Car Passenger Knocks of Cyclist - An Answer

On Tue, 12 Aug 2008 19:08:39 +0100, Paul Boyd wrote:

One thing always becomes apparent on these cross-posts between u.r.c.
and uk.legal - it seems that generally (but admittedly not always)
cyclists are far more knowledgeable about the law of the roads than
those on uk.legal.

Quite disconcerting really.

I had made the same observation, but I think it's probably to be
expected. I would likewise expect (for example) a keen hunter to know
the law as it applies to hunting better than a self-selected amateur
in 'law'.

It's not uncommon even to find policemen (ie, professionals) ignorant
of some part of the law (Daniel Cadden, there's a youtube video of a
policeman telling someone it's illegal to film a policeman on duty,
I've seen statements by police spokesman that it's illegal to carry a
folding knife with a locking blade).

What's really disconcerting is that so few motorists have the same
detailed knowledge. It's hard to tell, however, how much the average
(or typical) motorist knows when so many of them wilfully disobey so
much of it.

regards, Ian SMith
--
|\ /| no .sig
|o o|
|/ \|

On 12 Aug 2008 18:26:00 GMT, Ian Smith wrote:

I've seen statements by police spokesman that it's illegal to carry a
folding knife with a locking blade).

Is it not? My understanding was that the law was intended to outlaw
StanleyKnife type devices, but the definition of locking blades
accidentally encompassed any blade which can be locked out, eg the
Opinel folding knife.

"Peter Grange" wrote in message
...

eg the Opinel folding knife.

Ob-cycling - there's good riding to be had near the Opinel factory. The Tour
went over the Col de la Croix de Fer this year, which is above it. We were
there last year and got drenched :-(

On Tue, 12 Aug 2008, Peter Grange wrote:
On 12 Aug 2008 18:26:00 GMT, Ian Smith wrote:

I've seen statements by police spokesman that it's illegal to carry a
folding knife with a locking blade).

Is it not? My understanding was that the law was intended to outlaw
StanleyKnife type devices, but the definition of locking blades
accidentally encompassed any blade which can be locked out, eg the
Opinel folding knife.

Not if you've got a good reason for carrying one.

Proceeding to a temporary place of work, where you will be requiring a
knife and it would be dangerous to use a non-locking blade[*] but a
non-folding knife would be dangerous or liable to be damaged in your
tool kit is allowed, for example. At least, it was last I checked,
which was after a police spokesman had said on national TV that there
was never any acceptable reason to carry a locking knife.

Likewise, I believe it is legal to carry a bill-hook to the allotment,
if you have lots of clearing to do, even though large fixed blades are
restricted (though mine is only a 9" Newtown pattern, so relatively
benign as billhooks go).
[*] I once closed a victorinox pen-knife onto my fingers when leaning
on it inappropriately - it is not something I recommend.

regards, Ian SMith
--
|\ /| no .sig
|o o|
|/ \|

"Peter Grange" wrote in message

Is it not?

Where are you from? that construction - as opposed to "Isn't it?"- is
(apparently) specific to Preston & environs


pk

On 12 Aug 2008 19:17:36 GMT, Ian Smith wrote:

On Tue, 12 Aug 2008, Peter Grange wrote:
On 12 Aug 2008 18:26:00 GMT, Ian Smith wrote:

I've seen statements by police spokesman that it's illegal to carry a
folding knife with a locking blade).

Is it not? My understanding was that the law was intended to outlaw
StanleyKnife type devices, but the definition of locking blades
accidentally encompassed any blade which can be locked out, eg the
Opinel folding knife.

Not if you've got a good reason for carrying one.

I believe the "good reason" clause comes into a lot of things. Where
you are in trouble though is if you take the knife to the allotment,
come home, mistakenly leave it in the car then drive to work the next
day. Merely having it in the car is an offence, without any need to
show an intent to use it. If you have a penknife with the same size
(small) blade which does not lock, no offence is committed, as I
understand it.

On Aug 12, 3:47*pm, Sniper8052 wrote:
On 11 Aug, 18:36, judith wrote:



On Mon, 11 Aug 2008 09:51:40 -0700 (PDT), "

wrote:
On Aug 11, 9:23 am, judith wrote:
I submitted the following query to The Police National Legal Database
(PNLD)

----------------------------------------------
If a passenger in a car opens a door and knocks a cyclist off their
bike -
can the driver of the car be prosecuted for this action of the
passenger.
Who would be prosecuted - and with what offence?

(The passenger is an adult with full mental faculties)

---------------------------------------------------
They have replied as follows:

Judith

Regulation 105 of the Road Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations
1986 creates an offence of opening a vehicle door so as to injure or
endanger any person. This would lend that individual who opened the
door being prosecuted at court. If it could be shown that the driver
also initiated the opening of that door s/he too could be prosecuted
for the same offence.

The Police National Legal Database (PNLD)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

NB If it could be "shown" that the driver "also initiated the opening
of the that door"

As expected no mention of the driver being held responsible for the
action of the passenger unless the driver was also to blame and this
could be shown.

What you have here is not a reply that proves your opinion but a reply
that reflects the opinion of the person who replied to your e-mail.
That person may/may not be either a police officer or a legal graduate
they may be a civilian employee. *In any event the response is
incorrect, the driver is liable if he cause or permits IE: Permits -
fails to take action to prevent a door being opened to danger.

I am not too sure what point you are trying to make with the points
below:

Please can extract the sentences which you believe back up you pov as
I can't see any.

I am not being rude *- but I am more inclined to believe an answer
from a Police department whose purpose is to provide such answers than
I am from your memory of a case some years ago.

As far as I am aware, no-one but no-one with any standing from
uk.legal, uk.legal.moderated, and now the Police themselves supports
your view.

Do you not think that there is a chance that you are mistaken - and
everyone else is right.

Why do you not seek advice from your own force - and tell us what they
say?

* * * * I find it difficult to understand why the principles involved are so
difficult, the reply that you have received is wrong, that is it is
only partially correct as it deals only with the ‘cause’ and not the
‘permit’ area of law. *I have explained that it also represents the
opinion of the person drafting the reply and is not a proof of ‘the
law’ purely because it has come from the PNLD.

* * * * The proof of this is in the examples that I included with the post,
both of which were case law supplied from a reply to your post on
UK.Legal. The taxi driver ‘H’ was found liable for the damage to
another vehicle not because he caused the damage or opened the door
but because he failed to take action, either physical or verbal, to
prevent the door being opened, thus he ‘permitted’.

‘As H had acknowledged that the area was unsafe, he should have taken
steps to prevent the passenger opening the door into a line of
traffic, by either keeping the doors locked or by telling the
passenger not to get out on the nearside of the cab; accordingly H was
negligent.’

Deputy District Judge Joslin

February 21, 2001

* * * * *This shows that the answer received from PNLD was incorrect
as the driver could not be argued as having ‘initiated’ the opening of
the door from this judgement and was liable because he failed to
prevent or permitted the door to be opened.

Sniper8052

So, maybe that answers my earlier question (the niggle I had with the
reply Judith had received from the PNLD) that if a driver is not
liable for prosecution for the willful conduct of the passenger, s/he
may still be liable for said passengers stupidity, (or simply didn't
know something was coming).

On Tue, 12 Aug 2008 03:34:17 -0700 (PDT), aquachimp
wrote:

On Aug 11, 11:19*pm, Alex Heney wrote:
On Mon, 11 Aug 2008 08:54:57 -0700 (PDT),aquachimp



wrote:
On Aug 11, 4:36*pm, Tom Crispin
wrote:
On Mon, 11 Aug 2008 15:11:46 +0100, "PK" wrote:
but in terms of the offence that ti
passenger alone

Again I doubt this is the case.

If a driver pulls to a stop at the end of a journey with a car load of
passengers I expect that the driver has a responsibility to check that
it is safe for his passengers to open their doors, and if it is not
safe to warn his passengers not to open their doors.

However, if a driver could not reasonably forsee a car door opening
event, and a passenger opens their door unexpectedly into a cyclist or
pedestrian, I would be surprised if the driver could be held
responsible.

It is hard to envisage an unexpected car door opening event, so in
most cases I expect a driver could be held responsible for most cases
of injury to third parties.

I'm inclined to see your point of view. However, it depends on how one
might interpret "initiated the opening of that door".
In your corner, that is implicit in the driver's failure to warn
passengers.
Though I'm inclined to agree, I don't know if that a legal standing.

