Cyclists and Drivers

So I’m supposed to be doing a Legal Research Assignment, but am taking some time off it to do some…different legal research…to be honest, I’m not even sure if this is proper procrastination.

About a week ago, when I was undertaking my noble part-time job of delivering pizza, a cyclist (motivated by what I can only assume was a desire to remove himself from the gene pool) decided to pull out of a junction in front of my car. One emergency stop and some abusive yelling later, I got thinking about the legal position of such a moron, being that we are supposed to regard bicycles as road vehicles now.

If I were to do such a thing in my car and cause an accident, I’d be fully liable for the damage to any other vehicle involved as well as driver/passenger/passerby injuries. There’s kind of a weird concept surrounding cyclists that’s highly indicative of people who are allowed to use the road system on a vehicle that does not require insurance. Essentially, there seems to be a feeling that cyclists can be as negligent as they please when riding on the roads.

Happily, I have discovered that this is not the case, as legal research, done with my brain and computer has revealed, that while the courts have not imposed any stringent negligence provisions on cyclists, for say damaging someone’s front bumper in the above scenario, they have updated an old concept. That being the concept of contributory negligence, which is the concept that a victim of an incident such as this can be partially to blame for their own injuries and suffering.

There are two main judgments informing this; the first comes from the case of Malasi v Attmed, in which a cyclist jumped a red light and got hit by a taxi. Again, if I had done such a thing in a car, I’d be fully liable for any incident that resulted from it, and rightly so. The red light is there to tell you to stop; if you ignore it, you’re a colossal moron, especially if you’re on a small saddle, rather than inside a metal box that’s designed to protect you from death or serious injury.

The cyclist in this case sued the taxi driver, for causing him serious injury, even though the taxi driver in question saw him and only collided with him while trying to perform an emergency stop.

Technically the cyclist won the case, as the taxi driver was speeding and may have been able to stop in time, had he been driving at the road speed of 30MPH. However (and this is the good bit) the damages paid to the cyclist were reduced by 80% on account of his contributory negligence. Had the driver not been speeding and still been unable to stop in time, this could well have been a rare 100% reduction of damages case.

My thoughts:

The fact that the cyclist sued in this case is something I find very obnoxious. He did something incredibly stupid and negligent; he was either not paying enough attention to the road and traffic signals or was arrogant enough to think he could get through unscathed. The mere fact that he thought he’d see some payout (or more likely was told so by a personal injury lawyer ) as a result of his stupidity offends me.

As to the judgment, I agree, though personally, I’d have gone 90%. True the taxi driver was violating the speed limit, but looking at the root cause of the accident, as the Judge in fact stated in his judgment, the incident would not have occurred had the cyclist not jumped the red light. In my mind that fact that the taxi driver was speeding isn't especially relevant; the cyclist caused the accident; full stop.  I hate to keep hammering this point in, but if I did such a thing in a car, there would probably be precisely on eighth of the amount of consideration given to the fact of whether or not the other driver was speeding. It would be my fault. Not only that, the other driver would be entitled to sue me and then I’d have to argue that he was contributorily negligent, for speeding. So ultimately, what I see in this case is that the rules actually seem to go backwards for cyclists.

The other case concerned with this area of law is a case called Phelthean-Hubble v Coles and has very similar facts, in that a young cyclist “bunny-hopped” from the pavement to the road into the path of a speeding car. Originally, the damages paid to the cyclist were reduced by one third on account of the cyclist’s young age meaning a lesser standard of responsibility should be applied to him, but later by 50% after the Court of Appeal ruled that the his age was irrelevant.

My thoughts:

If his age is irrelevant, why the reduction wasn’t closer to the 80% in Malasi v Attmed? I’d imagine the reason for this is that the cyclist wasn't actively breaking the road laws, only being careless and unobservant. Also being that he was coming from the pavement to the road (much like a pedestrian) I’d say it wasn’t especially possible to draw parallels with what a driver of a car would have done in this situation (as you may have noticed I’m fond of doing).

As far as the irrelevance of the cyclist’s age, I’d say I agree. There’s a case called Nettleship v Weston, which essentially says that learner drivers are to be held to the same standard as fully qualified drivers and Phelthean is kind of meeting it half way here by saying that contributorily negligent cyclists should be treated the same regardless experience or age.

Overall thoughts:

Satisfied is how I describe my feelings after this little journey into legal knowledge. I wouldn't say that I’m happy about the legal positions; all it would take is the Court of Appeal changing it’s mind once to undo the position we’re in now. It might, therefore, be better to have some more grounded direct negligence rules in place for cyclists, rather than applying the rules of contributory negligence in reverse.

As a final point (and this one for fellow LPC students) I really hope these cyclists had to pay their own costs.