Drivers' Union

I

New Inquiry: Road traffic law enforcement.

 

Evidence of Keith Peat, ex police road safety and driving expert on behalf of Drivers’ Union,

a charitable road safety and driver’s group.

 

Summary

 

Road safety has developed haphazardly and piecemeal for over a century and contains many shibboleths that do not bear scrutiny; some are highly dangerous and contradictory and most are no longer relevant to modern road infrastructure. It needs a bottom up review based on the principle that road carriageways are essential and crucial infrastructure on which all, including rail, air and sea travel, depends. Unnecessary hazards, liabilities and profiteers, should never be imposed on any essential infrastructure  

 

• The Government's priorities and leadership role in improving road safety through traffic law enforcement.

 

The focus on road safety and drivers already amounts to oppression of a valuable resource, drivers. It is not cost effective if we are killing more people by focusing on non accident causes at the expense of true accident causes and infrastructure. Looking from outside the Road Safety Industry bubble, many more lives could be saved off the road with the multi £billions already being devoured by an insatiable industry too.

 

No law should be based on the aspiration of vested interests, profit, ideology or unqualified nimbyism

 

• Enforcement agencies' capacity to enforce DfT policy on dangerous and careless driving.

    

We are not dealing with burglars, robbers and murderers who generally have a prepared story for their pre-meditated conduct and unless found committing, are never arrested until sufficient cause has been established.   All authorities should look much more compassionately towards drivers who at great cost are providing a vital service within an inherently dangerous scenario.

 

• ​​​The introduction of fixed penalty notices for careless driving: how these powers are being used, and whether alternatives to penalties should be considered

 

This was the most ill conceived idea that was introduced by the Government in the sacrifice of justice for police convenience and against all valid and educated advice.

 

How on earth, if the driving was not deemed as careless driving prior to FP, does FP suddenly create the offence of careless driving?

 

FP should only be appropriate for absolute and objective conduct not subjective opinion where the right to fair trial is then under a threat of a larger penalty. That this is a feature of far lesser FP offences must be taken in the context that they are objective and absolute whereas careless driving is pure subjective opinion which should be tested at court and no less.

 

• The impact of road traffic law enforcement on the safety of cyclists and pedestrians.

 

Why are pedestrians linked with cyclists? Pedestrians are already historically provided for in the infrastructure where they are separated from motor traffic and the carriageway generally.

 

The fact is that there are only two classes of road user that society must have to subsist and they are pedestrians and drivers. We cannot pretend to be concerned with good road safety then impose unneeded hazards in the road in a way that would not be imposed on any other crucial infrastructure.

 

• The deployment of people and technology in enforcing road traffic policy.

 

 Before going further, let’s start clawing back all the profit from road safety and use that money to save more lives by focusing on genuine accident causes, and in the NHS, Ambulance, Fire and Rescue and police too. . The Committee must start looking from outside the Road Safety and Speeding Industry bubble.

 

• The impact of devolution of road traffic enforcement activities to local authorities. 

 

This has been a disaster for drivers and a major infrastructure. All roads and streets belong to all drivers and so in reality are national. Roads and prosecution policy based on the personal and parochial aspirations of local political unqualified nimbysim is total disaster for major infrastructure. 

Do we run railways and air travel like this?

Evidence

 

 

• The Government's priorities and leadership role in improving road safety through traffic law enforcement.

 

1(i) .

In my view the focus on road safety and drivers already amounts to oppression of a valuable resource, drivers. It is not cost effective if we are killing more people by focusing on non accident causes at the expense of true accident causes and infrastructure. Looking from outside the Road Safety Industry bubble, many more lives could be saved off the road with the multi £billions already being devoured by an insatiable industry too.

 

1(ii) An example of focusing on wrong causes can no better be demonstrated but by looking at the Fatal 4 campaign where ‘speeding’, simply to exceed a posted number which physically causes nothing, is included yet dangerous and careless driving, which undoubtedly cause death, are excluded. Speeding however is very profitable and that is not a coincidence.

