Joe D » law

AWWTM: An inconvenient driving ban

Joe — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 16:13:06 +0000

On the launch of the UN decade of action on road safety (which I wrote about here), Kim Harding questioned the choice of frontmen for the campaign: a pair of racing drivers with numerous convictions for driving offences. Exploring further the British method of treating bad driving with driving license “endorsements and penalty points”, Kim noted a news article claiming that hundreds of motorists were still on the road despite having more than the magic number of 12 penalty points on their license. It turns out that a motorist only needs to go before a judge to cry that a driving ban would cause “exceptional hardship” and the judge will happily discard everybody else’s right to safety in their streets in favour of a proven bad driver’s right to carry on driving.

Continue reading at At War With The Motorist…

AWWTM: Business models

Joe — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 19:27:53 +0000

I was sitting in a cafe on a major central London road eating breakfast and watching the morning rush go past. The sheer quantity of dangerous and law breaking motorists driving through the central zone inspired a blog post on “business models”, and the force behind bad driving. You can read it at At War With The Motorist…

AWWTM: Being realistic

Joe — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 16:22:51 +0000

So I mentioned that Carlton Reid and I both like the idea of mass bicycle use, and that we agree that high volumes of fast moving motor vehicles are a barrier to it. But while I have drawn the conclusion that high-quality conspicuously safe dedicated cycling infrastructure is a pressing requirement if we are to make any progress, Reid’s experience tells him that this is an unachievable dream; a political dead end:

Continue reading at At War With The Motorist…

How many people die on China’s roads, and why?

Joe — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 20:43:23 +0000

Continuing the China strand on At War With The Motorist, exploring questions that aren’t easy to answer. The main conclusions are that an absolutely staggering number of people die on China’s roads each year, and they do so because on their anarchic roads, inexperienced Motorists drive like idiots. The more in-depth answers can be read here.

Cotch: Law In Action: Owning Your Image

Joe — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 17:41:07 +0000

A quick review of this week’s Law In Action on Radio 4, which looked at photography and the law — particularly jobsworth office managers who think it’s their job to harass people, and other police initiatives that lack any credible … Continue reading →