Punishment for pedestrian - fair?

[Efbe]

deltashad said:

I don't think that any right minded person on this forum would deliberately not try to avoid an accident of whatever kind, let alone involving a pedestrian. But a big bloody NO, we are ALL responsible for our own actions. All of us. Lets say I'm driving a lorry, your driving a Fiat 126, you hit me, you were at fault, so the onus is on me? Dont thik so. Every individual has a responsibility to themselves, there may be rare circumstances where 'Dot MacCaulley' escaped from the mental institution and caused havoc with motorists etc. but that is not the arguement here.

I'm going to have to argue the other side of the fence here.

How often do you pull out into traffic, or see someone else doing this, then see the following car either accelerate or make no attempt to reduce speed whatsoever

[heebeegeetee]

xRIEx said:

Complete misunderstanding going on there; the question is responsibility, right? So if a person is not responsible for their actions then there must be a person with responsibility for them and their actions, which is why you see carers with disabled people who may put themselves (or others) in harm's way.

Blind/deaf people who are independent are so because they have learned how to live like that, i.e. taking care in potentially dangerous situations (e.g. using pedestrian crossings with those little rotating nubs on the box to tell them when it's safe to cross).

Of course a two year old can bloody exist, what a daft statement. The parents are still responsible for a child (up to the age of 12 I believe) and parents can be held responsible for the child's actions (criminal or otherwise).

Statements pertaining to "road tax", "roads are for cars" and "everyone is responsible for themselves" are 100% wrong, and it never fails to surprise me at how often these statements are made. This is supposed to be a website for keen drivers, but the aforesaid are statements that surely no self-respecting driver would ever say.

I seriously wonder whether such people should be driving in the first place. I'd also apply that to those incapable of getting about without making a huge racket, and I have no idea what a "deep stair" is.

I've always said that I consider my no.1 main threat to my freedom to drive is my fellow car driver, and threads like this strengthens this feeling.

[lestershaw]

motorists and pedestrians have a collective responsibilty to be aware and alert and to be responsible.
i would think that after an accident that someone will be to blame, sometimes the pedestrian, sometimes the motorist and sometimes both.
what i would say is that ALL motorcyclists and motorists are pedestrians sometimes and so have experience of being a pedestrian and a road user, whereas a lot of pedestrians do NOT have experience of both, which means that the road user has therefore more responsibilty and must drive accordingly

[Liquid Knight]

Public liability swings both ways. We have to pay insurance in case we make a mistake if a pedestrian were to damage my vehicle because they can not comprehend the green cross code (or are too drunk to work a pelican crossing) and it's their fault; then they should be up to them to set things straight.

If people were to take responsibility for their own actions instead of "I fked up; who can I blame?" the world would be a much better place.

[deltashad]

heebeegeetee said:

Statements pertaining to "road tax", "roads are for cars" and "everyone is responsible for themselves" are 100% wrong,

I work on an Oil rig, a dangerous environment, we are taught that, (the same as my parents and teachers did) we are all responsible for ourselves safety and the saftey of others around us. If I see someone doing something unsafe, I will stop them and explain to them 'what could be the consequences of their actions' etc. If we are not responsible for ourselves then who is responsible for us?

Edited by deltashad on Friday 24th February 09:12

[Corpulent Tosser]

Some Gump said:

If you're older and just too stupid to cross a road, it's natural selection.

[Rawwr]

What the hell are people doing outside in the first place? Why aren't they using the Internet? Morons.

[deltashad]

Its not like they can afford to buy anything anyhow

[xRIEx]

heebeegeetee said:

Statements pertaining to ... "everyone is responsible for themselves" are 100% wrong...

Not 100% wrong, but I would amend it to "everyone is responsible for their own actions, unless unable to be so (through age, disability or other as discussed)." The very idea that people can act without consequence goes against the principle of law - everyone has a duty of care to others, it's what allows for compensation to be paid to injured parties in the first place.

heebeegeetee said:

I seriously wonder whether such people should be driving in the first place. I'd also apply that to those incapable of getting about without making a huge racket...

So it's OK for you to say people incapable of driving shouldn't drive, but others can't say that people incapable of looking after themselves in a given situation should have a responsible person with them in that situation? Slightly hypocritical there. In any case, the (legal) drivers have actually passed a test to prove they are capable of driving.

[heebeegeetee]

xRIEx said:

So it's OK for you to say people incapable of driving shouldn't drive, but others can't say that people incapable of looking after themselves in a given situation should have a responsible person with them in that situation? Slightly hypocritical there. In any case, the (legal) drivers have actually passed a test to prove they are capable of driving.

I suggest you jolly well tell that person incapable of understanding that he or she must not go out without a responsible person.

[aizvara]

If you are struggling to come to terms with the fact that, as a motorist, you have a much greater duty of care over other road users than, say, a pedestrian has, then you shouldn't be driving. Try applying ideas of "survival of the fittest" during a driving test. Try arguing that it is "natural selection" before a magistrate.

