Reply With QuoteSee also this link.
Have to admit I was unaware of these changes about to come into force by end of month..
Quite significant in regards to pedestrian taking priority when stepping off a kerb to cross a road / junction…and quite a bit of change to cycling rules and regs.
“Other key amendments include drivers turning into a road being required to give way to pedestrians waiting to cross.”
Apologies if you already knew of the changes..
https://news.sky.com/story/highway-c...aking-12521747
Last edited by TKH; 22nd January 2022 at 13:58.
See also this link.
Thanks Pickle
Went under my radar…
Exactly how it'll work on roads with narrow lanes we shall see. As usual, a logical safety move, but the infrastructure isn't designed for it. Which is a shame and a problem.
If only there were countries where road networks and cycle lanes had already been designed and built that we could compare them to.
I think the difficult one to remember is opening the car door with the furthest hand from the door so you automatically turn to the rear to see any oncoming cyclist. (Now an offence if you don't).
Most of the other HC directions are common sense.
Sorry it will not be an offence. See this link for an already extant advice:Originally Posted by Rod
Many Highway Code entries including the incoming addition are not legally enforcable – but endangering people or causing injury by opening a door into a road is punishable by law with fines of up to £1,000.
The new wording for section 239 will be:
Where you are able to do so, you should open the door using your hand on the opposite side to the door you are opening; for example, use your left hand to open a door on your right-hand side.
‘This will make you turn your head to look over your shoulder.
‘You are then more likely to avoid causing injury to cyclists or motor cyclists passing you on the road, or to people on the pavement.
The use bold of bold is mine to emphasise the advisory nature of the guidance. Agreed, failure to use the Dutch reach may support a prosecution for endangering people or causing injury by opening a door, but that would require evidence to available.
Thanks highway code but as a pedestrian I dont think I will be putting my life on the line in the hope that a driver gives way when I am crossing the road at a junction.
I would expect a pedestrian waiting to cross the side street to be facing his direction of proposed travel, while looking over his shoulder at the main road traffic.............
Otherwise - it's a bit of a guessing game for motorists, it seems.
There will no doubt be motorists who stop long enough - for a cyclist to come up the inside, so that when the motorist eventually turns left............. Takes out the cyclist.
and a fine of up to £1000 !!
it is only an offence if you open the door and hit a cyclist or a pedestrian , in which case you would be liable for a fine..
“… amendments include drivers turning into a road being required to give way to pedestrians waiting to cross.“
If I could be bothered, I would put in a Freedom of Information Act request about the estimated number of pedestrian deaths and rear end shunts there will be in the years it will take for these changes to become embedded.
Yet again. It looks like a change made by someone who doesn’t use roads.
I thought these were always so…
Seems completely unenforceable to me!
This issue really has the gammons upset. Opening your door with any hand you like is legal.
Hitting someone by not taking care is illegal.
There aren't going to be any prosecutions for opening a door with the wrong hand, but there hopefully will be prosecutions for dooring road and pavement users.
The press are conflating the two issues for indignant clicks.
When was the last time you saw a police stop for a minor traffic offence? I can’t recall the last time I saw a police “traffic car”.
Agree. I spend a lot of time on the pavements of greater London and no way are SUVs going to give me any priority to cross. Many of them can’t even be bothered to stop at zebra crossings. There’s been times when I’ve literally started crossing a side road and cars haven’t stopped especially if they’ve seen a gap to turn into the road I’m crossing.
I was driving a SUV today, approaching a side road I was turning into I saw an elderly couple waiting to cross it so I stopped to let them do so. Their smiles were well worth the effort.
Mind you, this is rural Devon. ;-)
R
Ignorance breeds Fear. Fear breeds Hatred. Hatred breeds Ignorance. Break the chain.
Yep…that’ll be London for you. A few weeks ago I was on my bike cycling along the main road and there was a white van in a side road waiting to cross traffic onto the main road and turn right. Got hurled a load of abuse including the c-bomb because apparently “if I hadn’t been there, he could have turned out”. That logic really got me confused.
The negligent opening of a car door has been a offence for a while; s105 Road Vehicles (Construction & Use) Regulations 1986 and s42 Road Traffic Act 1988.
I don't imagine there have been too many prosecutions though.
That logic works well in Saudi, if as a foreigner there you get your rental car hit then it's your fault - even if stationary.
R
Ignorance breeds Fear. Fear breeds Hatred. Hatred breeds Ignorance. Break the chain.
As a pedestrian, I am looking forward to the new rules coming in to effect. I think its courteous for the driver to give way to pedestrians at certain junctions and crossing points but always worry that another driver doesn’t have the same view and doesn’t give them way.
As a driver, I’m not looking forward to the pedestrians who wont even be bothered to look up or to acknowledge my presence when they cross in front of me. And the cyclists who upgrade from riding 2 abreast to 3 :)
Driving today there was a bike on the inside approaching a junction. A vehicle in front wanted to “beat the lights” before they turned red so sped up cutting the cyclist off to make the left turn, fortunately the cyclist presumably saw what was coming and backed off.
Lights turned red and cyclist peddled faster straight through the lights.
The last point is the most important one, most of these “rules” are just blindingly obvious curtesy that many of us would so anyway the only real concern is how people understand them (or not)
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