Safe Speed Forums

Further to a discussion that started at this post...

It seems to me that we (national we) have a pretty dire understanding of the nature of careless and inattentive driving, especially in terms of the role of the law. I'm going to put forward a few assertions for discussion in the hope that we can understand the bigger picture better. These assertions are not necessarily my beliefs (that's why this is in Brainstorming).


Careless and inattentive driving is not about 'hands and feet' - it's about 'eyes and brain'.

We tend to use proxies for inattentive driving and we say things like: "You can't be in proper control when you're eating an apple". But reality tends to differ. In an emergency we'd drop the apple and it'd make little or no difference to our control of the vehicle. The time we're truly NOT in control is when we're not looking where we're going or when we're not thinking about what we're doing.


Careless and inattentive driving is usually involuntary

There are exceptions - such as idiots laying maps across their steering wheels and studying them - but most cases that ACTUALLY cause crashes are 'a moment's distraction' or 'a minor observation failure'. These failings do not take place deliberately - indeed most are shocked to discover that they have made them after the event. The errors are largely subconscious.


The law has no useful deterrent effect

How could it if the 'crime' is involuntary? That's why we have to pretend that the proxy measures (hands etc) are defining.


Careless and inattentive driving are actually responsible for around 80% of crashes

That's my opinion based on reading a lot about crash contribution. That makes it the lion's share (obviously) of all crash causation - yet we don't seem to have any decent understanding of the problems.


Subconscious errors can only be reduced by psychologically sound policies

We need to help drivers to build better subconscious risk assessment processes. Better visual scan. Better learning from mistakes. Those sorts of things. Telling them that they must hold the steering wheel with two hands doesn't even come close. Telling them to stick to the speed limit is actually counter-productive because it takes precious attention away from more important safety factors.


Careless and inattentive driving can usually only be enforced after the event.

We CAN'T even know that 'a moment's inattention' has taken place until it's caused a crash. This is another reason that we can't use the law as a deterrent - most offences are entirely invisible.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

I broadly agree, but add the qualification that all drivers will have periods of inattention or distraction. It is sometimes said that safe driving requires 100% attention and concentration. That is clearly false. We know that levels of attentiveness and concentration vary and, on average, for nearly all drivers, is less than 100%.

I see COAST as the expression of a system for safe driving - a system that require an equilibrium to be maintained between (C)oncentration, (O)bservation and (A)nticipation (non-physical variables) on the one hand and (S)pace and (S)peed on the other hand (physical variables), in order to provide the (T)ime to react that is necessary for safe driving.

We can see that the "C", "O" and "A" inputs have qualitative and quantitiative components which are infinitely and constantly variable. For any given value of C + O + A, the physical variables, (S)pace and (S)peed, must be adjusted to maintain the equilibrium. Space and speed are interdependent - if there is less space, then speed must be reduced to maintain the equilibrium. If speed increases, more space must be found.

So C + O + A + [ (S)peed/(S)pace) ] = Time to react.



I think we have to be careful here. An error may be "involuntary" in the strict sense (unintended) but it is also, in many cases, "inadvertent" (failing to act carefully or considerately; resulting from heedless action). Behaviour that is only (and truly) involuntary is not culpable (or less culpable), whereas behaviour that is inadvertent, even if involuntary, is culpable.



Not agreed. The objective is to reduce inadvertent, unsafe behaviour. This can be done, up to a point, by applying a legal sanction alone, but a combination of legal sanction and incentive would be more widely respected and more effective.



I agree. If my perspective of 'COAST' as a system stands up, it is clear that the C, O and A elements are critical non-physical variables in the psychological domain. Speed is one of the physical variables that must be controlled, but an inappropriately high speed component is a consequence of insufficient C O A (and Space) that can only be assigned a value if the values of the other variables are known. That's why road safety policy aimed at 'forcing' the equilibrium merely by reducing the value of Speed will inevitably fail.



Agreed. But, as you've said before, it's probably right that new or inexperienced or less capable drivers are directed to treat the speed limit as maximum because they do not have the higher qualitative values for hazard awareness that would allow the COAST equilibrium to be maintained at higher speeds.



Partly agree. But deterrence is not the only function of law. The existence of a legal sanction is not enough by itself but is still necessary for other reasons.

Taking points from both the above posts, how should we view the proposed offence of "causing death by careless driving" with a 5 year jail term as penalty.

We will all inevitably be inattentive at some point and thus at risk of this offence. Should the offence exist (if only to "send a message" about the opinion of society) even if by the very natute of carelessness it will have no deterrent effect?

I understand the ABD support the introduction of this offence. Is this the case?

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Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

Ok. Great. Observer's post helped me to move my own thinking on a step.

I was never suggesting that we should get rid of careless driving as an offence. In fact I'm now thinking that we really have two offences.

The first is 'deliberate carelessness'. This would be intended to catch people who deliberately and visibly give far too much attention to non-driving tasks. It catches those twits who read maps, books or newspapers while driving at speed. We can safely rate it in the dangerous driving class (as far as I'm concerned) and it would fit for causing death by careless driving. I'd be fairly happy to see it end in a prison term in severe cases.

The second is 'inadvertent carelessness'. This is the common crash cause (I reckon). But we'll usually only be able to determine that it's taken place after the event. All of us are 'indavertently careless' from time to time.