It wouldn't be.

If he actively told them it was OK, that probably would be IMO, but
failure to warn (unless they asked him) would not be him "initiating"
the door opening.
--
Alex Heney, Global Villager
I don't care who you are, Fatso. Get the reindeer off my roof!
To reply by email, my address is alexATheneyDOTplusDOTcom

butbutbut
Just to be awkward (-:
When the police arrest someone there's bit in the arrest speech to do
with right of silence, but that if you fail to say something....
If the driver in this instance has the right to silence but fails to
say something to the passenger about an imminent danger....
Just wondering if the first er, erosion, on the right to remain silent
might overlap into the 2ND to do with a motorist failing to say
anything to the passenger

No.

They are entirely different.

There *can* be situations where one person has a *duty* to warn
another of any danger, and could be held liable if they didn't.

But it is only a very limited subset of vehicular driver/passenger
relationships where that is likely to be the case. (Such as the taxi
example posted by Sniper).
--
Alex Heney, Global Villager
MS Windows -- From the people who brought you EDLIN!
To reply by email, my address is alexATheneyDOTplusDOTcom

On Tue, 12 Aug 2008 00:26:25 +0100, Tom Crispin
wrote:

On Mon, 11 Aug 2008 22:16:52 +0100, Alex Heney
wrote:

On Mon, 11 Aug 2008 15:36:36 +0100, Tom Crispin
wrote:

On Mon, 11 Aug 2008 15:11:46 +0100, "PK" wrote:

but in terms of the offence that ti
passenger alone

Again I doubt this is the case.

If a driver pulls to a stop at the end of a journey with a car load of
passengers I expect that the driver has a responsibility to check that
it is safe for his passengers to open their doors, and if it is not
safe to warn his passengers not to open their doors.

However, if a driver could not reasonably forsee a car door opening
event, and a passenger opens their door unexpectedly into a cyclist or
pedestrian, I would be surprised if the driver could be held
responsible.

It is hard to envisage an unexpected car door opening event, so in
most cases I expect a driver could be held responsible for most cases
of injury to third parties.

How the hell can you stand to live around people, with such incredible
mind reading capabilities?

For the rest of us, who *can't* read minds, it is *extremely* easy to
imagine an "unexpected" door opening event.

I would suggest that at least 9 times out of 10 when a passenger opens
a door (even on the "traffic" side) they do so without the driver
having said it is OK.

Which is plenty to be "unexpected" in this context.

If a driver pulls up by the kerb at the end of a journey, a passenger
opening their door to disembark is not an unexpected event.


In the context above, it is.

I know perfectly well that in normal usage, you would "expect" a
passenger to open a door at the end of a journey.

But in the context above anything done without explicit directions
from the driver is "unexpected".


I accept that the police don't always get it right, but in this case,
it does seem very obvious. Failure to warn will not be enough. The
driver will have to be shown to have taken an active part in the
opening of the door (which may of course include just saying It's OK
or similar).

I am not convinced.

Fair enough.

I am.
--
Alex Heney, Global Villager
General stupidity error reading drive C:
To reply by email, my address is alexATheneyDOTplusDOTcom

On Tue, 12 Aug 2008 01:03:02 -0700 (PDT), "
wrote:

On Aug 11, 10:11 pm, Alex Heney wrote:

Why is it that some people seem to hate judith so much that they will
twist anything to try and make her look bad?

Because she is a non-cyclist who hates cyclist. But she's the single
most prolific poster to uk.rec.cycling - accounting for over 10% of
all the posts and more than the next three most prolific posters, two
of whom are also trolls (IMO), put together.

35% of all posts in uk.rec.cycling are now her or replies to threads
she's started.

Here prolific posting seems to have started on Jun 18th for one day,
then stopped for a couple of weeks and then restarted on July 9th.


She has been a fairly prolific poster to uk.legal for quite some time.

And while some people dislike her postings here, she doesn't seem to
attract anything like the same level of vitriol and plain twisting of
what she says on here.
--
Alex Heney, Global Villager
Man who speaks with forked tongue should not kiss balloon
To reply by email, my address is alexATheneyDOTplusDOTcom