be in.

[akirk]

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 does play a role / have responsibility on how their actions affect those behind them, and therefore can be liable...

Alasdair

[fungus]

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

+ 1 All three to blame.

A DVSA examiner will fail a candidate who brakes for an amber traffic light if they are too close to brake safely and just brake with a driver following, causing them to brake very sharply.

[TripleS]

....you don't control the scene behind you driving into you (i.e. you can't stop them rear-ending you)
Alasdair

No, you don't have complete control over what's going on behind you; but you can make it very hard for them to sustain their claim of innocence after they've shunted you.

[Ancient]

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.

I'm quite sure that many of the individuals involved are "pleasant and level headed", but the 'system' is broken and it is no longer expected that a 'competent and careful' driver will be paying attention to what is in front of them. Even 86-year-old pensioners can apparently appear in "a flash of colour" to an undistracted driver (who is using hands-free, so that's OK then - after all, we can all multi-task whilst driving through demanding environments, can't we?).
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-east-wales-31444556

[fungus]

It would appear that the jurors believed that because the driver wasn't using her hands to operate her phone, she was driving in a manner that meant she had full control of her car, and have completely dismissed the distraction that having a phone conversation has, which is greater than talking to a passenger.