 

1(iii) Law enforcement is fine providing it is sensible, flawless law and not inspired by, emotion, profiteers and ideology and is applied fairly.

 

1(iv) What is wrong with road safety? There is less death on the road from all causes after some 300 billion driver miles a year, than from accidents in the home, than from hanging and strangulation and even than from self harm. There are other social killers too that far exceed road death. So, unless all these other killers and deaths are unimportant, the only conclusion is that road safety is a very profitable income source for a lot of people. So there is combined vested interest profit and anti driver green ideology energising this over focus on drivers and road safety.We have established that as a matter of fact and are able to name groups that enjoy charitable status yet have no CV in road safety and driving but whose power and influence is working dangerously to the detriment of major infrastructure and good road safety. To keep aiming for impossible and unrealistic targets simply feeds an aggressive and insatiable industry, and is not cost effective. Road safety is neither benign nor costless.

 

1 (v) The Government can do no better than to look at existing laws and seeing how they should be applied more frequently and reducing the profit incentive for applying laws for offences that do not actually cause accidents as is happening now. No law should be based on the aspiration of vested interests, profit, ideology or unqualified nimbyism.

 

• Enforcement agencies' capacity to enforce DfT policy on dangerous and careless driving.

 

I do not know what DfT policy is but either there is evidence of dangerous or careless driving or there isn’t. If there is good evidence then the agencies already have the means to proceed as they always did. Unfortunately the agencies themselves often prosecute for ‘speeding’ at very high speeds instead of the correct offence of dangerous driving. Rather like murder commences with assault, then ABH, then GBH first we don’t charge a murderer with assault even though it still applies, 150MPH, 80MPH over the limit, cannot still be just ‘speeding’. Were there to be a death as a result, the charge wouldn’t be death by speeding but by dangerous driving. 

 

2(ii) At the moment police are arresting drivers after an horrific accident, on suspicion of dangerous driving, on no more than a fishing exercise. Clearly anyone involved in such an accident is also in shock and too traumatised to comment; police should not be treating drivers as criminals on a routine basis. We are not dealing with burglars, robbers and murderers who generally have a prepared story for their pre-meditated conduct and unless found committing, are never arrested until sufficient cause has been established.Much of this is due to the word ‘accident’ deliberately being removed from the anti driver vocabulary just so an aggressive approach to drivers can be maintained. All authorities should look much more compassionately towards drivers who at great cost are providing a vital service within an inherently dangerous scenario. Most driving offences are totally unintentional. Punishment isn’t a deterrent to an accident and unintentional act. Simply removing the word ‘accident’ doesn’t alter the accidental aspect but ensures that lots of money can be spent by the industry in a search for someone to blame.

 

• ​ The introduction of fixed penalty notices for careless driving: how these powers are being used, and whether alternatives to penalties should be considered

 

3(i) .

This was the most ill conceived idea that was introduced by the Government in sacrificing justice for police convenience and against all valid and educated advice.

 

Until Fixed penalty for careless driving was introduced, FP historically had only ever been applied to totally objective and absolute acts: The car was on a yellow line, it was stationary in a box, it was driven in a bus lane, it was speeding, litter was dropped, dog poo wasn’t cleared up and so on. This was a massive step change whereby Fixed Penalty was allowed to be used subjectively and on mere opinion and for one of the most serious driving offences there is.How on earth, if the driving was not deemed as careless driving prior to FP, does FP suddenly create the offence of careless driving? This was a step change too far. Then was added the coercive offers to accept guilt, a lesser fine and a course run for profit too. How can any of this be fair or right for drivers? FP should only be appropriate for absolute and objective conduct not subjective opinion where the right to fair trial is then under a threat of a larger penalty. That this is a feature of far lesser FP offences must be taken in the context that they are objective and absolute whereas careless driving is pure subjective opinion which should be tested at court no less..