You choose to drive, and you therefore must assume the responsibility that comes with operating a vehicle; that includes looking out for, and avoiding, cyclists, toddlers, drunks, idiots, animals, vegetarians, chavs, the whole lot. Any hazard at all, in fact. If you fail in this, you will rightly be judged more harshly than if you were a pedestrian who walked into a car (whoever is at fault).

[Marf]

Schnellmann said:

Saw this in my local Zurich newspaper this morning.

http://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/zuerich/stadt/Fussgaen...

For non-German speakers, basically a pedestrian ran across some traffic lights when they were red. Caused a motorcyclist (who was correctly going through the lights which were green for him) to crash, resulting in a serious ankle injury for the motorcyclist and damage to his bike.

In the Swiss courts the pedestrian has been fined for causing the crash and ordered to pay the motorcyclist compensation.

I think that is fair but I couldn't imagine a court in the UK finding in favour of a motorcyclist over a pedestrian. Any thoughts?

Sounds like a sound decision by the courts.

Why then this thread has disintegrated into nonsensical hypotheticals surrounding children is beyond me. Well I say that, I guess it's a PH tradition to compare apples with oranges.

[Boydie88]

There's a weird thing I've noticed a lot around Hitchin. Chavs seem to enjoy playing chicken with cars. With cars only going slow that can stop immediately I mean, but they seem to acknowledge you and just walk out in front of you and just stare.

One silly tit tried it to my brother in his bull barred freelander and got a polite nudge.

[Digger]

A new slant on insurance scams!?

[Alex@POD]

Heebeegeetee, do you drive at 3mph everywhere, so you can stop if a child runs out from between two parked cars?

In response to the OP, if a pedestrian causes an accident, the punishment system should be the same as any offence, where there may be attenuating circumstances. Someone crossing on a red while texting and listening to an ipod should get the book thrown at them, whereas someone not able to make rational decisions will be treated differently (assigned a carer for example).

[oyster]

Dave Hedgehog said:

i almost ploughed into about 20 of them yesterday at lewisham

their light was red but there was a slight gap between me and the car infront caused by a stopped bus 100 yards up the road but i am doing mid 20s

lead wker at the lights is listening to his ipod and texting and just walks out infront of me!!!

all the other wkers see him leave and just followed him without looking ....

i missed them by inches



the amount of suicidal pedestrians and cyclists blatantly ignoring the highway code is becoming ridiculous

I hope your radio was on mute at the time. Unless of course the ipod comment was irrelevent to your argument?

[Marf]

oyster said:

Dave Hedgehog said:

i almost ploughed into about 20 of them yesterday at lewisham

their light was red but there was a slight gap between me and the car infront caused by a stopped bus 100 yards up the road but i am doing mid 20s

lead wker at the lights is listening to his ipod and texting and just walks out infront of me!!!

all the other wkers see him leave and just followed him without looking ....

i missed them by inches



the amount of suicidal pedestrians and cyclists blatantly ignoring the highway code is becoming ridiculous

I hope your radio was on mute at the time. Unless of course the ipod comment was irrelevent to your argument?

What a sh-tty question. Having ear plugs in your ears is slightly different to a car stereo in that you need a helluva lot of volume on a car stereo to block out all other noise, whereas you need very little volume for most headphones to block out all other noise, you tit.

[Mr2Mike]

heebeegeetee said:

Drivers could help the situation by learning to look beyond their bonnets.

Pedestrians could help the situation by looking, period.

I'd welcome this ruling in the UK, if pedestrians knew they could be hurt financially as well as physically, perhaps they'd actually think before acting like lemmings. OTOH I agree that not everyone can be responsible for their own actions, but parents or guardians should be responsible for children's actions at the very least. Being deaf or blind people does not absolve someone from personal responsibility, though clearly in this case it would be a very strong defence. If a mentally deficient person is roaming the streets, then someone is responsible - the state if he is a victim of "care in the community".

[TwigtheWonderkid]

deltashad said:

TwigtheWonderkid said:

redgriff500 said:

If the parent doesn't care - why should I ?

Using that logic, we may as well wind up all the child protection agencies and children's charities in the country. According to you, if parents are abusing their kids, no one else should be bothered!!

Very few car drivers and injured or killed by pedestrians. Seems logical to me that if lots of bundles of flesh and bone weighing around 11 stone and doing 3mph are in close proximity lots of bundles of steel weighting over a tonne and doing 30mph, the onus is on the heavy fast things to avoid the light slow things, and not vica versa.

I don't think that any right minded person on this forum would deliberately not try to avoid an accident of whatever kind, let alone involving a pedestrian. But a big bloody NO, we are ALL responsible for our own actions. All of us. Lets say I'm driving a lorry, your driving a Fiat 126, you hit me, you were at fault, so the onus is on me? Dont thik so. Every individual has a responsibility to themselves, there may be rare circumstances where 'Dot MacCaulley' escaped from the mental institution and caused havoc with motorists etc. but that is not the arguement here.

My point is if I were driving a lorry, surrounded by loads of Fiat 126s, the onus would be on me to excersize extra caution, because in the event of a collision, I'm going to be doing the hurting, not the one getting hurt.

I think they call it defensive driving.

[RemaL]

if the pedestrian caused the accident then I feel that the outcome is good. people need to take more care on the roads or when crossing