The failure of the law to distinguish between these two classes is the central problem. The failures and the solutions are so very different, I don't know why we haven't noticed before.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

I'm very much in two minds about it... It might be reasonable to create an offence that requires less stringent proof than Dangerous Driving in order to address a case where the driver is obviously culpable. However, I'm concerned that it may fall into the grey-area between "punishment" and "vengeance".

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"Politicians are the same the world over... We build bridges where there aren't any rivers." - Nikita Kruschev

A driver is only at risk of causing death by careless driving if his attentiveness is inadequate in the circumstances. If we train drivers and encourage them to develop the experience and observation/anticipation skills to maintain the COAST equilibrium, they will manage episodes of (relative) inattentiveness safely.

The law by itself will not stop (and will probably do little to reduce) involuntary inattentiveness, but law coupled with driver improvement measures could (I believe would) reduce inadvertent inattentiveness.

As far as I know the ABD is strongly opposed to CDbCD. All thinking people should be. A minor error by a careful driver might on occasion lead to a death. But only wilful errors should lead to prison terms however tragic the consequences.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

The substitution of "careless driving" for "driving without due care and attention" (more dumbing down?) sacrificed the elegant versatility of the word "due" (one of my favourite 'legal' words). "Due care" is infinitely variable to suit the circumstances, as it needs to be. "Speeding" or "excess speed" is, in substance, a proxy for "driving without due care and attention" and speeding is only an "absolute" offence (correctly a "strict liability" offence) for convenience of enforcement.

A person who drives "with due care and attention" will never be at risk of prosecution for "careless driving". A driver who pays "due regard" to speed limits respects the spirit of the law, if not the letter, but, according to our oh-so-wise leaders, he is, in fact, a 'serious criminal'.

I half agree. I think that "two hands on the wheel" is also important as it helps to focus the mind. As soon as you start chicken winging or slouching or eating an apple or whatever then you've mentally switched off from the task at hand. Naturally, this is not to imply that you can't switch off with two hands on the wheel.

Yes, I agree with that - but I think you agreed with me too when you said: "Naturally, this is not to imply that you can't switch off with two hands on the wheel."

I also agree 'two hands on the wheel' is a truly valuable attitude proxy - it warns us not to relax. But the concern in this (Brainstorming) thread is to get a better grip on the wider issues of careless driving. I don't see any useful overlap between 'two hands on the wheel' and careless driving. Driving with two hands, one hand or no hands may or may not represent genuine careless driving. - I'm really saying you can't make the carelessness judgement by looking at the hands.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

yes, that's why I said I half agree.


well for starters it does suggest that you shouldn't be on the phone, fiddling with the radio or anything else. Adding "and two eyes on the road" covers the rest does it not (in simple terms)?

Murder is wilful, manslaughter is not, surely these two should be mirrored in legislation relating to driving. Manslaughter has a prison sentence in the tariff. So a death by careless driving should have a prison sentences in the tariff. Otherwise the clear message is that it's fine to kill someone in your car.

Any other message will at best maintain the current level of death on the road, but is more likely to cause an increase.

Surely manslaughter has to be the consequence of a wilful illegal act? If I was firing a gun in the street, I'd expect to be guilty of manslaughter. But if I was firing a gun - maybe even carelessly - at a shooting range I wouldn't expect to be guilty of manslaughter. Unless anyone knows differently?



My major concern is that we'd trash more lives with effectively innocent people locked up in prison.

I'd be happy - and I'd believe that justice would be served - if we imprisoned folk who caused road death through a wilful act.

I'd be unhappy if we tried to imprison someone after every fatal crash.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

No, manslaughter can result from reckless or negligent behaviour even though there is no intention to cause harm.

If you had, for example, ignored safety procedures at a shooting range and killed someone, you could well be convicted of manslaughter.

By definition, even "causing death by dangerous driving" involves no deliberate intention.

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

Really? I'm going to have to read up about this...

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

We had a discussion on this issue in this thread:

http://www.safespeed.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4303

in which I wrote:

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

Just to clarify interpretation, "reckless" means "uncaring of the consequences". That's not the same as "behaving in a manner that is clearly dangerous". I suppose 'dangerous driving' is driving in a way that is likely to case harm. That appears to be more serious than 'reckless driving', which would be driving without caring whether harm is caused or not.

Negligence is rather different as it only follows from a "duty of care". Although it's quite easy to see that drivers owe a duty of care to other road users, negligence would not be an appropriate concept to bring into motoring law because, in order to show negligence, a measure of damage must be established.

I don't see why motorists who kill should not be subject to the same kind of sanctions that other people are if they kill.

I drop a block of stone off a scaffold at a building site I am working on. It kills a fellow worker.
I drive and in the process I kill someone.

Why should the motorist part of me be treated more leniently. Both parts of me know that what I am doing can be inherently dangerous. (If I don't know that then I shouldn't be on a building site or in a car)

One of the reasons we have 3,200 deaths a year on the roads and it is treated as a 'just happens' is because it is more acceptable in law to kill a person with a car than with a lump of stone. That cannot be right.

Did you do this deliberately or not? Nobody, or virtually nobody, drives a car with the deliberate intention of killing or injuring someone.


I would imagine far more people are imprisoned each year for "causing death" offences on the roads than for industrial and construction site deaths.

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

Interesting. What should the penalty be for such an act? Could it be a pure accident, with no negligence of any sort? And if it was should there be any penalty at all?

Are they any such cases around for us to examine the outcomes and sentences?

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety