Corporate manslaughter
Discussion
There is a road near me that has a dog leg and people park on the 'inside' of the kerb
This results in the incoming drivers being on 'their' side of the road and the outgoing swinging around the dogleg on the wrong side. over the years there have been several 'head ons' and the speed that most of the drivers do would not give them enought thinking/stopping distance should they meet s like minded one coming out, due to the very short line of site.
I feel that the easiest and cheapest way is to put DYL on the inside of the bend which would give both driver a better site line and more time
The council have in effect poo pooed this idea and the local councillor is of the same opinion. In fact he suggested getting a PCSO with a speed gun or even reducing the limit to 20mph, which i pointed out would not get rid ogf the problem.
If i wrote to the council about this and they still felt nothing was dangerous, should a fatality occur could they be liable under corporate Manslaughter or HSE rules as they were advised of the problem and did tiddley squat...or are they exempt
This results in the incoming drivers being on 'their' side of the road and the outgoing swinging around the dogleg on the wrong side. over the years there have been several 'head ons' and the speed that most of the drivers do would not give them enought thinking/stopping distance should they meet s like minded one coming out, due to the very short line of site.
I feel that the easiest and cheapest way is to put DYL on the inside of the bend which would give both driver a better site line and more time
The council have in effect poo pooed this idea and the local councillor is of the same opinion. In fact he suggested getting a PCSO with a speed gun or even reducing the limit to 20mph, which i pointed out would not get rid ogf the problem.
If i wrote to the council about this and they still felt nothing was dangerous, should a fatality occur could they be liable under corporate Manslaughter or HSE rules as they were advised of the problem and did tiddley squat...or are they exempt
My guess is that in the absence of a history of incidents suggesting deaths or serious inconvenience etc are likely then nothing will be done.
I have lived in a similar place myself where everyone parked on the inside of the bend blocking line of sight around the corner. Stupid people imo.
You've tried the council and been unsuccessful. All I can suggest is you leaflet everyone in the road and all the parked cars explaining how any sensible person would park on the other side of the road.
(Note sometimes people park on the inside because that si where their house is and they don't want their kids getting out the car in to the road to cross it rather than straight on a pavement. If that is the case with you then maybe the council thought the risk to people getting out of their cars and having to cross the road was greater than to vehicles having no line of sight).
I have lived in a similar place myself where everyone parked on the inside of the bend blocking line of sight around the corner. Stupid people imo.
You've tried the council and been unsuccessful. All I can suggest is you leaflet everyone in the road and all the parked cars explaining how any sensible person would park on the other side of the road.
(Note sometimes people park on the inside because that si where their house is and they don't want their kids getting out the car in to the road to cross it rather than straight on a pavement. If that is the case with you then maybe the council thought the risk to people getting out of their cars and having to cross the road was greater than to vehicles having no line of sight).
From what you describe, if cars are being forced onto the other side of the road to get past, then surely there must be an offence commited by the parked vehicle, inconsiderate parking, dangerous parking, causing an obstruction, I dont know without being privvy to the exact circumstances, so maybe a call to the local plod may be in order
martinbiz said:
From what you describe, if cars are being forced onto the other side of the road to get past, then surely there must be an offence commited by the parked vehicle, inconsiderate parking, dangerous parking, causing an obstruction, I dont know without being privvy to the exact circumstances, so maybe a call to the local plod may be in order
Council aren't interested so waste police time? Excellent approach.We have a cross roads at the top of our village and there is an accident about every month on it. The council, WCC, have been petitioned countless times about adding some traffic claming measures and they sight, everytime, the lack of deaths/serious injuries for not spending money.
As horrendous as it sounds this is how they work
As horrendous as it sounds this is how they work
martinbiz said:
From what you describe, if cars are being forced onto the other side of the road to get past, then surely there must be an offence commited by the parked vehicle, inconsiderate parking, dangerous parking, causing an obstruction, I dont know without being privvy to the exact circumstances, so maybe a call to the local plod may be in order
Drivers have to cross into the opposing lane all the time if cars are parked on a road. If you drive appropriately, and leave enough time to stop in the space you can see is clear, there shouldn't be an issue.The road isn't the issue; moron drivers are. Putting a sniper at the end of the road (TM Clarkson) would be much more preferable!
