If motorists don’t act like grown ups, we should
treat them like naughty kids

Malcolm Heymer (Motorists need to be treated like adults on road safety matters) makes an interesting point about his desire for motorists to be treated “like grown-ups”, although perhaps not quite the one he had in mind.

“Road safety” engineering has always been based on the idea that motorists are inherently incompetent or unwilling to use any knowledge about driving they may have. On the highway they have crash barriers, the felling of roadside trees, anti-skid “treatments” etc.; in vehicles they have seat belts, crumple zones, side impact protection systems, air bags etc. All these measures collude with the violence of drivers who are either incompetent or unwilling to drive properly. All of this either directly exacerbates bad driving (through short term risk compensation or behavioural adaptation) or else makes it more difficult in the long term for motorists to accept the need to drive properly (long term risk compensation or behavioural adaptation).

So how are we going to treat motorists like adults? Firstly, we have to recognise the crucial difference between abuse of modes of transport that have significant potential to endanger others (all forms of motoring and motorcycling) and those that are far less dangerous to others (walking and cycling). This crucial difference has been studiously glossed over by the “road safety” industry, reflecting its origins in the 1920s motoring lobby. Secondly, we have to apply the basic principle of adulthood, namely responsibility towards others, in this case their safety.

So what does responsibility to others’ safety entail? Above all, it means accountability. There are – albeit flawed - laws on careless and dangerous driving in place, which if enforced and backed up by licence endorsement and suspension can have a deterrent effect on bad driving. Of course, if even a small fraction of all instances of careless, rule-breaking, law breaking or criminally negligent driving with the potential to hurt others were to be penalised, most motorists would be totting up the penalty points or be banned from driving.

Naturally this would be too drastic a step, as we are likely to remain a car-centred society even if we make the necessary moves towards sustainability. This means that collisions involving the motorised on the one hand, and cyclists or pedestrians on the other, have to be treated as offences of strict liability where motorists are required to prove innocence, with deterrent sentencing backed up by high quality evidence provided from on-board black box monitors. This would not remove the need for wide ranging and intensive policing and deterrent sentencing, but simply recognises that with 5 million annual insurance claims as simply the tip of the iceberg of bad driving, the problem is so entrenched and widespread that such a move is required.

Meanwhile the demands of Malcolm Heymer’s British Drivers Association (I assume he is still a member), the AA, RAC, and their supporters in the DfT, the road safety industry and elsewhere, should be seen as what they are. Coddled by the road safety industry, it is a demand for motorists to be able to do just what they like, like spoilt children who can never be admonished for their bad behaviour.

And if such people want to be able to behave like naughty children – with, of course, rather worse effects on their fellow citizens – then they will have to be treated as such.

Dr. Robert Davis
Chair, Road Danger Reduction Forum,
P.O. Box 2944, LONDON NW10 2AX
0208 451 1309