(Side note: Halfords obviously have their own silver lining to this cloud, in that they’re using it to advertise hands-free kits and fancy stereos and GPS units – despite it being repeatedly shown that hands-free phone use is no less safe; the relevant section on Wikipedia cites 11 studies to that effect. Shame on you, Halfords: if you’re going to use data, at least pay attention to what the data means, don’t just ignore widely-available evidence in order to whip up sales by misleading people that the stuff you sell actually solves the problem. This is arguably borderline fraud.)

Now, if you get pulled over for using a phone, you’ll normally get a £60 fine and 3 points.

Whoop-de-doo.

Fines and points are demonstrably ineffective, otherwise phone use whilst driving wouldn’t be on the rise to an extent anywhere near that which it currently is.

Yet, as reported, the government – in this case speaking via the medium of Mike Penning – believes that tacking an extra £20-40 on the penalty will make a difference: “To make sure drivers take this seriously we are increasing the fine for the offence from £60 to between £80 and £100 next year.”

It’s like realising that you’re failing to put out a house fire by pissing on it, and then suggesting a better way to put it out is to drink more water.

No. This will in no way “make sure drivers take this seriously”.

Most people can pay fines easily – £60 or £100, it doesn’t matter – and don’t care about points until they’ve bagged 9 of them (and we all know that killing or maiming generally only scores about 3 points). Neither is punitive, and neither solves the problem because neither makes a connection between the privilege of driving and the degree of diligence required to earn that privilege. And not just for phones, of course: for all cases where someone displays substandard levels of care and attention but happens to be lucky enough not to hit someone on that occasion.

We need a punishment that is effective, is a reminder of responsibility, is simple to implement, and won’t be speciously dismissed by motoring groups as “a tax on the motorist” (if it’s a tax then, as with speed cameras, I suggest getting all anarchic and smashing the “tax” system by driving within the law).

Something which will clamp down on inattentive driving.

So why not clamp the car for 48 hours?

Stick a nice message on the clamp to explain that the car’s clamped because someone was caught driving in a way that endangered other road users, paint the clamp a nice bright reflective colour, and confiscate the licence. After 48 hours the driver pops round to the police station to collect their licence and three points, and gets a lift back to their car, where it’s unclamped and they’re off.

For added win operate a non-expiring accumulator: every time you get pulled for shoddy driving, the exclusion period doubles and you have to resit the test.

People will be repulsed by the idea of being divorced from their car for a couple of days, but then there’s the whole point: if you want to keep driving, do so responsibly. Then it’s a non-issue. Nothing to worry about unless you’re crap at driving, basically.

As a first pass it seems fairly easy to implement, and will at least make people take notice. No whining about a “tax”. And who knows – in those 48 hours maybe people might find out that alternative forms of transport aren’t so bad.

Thoughts?

Now, the Solihull News offers us a good opportunity to compare and contrast the sentencing of Ichhpal Bhamra, the driver who hit him, with that of Donna Lloyd, who drove into a parked car.

Bhamra’s collision resulted in the death of a vulnerable road user. He was fined £35 plus costs and received three points on his licence.

Lloyd’s collision resulted in damage to an insured and repairable inanimate object. She was fined £110 plus costs and received seven points on her licence.

I’m sure we can agree that the contrast is stark and the logic is perverse and appalling.

But actually there’s a more interesting comparison to come out in the last week, and it’s not about sentencing.

The BBC reported the case of Craig Williams, whose 4×4 was twice found near the top of Snowdon:

Craig Williams, from Cheltenham, was found guilty of two charges of dangerous driving … Williams was handed a six month jail sentence for the first dangerous driving conviction, 10 months for the second offence, and a further six months for failing to answer bail at that start of his trial. The sentences must be served consecutively, making a total of 22 months behind bars.

He was also banned from driving for three years and ordered to take an extended driving test.

