Phone zombies vs road users

[Deleted member 651465]

...post traumatic amnesia...

I rolled my eyes so hard I nearly had a stroke.

 

[JonnyT]

That's the bit that seems off yea, hopefully it's applied on a case by case as a carte blanche to just step out in the road oblivious to everything else while looking at your phone seems rather silly.

Scale this up to a car and your doing 30, you have no chance to avoid hitting a pedestrian if they step out in front of you, but in the same situation as above with a throng of people crossing the road, you obviously would stop to let them pass and not try to squeeze down one side of them.

Conspiracy Theory: This case is used as evidence for the blanket introduction of 20mph limits in all urban areas for 'pedestrian safety'...

 

[[FnG]magnolia]

Summing up the case and detailing why Ms Brushett should get a payout, Judge Mauger said: ‘When I stand back and ask “how did the accident happen?” it seems to me that Mr Hazeldean owed a duty to other road users to drive with reasonable care and skill. ‘Even where a motorist or cyclist had the right of way, pedestrians who are established on the road have right of way. ‘Mr Hazeldean did fall below the level to be expected of a reasonably competent cyclist in that he did proceed when the road was not completely clear.’


Read more: https://metro.co.uk/2019/06/18/cycl...pped-front-looking-phone-9996411/?ito=cbshare

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MetroUK | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MetroUK/

Not seeing a problem here but it's annoying that the judge didn't fine them both; him for being an obnoxious cyclist and her for being a yoga disciple.

 

[thenewoc]

Ridiculous judgement reached. I've seen it happen with a cab knocking a phone zombie over too as the ped crossed between stationery traffic (one being a double decker bus) at lights that then changed and one lane was free for oncoming cab to continue as normal until faced with zombie. Even worse now that they have wireless earbuds. Personally I never use my phone whilst walking and have it on silent ring when out.

Pedestrians have to take responsibility too.

The only time I'd say that kind of judgement would be fair would be if the ped was already crossing a junction and the road user should see that and give way before turning in to that junction.

 

[Dis86]

That's the bit that seems off yea, hopefully it's applied on a case by case as a carte blanche to just step out in the road oblivious to everything else while looking at your phone seems rather silly.

Scale this up to a car and your doing 30, you have no chance to avoid hitting a pedestrian if they step out in front of you, but in the same situation as above with a throng of people crossing the road, you obviously would stop to let them pass and not try to squeeze down one side of them.

Anecdotal I know but about 5 years ago a friend of my father ran over and killed a kid. 40mph zone. He was doing less than 40 at the time. Kid ran out from between 2 parked cars straight under the wheels of his pickup.
He was arrested at the scene and charged with dangerous driving. He asked the police officer at the scene why he was being charged and the response was 'you've killed a kid'. The police had no evidence at all. The witnesses all supported the story he was driving perfectly well and there was nothing he could do. Police didn't care.
The twist was that he had a dashcam. It proved there was not a thing he could have done to avoid what happened. He was discharged from court and not only found not guilty but told there wasn't a case to answer for.
He went through 3 years of legal hell over an accident he couldn't have done anything to prevent. The police and court didn't care about his or the witness statements. It was only the cam footage that spared him.

 

[Boge]

Whatever happened to the Royal Society for Prevention of Accidents?

I grew up with this being on the telly all the time. Sort of stuck with me tbh.

 

[Rroff]

Wasn't there somebody on here who had an idiot who was cycling along the pavement smash into their car as they were waiting to pull out of a junction. Pretty sure that given as 50/50 too, despite the bloke on the bike being completely at fault. It's almost as if there has been a ruling whereby Judges/Magistrates have been told to ignore common sense.

There is another user on here who ran a pedestrian down and killed them who stepped out without looking with their attention on a device phone or MP3 player - and having passed where it happened almost daily for over a year I used to see it all the time and was amazed it wasn't happening on a frequent basis unfortunately they were riding in a less than ideal manner which went against them.

These days I drive very carefully in any built up area and as defensively as possible unfortunately seems not infrequently result in someone behind me acting irritably then pre-emptively moving towards overtaking me when we approach the open road where I generally drive a bit faster and often they can't make the overtake which is funny.

 

[Resident]

Only skim read a few lines of one of the articles you linked but it states the pedestrian was in the road looking at her phone and the collision happened when she saw him coming and tried to step back and he turned the same way and hit her.