Greendubber said:
Centurion07 said:
Pothole said:
Council aren't interested so waste police time? Excellent approach.
Pretty sure they wouldn't be interested if you reported a murder to them either. 
Have the opposite problem here. We have a road where there was one freak accident and the council leapt into action creating a 1/4 mile diversion to stop it ever happening again. The irony being there have been far more incidents on the diversion since but nothing is done to reinstate the original situation, even after I met with council.
Bit of an inconsistent response around here though. Got one T junction near my house where there have been plenty of accidents and one death and regular near misses but nothing has ever been done. 1/2 mile up the road at the next junction again plenty of incidents, red light running, and its right next to a school with over 1000 pupils crossing the road there daily. Nothing done to make it safer until recently when a girl, now woman, that I used to go to school with tried crossing infront of a road sweeping lorry that couldn't see her, got very messy
as soon as practical after that they put in fancy pedestrian crossings all 4 ways, built a delay into the light phasing and have sensors so the lights for traffic wont go green until everyone has finished crossing.
Bit of an inconsistent response around here though. Got one T junction near my house where there have been plenty of accidents and one death and regular near misses but nothing has ever been done. 1/2 mile up the road at the next junction again plenty of incidents, red light running, and its right next to a school with over 1000 pupils crossing the road there daily. Nothing done to make it safer until recently when a girl, now woman, that I used to go to school with tried crossing infront of a road sweeping lorry that couldn't see her, got very messy
as soon as practical after that they put in fancy pedestrian crossings all 4 ways, built a delay into the light phasing and have sensors so the lights for traffic wont go green until everyone has finished crossing. The problem you have in this type of situation is that the average Council road safety engineer with receive hundreds, if not thousands (depending on the size of the area) a year from people like the OP. The first port of call will be an accident database which can now look back over 20 years of data and unless something has changed at the spot, if there have been no accidents in 20 years, chances are there won't be one in the future and even if there is, that doesn't lead to a trend or pattern.
Simple cost-benefit analysis, an accident has a value and the engineering solution will also have a value. If the starting value is 0 then the sums don't add up. We are talking personal injury collisions of course. If each time an issue someone raised was fully investigated and implemented I can assure your council tax bills will go up.
And whatever you do, don't start threatening them with the Daily Mail or something, it will only put their backs up!
Simple cost-benefit analysis, an accident has a value and the engineering solution will also have a value. If the starting value is 0 then the sums don't add up. We are talking personal injury collisions of course. If each time an issue someone raised was fully investigated and implemented I can assure your council tax bills will go up.
And whatever you do, don't start threatening them with the Daily Mail or something, it will only put their backs up!
The OP appears to be one of those who believes that there is a magic money tree that can and should solve all problems (the OP's tax bill must of course on no account go up). As noted above, local authorities have to look at things with their limited resources in mind, and apply a fairly blunt utilitarian approach.
If there were to be a fatality, the existence or otherwise of a duty of care in the law of negligence might be more important than the existence or otherwise of a criminal liability, but mere damages do not satisfy the relentless urge that some have to throw lots of people in jail.
If there were to be a fatality, the existence or otherwise of a duty of care in the law of negligence might be more important than the existence or otherwise of a criminal liability, but mere damages do not satisfy the relentless urge that some have to throw lots of people in jail.
Camelot1971 said:
martinbiz said:
From what you describe, if cars are being forced onto the other side of the road to get past, then surely there must be an offence commited by the parked vehicle, inconsiderate parking, dangerous parking, causing an obstruction, I dont know without being privvy to the exact circumstances, so maybe a call to the local plod may be in order
Drivers have to cross into the opposing lane all the time if cars are parked on a road. If you drive appropriately, and leave enough time to stop in the space you can see is clear, there shouldn't be an issue.The road isn't the issue; moron drivers are. Putting a sniper at the end of the road (TM Clarkson) would be much more preferable!
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