You can forget your trivial little fines here. Sixteen months for the driving charges, plus a three-year ban, plus and extended retest. Taking Williams’s first charge on its own, his sole misdemeanour was to drive up a large hill that he was not allowed to drive up when, by all accounts, there was no-one around. This attracted a six-month prison sentence (and may, in isolation, also have attracted a driving ban).

Something of an eyebrow raiser after the pocket-money fines of the other cases.

But, as I said, the interesting thing is not about the sentencing.

The interesting thing is the verdict.

Williams was twice found guilty of dangerous driving. This is quite distinct from careless driving, and is a notoriously difficult charge to bring against drivers who have killed cyclists or other vulnerable road users. Scores of deaths on the road – including Tom Ridgway’s – get brushed off as careless, whilst scores of others do not even succeed in that toothless charge and result in a complete absence of blame and responsibility.

One can easily speculate as to why Williams might have been found guilty by the jury when others are cleared.

There but for the grace of God…

Williams made a simple mistake.

He did something that most drivers don’t do.

Most jurors are drivers. Many drivers, and thus many jurors who are drivers, can relate to the idea of driving along a road paying insufficient attention and leaving insufficient space for other road users, because that’s what they do.

Few drivers, and thus few jurors, can relate to the idea of driving a 4×4 up a mountain. This behaviour is out of the ordinary. It’s for nutjobs.

And this is perhaps the problem. Jurors know that if a momentary lapse of attention – which, let’s face facts here, is the legal euphemism for “a chronic lack of care and attention which coincided with a momentary bit of bad luck” – can attract a harsh sentence then it could be them.

Because they – we – are part of the culture that tolerates poor driving. The culture that tolerates around 30% of drivers texting at the wheel and around two-thirds of motorists speeding on 30mph roads, a culture that makes us simply fail to give a shit when we’re in a car.

We need to change that culture. But in the meantime, maybe we should look at ensuring there is no bias or excess empathy in juries on cases involving drivers.

Because regardless of how it actually is, from the outside that’s how it looks.

The starting point

Some years ago, I took the very British position of being against presumed liability. I view scientific process and scepticism as hugely important, so presumption is something that seems abhorrent in any process, let alone a legal one.

However, scientific process and scepticism means that with new evidence one must reasses one’s theories, and much recent evidence has shown quite clearly that the legal process as it stands is flawed to the point where I maintain that it is simply not fit for purpose when it comes to preventing people from the hazards of human-controlled vehicles (a cumbersome phrase, but I use it quite deliberately: I think if we sit and watch the legislation that will come out surrounding automated cars, such as those being developed by Google, we should end up asking ourselves why the same things were not and are not applied to human-controlled cars).

The reality

The curent case that highlights the issue is, as reported by the Solihull News, that of Tom Ridgway, who was struck by a taxi driven by Ichhapal Bhamra. Either at the point of impact or during the subsequent 90-metre passage of the vehicle, which crashed into road signs and a tree with Ridgway on its bonnet, the cyclist sustained fatal injuries and passed away shortly afterwards. Bhamra was charged with driving without due care and attention – not, importantly, causing death by careless driving – and pleaded guilty; the sentence was a £35 fine (plus costs and victim surcharge). Bhamra, to some credit, is reported to have voluntarily handed back his taxi licence (no mention of his driving licence) and is understandably suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Now, horrific as it is, there is nothing (in the context of fatal collisions with cyclists) particularly out of the ordinary about the events themselves. The curious aspect of this case is how it was apparently handled by the CPS; in particular, the reasons why the charge of causing death by careless driving was not made. Anyone who has any interest in both cycling and the law should be paying attention to Martin Porter, who has brought that point into question himself:

“Apparently the CPS took the view that they could not prove that Bhamra’s carelessness had caused the original impact but merely that continuing on for a distance of 90 metres with Mr Ridgway on his bonnet, colliding with signs and eventually a tree was careless driving.  They also decided that they could not prove that this ‘proveable’ carelessness, as distinct from the original collision, had caused Mr Ridgway’s death.”

