Legal Question

[venta]

So: I believe that it is illegal (or at least against the Highway Code, which is not necessarily the same thing) to reverse from a road onto a more major road. I believe, as a consequence of this, that it is at least as illegal to reverse out of your drive onto the road. If the snarl up caused by the Fiat Multipla[*] in Sonning Common this morning is anything to go by, it bloody should be illegal.

However, various friends have assured me it's fine to reverse out of your drive on to the road - it can't possibly be illegal, because "everyone does it". Anyone know ?

[*]Surely the ugliest car in the world, and clearly born out of some deranged mechanic's bastard vertical cut-and-shut project.

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Does anyone else notice a bit of an inconsistency there ?

Comments

[floralaetifica.livejournal.com]

OK, I think you've taken my analogy too far. My point was that bateleur seemed to be suggesting that it didn't matter that cars were in the wrong by not letting pedestrians cross, but rather that pedestrian's should always defer to them out of a sense of self-preservation. You might equally say that I should dress as modestly as possible out of a sense of self-preservation in the hope of avoiding comments from builders. But that doesn't mean that I should have to do so. Builders shouldn't make sexist comments, and cars should wait for pedestrians to cross when they have right of way. The more vulnerable party shouldn't always have to act defensively.

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

I won't speak for bateleur, but my view is that cars "should" stop for pedestrians, in the sense that they are in the wrong if they don't. Pedestrians "should not" expect cars to stop for them, in the sense that it is foolish to do so. At the point where you collide with the bumper, it *doesn't* matter that the driver is in the wrong. I don't imagine it's any consolation at all until much later.

I still think that the difference from builders is that builders must be callous in order to make sexist comments - and it would be an injustice for there to be a rule or law that sexist comments don't count when made to women in short skirts. Drivers only need a minor failure of communication to not notice that you are trying to cross the road, as opposed to just wandering around near the pavement edge like any number of other pedestrians. And if the rule of precedence were reversed, that would not be an injustice.

Given these factors, I don't think pedestrians can claim to have acted entirely reasonably if they do step out in front of a car about to turn, and get hit. If pedestrians did typically come to a full stop on the kerb and pause before starting to cross, then it would be somewhat more reasonable to anticipate that drivers will realise their intent and give way.