If you see a pedestrian in the road staring at their phone not giving a flying. Just slow down and let them fully cross the road as if they were at a zebra crossing. Its better than the alternative.

The concept of riding a little slower and/or giving way to other road users is completely alien to most cyclists.

Anyhow, back to the main topic. What the UK needs are laws similar to jay-walking laws from several other countries.

Jay-walking is defined as "crossing or walking in the street or road unlawfully or without regard for approaching traffic." Now the unlawfully bit could be attributed to ped crossings where the "red man" is displayed.

 

[Boge]

Acts and Omissions? Whatever happened to that?

 

[StriderX]

The concept of riding a little slower and/or giving way to other road users is completely alien to most cyclists.

Anyhow, back to the main topic. What the UK needs are laws similar to jay-walking laws from several other countries.

Jay-walking is defined as "crossing or walking in the street or road unlawfully or without regard for approaching traffic." Now the unlawfully bit could be attributed to ped crossings where the "red man" is displayed.

No, stop making this country an authoritarian *******. I will walk on an empty road if i want to.

 

[Deleted member 651465]

Whatever happened to the Royal Society for Prevention of Accide

Still going, just don’t do much in the way of advertising and instead focus on workplace H&S campaigns and advanced driving/riding qualifications.

 

[Boge]

Hmm. Maybe they should start a new campaign. Like staring at your phone when crossing the road , without paying any attention to your surroundings, maybe, just could, lead you into an accident?

Common sense for most really I'd like to think.

Guess some people were just born stupid though. Or maybe they just think that the whole world should revolve around them. Regardless?

 

[FoxEye]

No, stop making this country an authoritarian *******. I will walk on an empty road if i want to.

Chances are you'd only be walking on the road unlawfully if you were doing something unsafe, like the woman in this story. Disobeying traffic lights for example. You don't get angry about having to abide by traffic lights as a road user, so that should be equally acceptable as a pedestrian.

I doubt any law is going to seek to stop you walking on the roads. Heck, down here that would be impossible, since we haven't invented pavements in most places yet.

 

[ubersonic]

Pedestrian walks into road absorbed in looking at phone, whilst traffic lights were green for traffic.

Gets hit by cyclist; sues cyclist for damages; wins.

Judge declares 50/50 liability and that "cyclists should expect the unexpected". Like, seriously, what the actual? Orders cyclist to pay her compensation.

Speaking as a cyclist it makes perfect sense, I mean if it had been a child that stepped out and he killed them would it have been okay to just say the child should have been paying attention and move on?

All road users should excise a certain level of competence/awareness, regardless of if they are driving a truck, a car, riding a motorbike, a bicycle or on rollerblades. If he hit her then he either wasn't paying attention or was going too fast for the area, either way it's his own incompetence/unawareness at fault. Yes she should have looked before entering the road but once in the road a pedestrian has right of way and road users are expected to know this and act accordingly.

Sadly too many cyclists these days lack proper care and attention and just think "the speed limit is X so I can do anything up to X!" despite the fact our braking distance is longer than a vehicle doing the same speed.

 

[FoxEye]

Speaking as a cyclist it makes perfect sense, I mean if it had been a child that stepped out and he killed them would it have been okay to just say the child should have been paying attention and move on?

All road users should excise a certain level of competence/awareness, regardless of if they are driving a truck, a car, riding a motorbike, a bicycle or on rollerblades. If he hit her then he either wasn't paying attention or was going too fast for the area, either way it's his own incompetence/unawareness at fault. Yes she should have looked before entering the road but once in the road a pedestrian has right of way and road users are expected to know this and act accordingly.

Sadly too many cyclists these days lack proper care and attention and just think "the speed limit is X so I can do anything up to X!" despite the fact our braking distance is longer than a vehicle doing the same speed.

There are circumstances already mentioned in the thread where, yes, a child walking into the road (eg from behind a bus) and getting themselves run over/killed would be 100% nobody else's fault.

As a driver or a cyclist (I have been both), you cannot - despite some people assertions - guarantee that you will never collide with a pedestrian, unless you drive everywhere at 1mph. And hire an escort to clear the roads in front of you.