This all hinges on provability; specifically the provability of what caused the collision and what caused death. The law’s view is clearly thus: Driving along with someone on your bonnet and crashing into inanimate street furniture is demonstrably, and thus provably, careless; a collision between a cyclist and a car is not. (As a side note, I think a fairly compelling case could made for the suggestion that even if a cyclist does something stupid and a collision occurs, the driver could be argued to be careless – though not necessarily dangerous – by failing to account for it and leave space, in other words to take care of others on the road; which is precisely why we have rule 162 of the Highway Code, and which I think is an argument quite closely related to the point of presumed liability.)

Moreover, the law again displays its curious distinction between a careless action that causes death and one which does not – something I’ve previously said is questionable; especially when particularly severe injuries can be, and often are, described as being worse than a relatively quick death. The problematic nature of this distinction becomes exacerbated where, as in this case, multiple factors must be proven.

Pragmatism versus dogma

Another case which I think demonstrates the inadequacy of the over-reliance on provability is that of Elizabeth Brown. It’s one I’ve mentioned before because to this day I find the verdict utterly incomprehensible. The salient points: van driver drives at speed into rear of cyclist and kills her; van driver’s defence explicitly states that the cyclist was totally blameless; moreover, van driver claims to have not seen the cyclist in time due to his own actions which are clearly indicative of unsafe driving (ie following another vehicle too closely).

Now, this is the one scenario which bothers me personally on the road (which is not to say that it’s the only one that should bother others). I can anticipate hazards in front of me and can modify my behaviour to minimse the risk, but if a vehicle drives into me from behind I can do nothing. And so it was in Miss Brown’s case: there was nothing she could have done and was entirely blameless in her death.

The crucial point for me is that if two parties collide on an open road, one proceeding directly into the rear of the other, and the party in front carries zero fault, where does the balance of fault lie? Any sane individual should, I believe, be of the opinion that it lies with the other party. However, on the basis of this case, the law patently takes the alternative view that either there is no fault – which is essentially a statement that killing people with a van is every bit as much a part of a civilised society as eating breakfast – or that the fault lies with a third party. Whom, then? “Act of God”? Driving vans into people is comparable to wind and rain?

Anyway. Before I stray too far into hyperbole, the point is that the law as it stands fails to recognise what most – I would say “all” but clearly the jury differed – people would see as culpability, let alone liability. And so maybe some presumption might, after all, beat some sense into the law.

I cited the case in an online discussion recently and the counter-argument was that “you must take account of proof beyond reasonable doubt, and not hearing all the evidence … I sicken of people declaring others guilty and wrongly acquitted.”

Now, I agree with that. As I’ve said, I’m a firm believer in scientific process and the idea of proving something “beyond reasonable doubt”.

But – crucially – we must differentiate between our understandable reverence of the due process and the specific definition of offences to which that process pertains. The point is that the legal system fails vulnerable road users not because of its inherent process but, in large part, because of its high placement of the bar in terms of the specific definitions of “careless” and “dangerous”. This is, however, not immutable.

The solution

Presumed liability is not the full solution; that is a combination of things. But the real burning issue is – on top of the fact that minor offences need to be dealt with harshly before that unlucky day when they result in death – that something is needed to focus the minds of drivers when the are anywhere near more vulnerable road users (and even when they may be: one cannot see round corners or, noting the case of Miss Brown, through vans), and which provides appropriately for those who suffer material loss, damage or bereavement in these incidents.

We need to work towards a system which accepts that humans are fallible (such concepts exist in socially progressive countries), and that means that protection for the vulnerable needs to be enhanced. Infrastructure delivers gains in that area, but that takes time and very considerable amounts of money. However, legislation can also achieve worthwhile gains, and takes neither time nor money in great measure. It takes will.

