[HN Gopher] UK to introduce new offence of causing death or inju...
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       UK to introduce new offence of causing death or injury by dangerous
       cycling
        
       Author : PaulHoule
       Score  : 11 points
       Date   : 2024-05-20 22:05 UTC (55 minutes ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
        
       | crooked-v wrote:
       | It's remarkable how it's suddenly an issue when it's an incident
       | with a bike, but all the deaths and injuries caused by cars are
       | just treated as a fact of life.
        
         | jjgreen wrote:
         | "Causing death by dangerous driving" is on the statute books,
         | "... by dangerous cycling" is not (yet).
        
           | fanf2 wrote:
           | Because motorists cause thousands of deaths every year,
           | whereas bike riders cause about 0.
           | 
           | Motorists kill _so many people_ it is too logistically
           | difficult to prosecute them for murder, or manslaughter, or
           | even using health and safety law. Normalization of deviance
           | in action.
        
         | nerdponx wrote:
         | Making it a crime allows you to accumulate crime stats for it,
         | which allows you to report on how bad the crime rate is, etc.
        
         | BadHumans wrote:
         | I'm a Yank so forgive me but I assume the UK already has laws
         | like vehicular manslaughter and reckless driving so I don't
         | think this is some kind of cycling bad driving good initiative.
        
         | ggm wrote:
         | Anomalies in the law don't always reflect this kind of bias.
         | The fact is that an increase in cycling and increased
         | (defensive?) use of pavement (sidewalk for americans) to ride
         | on, has led to an increase in risk. And, there is an outbreak
         | of antisocial behaviour in places like the canal towpath which
         | is leading to a problem.
         | 
         | I suspect motor vehicle drivers already have laws governing
         | reckless driving. Thats all.
        
         | idontwantthis wrote:
         | In the US we added laws to make it less illegal to kill people
         | as long as you are driving. It's not "manslaughter" it's
         | "vehicular manslaughter" which I guess we're all just supposed
         | to accept in the name of progress.
        
       | renewiltord wrote:
       | I imagine one just claims they had a "medical issue" and the
       | pedestrian "came out of nowhere" and nothing much changes. So
       | long as you're not outrageously the lunatic on a fixie who
       | intentionally laughs at a death, you'll probably get away with
       | it.
        
       | Daviey wrote:
       | > causing .. injury .. by .. inconsiderate .. cycling.
       | 
       | This frightens me.
        
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       (page generated 2024-05-20 23:00 UTC)