As a driver/cyclist you cannot reasonably be expected to make such accidents impossible, by virtue of your awareness and driving skill. It just isn't humanly possible.

People who claim they are such good drivers they can avoid accidents are frankly deluding themselves.

e: To clarify: regardless of how good a driver you are, there could arise a situation where there was nothing you could have done to prevent an accident. Short of giving up driving or driving everywhere at 1mph. The skill of th edriver can never reduce the chance of an accident to 0%. Never, ever, ever.

 

[BowdonUK]

I agree with the OP.

Though I think it depends how much time the bicycle had chance to avoid her.

It's like when there are parked cars on a roadside, you're expected to drive slower than the speed limit in case anyone runs out. So the question then is if you drove at the speed limit and knocked someone over would it be your fault?

 

[Amnesia]

There are circumstances already mentioned in the thread where, yes, a child walking into the road (eg from behind a bus) and getting themselves run over/killed would be 100% nobody else's fault.

As a driver or a cyclist (I have been both), you cannot - despite some people assertions - guarantee that you will never collide with a pedestrian, unless you drive everywhere at 1mph. And hire an escort to clear the roads in front of you.

As a driver/cyclist you cannot reasonably be expected to make such accidents impossible, by virtue of your awareness and driving skill. It just isn't humanly possible.

People who claim they are such good drivers they can avoid accidents are frankly deluding themselves.

e: To clarify: regardless of how good a driver you are, there could arise a situation where there was nothing you could have done to prevent an accident. Short of giving up driving or driving everywhere at 1mph. The skill of th edriver can never reduce the chance of an accident to 0%. Never, ever, ever.

True but in this instance he saw her in the road and rather than slow down and allow her to fully cross he took a more risky approach and it back-fired. Just because she did something stupid doesn't mean it couldn't have been avoided.

 

[Resident]

No, stop making this country an authoritarian *******. I will walk on an empty road if i want to.

Chances are you'd only be walking on the road unlawfully if you were doing something unsafe, like the woman in this story. Disobeying traffic lights for example. You don't get angry about having to abide by traffic lights as a road user, so that should be equally acceptable as a pedestrian.

I doubt any law is going to seek to stop you walking on the roads. Heck, down here that would be impossible, since we haven't invented pavements in most places yet.

FoxEye said it for me but I will add, most people think that Jaywalking means crossing the road at a point not at a designated crossing. In some US cities/towns this is true only as a 'local' variation. Many US town have jay-walking laws that are only enforced as per the definition.

So in your case, an empty road would not be unlawful to cross nor would it be without regard of approaching traffic as there would be none.

 

[Dis86]

It's like when there are parked cars on a roadside, you're expected to drive slower than the speed limit in case anyone runs out.

See, I don't like punishing people for something that as a root cause is someone else's fault.
If, for example, I'm thick enough to step in front of an approaching train I deserve what I get. You can't very well turn round to the train driver and say sorry dude, should have been travelling at 4mph as someone might step out!

Even children learn how to successfully cross a road.

 

[ubersonic]

There are circumstances already mentioned in the thread where, yes, a child walking into the road (eg from behind a bus) and getting themselves run over/killed would be 100% nobody else's fault.

As a driver or a cyclist (I have been both), you cannot - despite some people assertions - guarantee that you will never collide with a pedestrian, unless you drive everywhere at 1mph. And hire an escort to clear the roads in front of you.

As a driver/cyclist you cannot reasonably be expected to make such accidents impossible, by virtue of your awareness and driving skill. It just isn't humanly possible.

People who claim they are such good drivers they can avoid accidents are frankly deluding themselves.

e: To clarify: regardless of how good a driver you are, there could arise a situation where there was nothing you could have done to prevent an accident. Short of giving up driving or driving everywhere at 1mph. The skill of th edriver can never reduce the chance of an accident to 0%. Never, ever, ever.

I think you either misread or misunderstood, nobody is saying we should cycle everywhere at 1mph, just that we should cycle with proper care and attention in order to reduce the chance of hitting pedestrians/etc. If the gentleman in question had done so there wouldn't have been an accident, this is basic cycling proficiency level stuff.

True but in this instance he saw her in the road and rather than slow down and allow her to fully cross he took a more risky approach and it back-fired. Just because she did something stupid doesn't mean it couldn't have been avoided.

Indeed.