But, as we all know, in reality this has to go through politicians, and if one were cynical one might ask: Why go to the bother of mustering collective will, when you could just tell the electorate that you’ve spent some money on red tarmac?

Addendum:

Martin Porter has added a comment from Tom’s aunt to his post:

“It is the law which has failed to us, by bizarrely dividing the event into Before and After Impact … Indeed, the fact of Tom’s body being on the windscreen became a mitigating factor as the driver could not see where he was going”

I think you will agree, taking into account both cases I have mentioned, that when you are cleared of any offence because your tailgating prevented him from seeing the cyclist that was subsequently killed when you drove into her, and when a driving offence is mitigated by the fact that your windscreen is obscured by the body of the person that was killed when you drove into him, the law is patently not fit for purpose.

Things must change.

Now, whilst Twitter is the just about best tool in town for spreading information, it is not a tool for having that information acted upon. In matters of this nature, one of the key people who can act and make a difference is your MP. I therefore invite you to write to them to express your dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs.

You can find, and write to, your MP directly through WriteToThem. You should write something clear, polite, balanced and matter-of-fact. Ideally you should mention or state specific actions or policies which you would like your MP to undertake: this makes discussions clearer and will allow them to more clearly explain any problems they see, if appropriate.

While you are writing, check whether your MP has signed Early Day Motion 679 (there is a list of signatories at the bottom of the page). If they have, thank them. If they haven’t, ask whether they’d be willing to.

Writing a half decent letter will take 15 minutes of your time. If anything comes of it then it will be 15 minutes extremely well spent.

If you are able to make your voice heard, then thankyou.

At the foot of it, I expressed a desire for change.

It seems only fair, then, that I should also express the nature of change that I feel is necessary. And so, having given it a couple of days’ thought (and correspondingly little research, for which I hope you’ll forgive me), here are the six points I personally believe would represent a vast step forward in protecting all responsible road users. This is not simply about protecting cyclists, despite the recent sentences that have provoked this post: this is about everyone.

1. Realignment of “careless” and “dangerous” offences

As someone else said: “Careless is losing your car keys. Dangerous is being on the phone on an HGV and running someone over.”

The phrase “careless driving” is a motif for the fundamental problem with road safety, a fact that has been proven time and time again. Most recently it was proven in the Mary Bowers case: a driver can fail to see road markings, fail to see a cyclist who is in plain view through their windscreen, operate a phone illegally whilst driving, fail to stop their vehicle properly after running the cyclist over, and then lie to the police, and this is considered “careless” and not “dangerous”.

My complaint here isn’t necessarily about the statutory differences between the various careless and dangerous charges, it’s a complaint about semantics. But the semantics are, in this case, absolutely crucial. (In other words, I appreciate that technicalities inevitably prevent certain charges succeeding; the problem, other than the insultingly feeble sentencing, is the naming of the lesser offence.)

The heart of the problem is that describing such behaviour as “careless” excuses it. Anyone can be careless: anyone can lose their keys. Someone who can drive their car into someone else is dangerous. To disagree with this is surely to disagree with basic Newtonian physics. If you cannot adequately control a vehicle, you are dangerous, and the larger and more powerful your vehicle the more dangerous you are for any given level of “carelessness”.

Juries frequently acquit people of “dangerous” charges for one key reason: The jurors know that they could make the same mistake, and they are scared. They know that it could be them in the dock, because they too are careless. They operate vehicles with the same absence of care: they speed, they underutilise their mirrors, they fiddle with the stereo, they continue unabated into low sunlight… and so on.

This is precisely the thing that has to change: It must not be considered acceptable to drive without the high level of attention that safe driving demands. People wilfully believe that incomptent driving is entirely adequate: in his recommendation of a motoring lawyer who successfully defended him after he drove into a cyclist, one driver says “I felt that I had done nothing wrong“. People can drive into other road users and actually believe they have done nothing wrong. It’s utterly beyond comprehension, yet it’s a common view.