 

3(ii) Courses. We have been unable to find any legal authority whereby police, having commenced a legal process, can then halt judicial process on payment of money to a third party other than a court. That many of these courses are run by limited companies makes the coercion of them even worse. We jail police officers who take money, under coercion, in lieu of due process.

 

4(i)  The impact of road traffic law enforcement on the safety of cyclists and pedestrians.

 

Why are pedestrians linked with cyclists? Pedestrians are already historically provided for in the infrastructure where they are separated from motor traffic and the carriageway generally. When on the carriageway, although given precedence, they are also exhorted not to linger and where there is no footway, to walk opposite to traffic and move to one side if needs be. Cyclists on the other hand are sharing carriageway, with their backs to motor traffic and often impeding it. It is incredible that any genuine authority interested in people safety should miss that distinction.

 

4(ii) The definition of road cycling is as follows: To place oneself, off the ground on a slender frame and flimsy wheels, travelling at unnatural speed, and mixing, mingling, competing with and impeding large moving essential machinery, operated by complete strangers of varying skill and mental capacity. If it were not road cycling, most humans would never place themselves in that position. It would be totally irresponsible for any authority, no matter their cycling preferences, to fail to acknowledge that reality and attempt to mitigate it at great cost to infrastructure and indeed to cyclists.

 

4(iii) The fact is that there are only two classes of road user that society must have to subsist and they are pedestrians and drivers. We cannot pretend to be concerned with good road safety then impose unneeded hazards in the road in a way that would not be imposed on any other crucial infrastructure. It is appalling that the Select Committee listened to three pro cycling witnesses, two with financial vested interests in their evidence and without asking ‘Why must we have cyclists?’, awarded the Cycling Lobby £650,000,000 per annum when 99% of the public know that cycling, which cannot sustain society, isn’t a viable transport mode. How can we impose such a dangerous concept on infrastructure then, having done so, talk about prosecution when it goes wrong?

 

 

5(i) .The deployment of people and technology in enforcing road traffic policy.

 

There is less death on the road from all causes after some 300 billion driver miles a year, than from accidents in the home, than from hanging and strangulation and even than from self harm. There are other social killers too that far exceed road death. So unless all these other killers and deaths are unimportant, the only conclusion is that road safety is a very profitable source. So are we talking about more expensive gadgets and people for a non issue? Is there one road safety gadget, instrument, sign, camera, meter, kiddie seat, airbag, crash helmet etc supplied at no more than cost on the purely altruistic principle of saving lives and road safety? Before going further, let’s start clawing back all the profit from road safety and use that money to save more lives by focusing on genuine accident causes, and in the NHS, Ambulance, Fire and Rescue and police too. The Committee must start looking from outside the Road Safety and Speeding Industry bubble.

 

• The impact of devolution of road traffic enforcement activities to local authorities. 

 

6(i) ​

This has been a disaster for drivers and a major infrastructure. All roads and streets belong to all drivers and so in reality are national. Roads and prosecution policy based on the personal and parochial aspirations of local political unqualified nimbysim is total disaster for major infrastructure. Do we run railways and air travel like this?

 

A national speed limit policy based on nothing more than nimbyist parochialism is what we have now as well as blatant profiteering from unrealistic speeding, parking, bus lane and yellow box policy all of which could be amended when high volumes of offenders are clearly showing a site fault. When councils are allowing a high offender rate, they are allowing a site failure. This clearly shows that the objective is income and not compliance.

 

Conclusion.

 

7(i) Road safety has developed haphazardly and piecemeal for over a century and contains many shibboleths that do not bear scrutiny; some are highly dangerous and contradictory and most are no longer relevant to modern road infrastructure. It needs a bottom up review based on the principle that is relevant to modern road use and that road carriageways are essential and crucial infrastructure on which all, including rail, air and sea travel, depends