For this reason, deeming patently dangerous activities as “careless” propagates the acceptance of poor standards and dooms us to a downward spiral of safety.

There is no justifiable reason for any charge of inattentive driving to be deemed simply “careless”.

2. Abolition of the “exceptional hardship” plea

Imagine for a moment that you are a pilot of small charter aircraft. Your job is to fly people from A to B safely. Your job, your reputation and your long-term welfare – as well as that of your family – depends on you being able to operate your vehicle in a safe and responsible manner.

If you are an aircraft pilot and you turn up to work drunk, fly well outside the permitted flight paths, come in to land and end up bouncing off the runway and crashing into some stationary aircraft, you are basically screwed. You will not work in the air industry again. But pilots know this. It’s one of the many good reasons why they don’t do it.

Yet time and again (just google “exceptional hardship”, you’ll find footballers and businessmen aplenty dancing smugly out of court), people behave similarly in cars and they have an almost perfectly literal “get out of jail free” card.

My employment and my family’s welfare depends not one iota on me having a car, yet somehow I seem to have managed to muster the diligence to have driven 300,000 or so miles without having my collar felt. It is incomprehensible that anyone whose welfare does depend on it should be incapable of achieving the same.

People who drive for a living, and all people whose welfare is dependent on driving, and who still cannot drive safely, are self-evidently incapable of the degree of attention and judgment which befits a driver.

The exceptional hardship plea does one thing: It allows the court to take pity on the most persistently and/or severely dangerous drivers on the road and force every other road user to accept the greater risk of sharing the road with them.

The acceptance of this plea is manifestly socially perverse, allowing risk to be foisted onto the vulnerable by the irresponsible, and this absurd loophole has no reason to remain.

3. An increase in the use of bans for driving offences

This is something for which I have previously argued.

The main danger on the road is not from malice, but from incompetence (repeat: not simply “carelessness”). The problem is that the law fails to address this issue before the consequences become severe.

Fines are not effective. The driver in the Mary Bowers incident, which is a harrowing example of extreme ineptitude, was fined £2700. For some people this may have some impact (though I’ll refrain from commenting on the comparison to the impact on the lives of those who are injured or killed or who lose friends and relatives), but for many more it is simply not a big deal: it’s the price of a big TV or a cheap secondhand hatchback.

Points are not effective. Until you hit 12 there is, as far as I’m aware, only the effect on insurance premiums to consider. Most of us have probably known people who openly talk about their points and who are equally open about it not affecting their conduct until they reach 9. It’s socially acceptable; in fact, more than that, for some people it almost seems to become bragging rights.

What will affect incompetent drivers is preventing them driving. Even a short ban will be sorely felt. Get the train for a week, or walk – hell, even cycle – this is real pain to most drivers. They’d notice it.

I appreciate that some people continue to drive whilst disqualified, and so an increase in effectiveness of enforcement is important. But there are myriad conceivable solutions to this: it is hardly beyond the wit of man.

And if you’ll forgive me a slight aside, it may even transpire that people who’ve felt there is no alternative to the car may actually find that other forms of transport are more often than not actually quite enjoyable, cheaper, more healthy, less stressful, even quicker.

4. Highly punitive sentencing for persistent offenders

You don’t have to look far to find evidence of how the law ignores persistently dangerous drivers. Browse some road lawyers’ websites and you’ll find some startling things.

This rather eye-opening lawyer’s testimonial page contains a multitude of quite terrifying examples of how easily a severe offence will often go unpunished or barely punished (one drink driver, for example, says “it is quite remarkable that I have retained my entitlement to drive at the end of the case“). It is, however, this quote that more than any paints a damning picture of the legal system’s view of poor driving:

“I was facing my third driving whilst disqualified, heading for a possible fourth ban in 10 years … I received minimum sentencing of points and a fine”

Now, I am by no means a lawyer, but from that statement I infer the following. Firstly, that the driver has committed at least three (possibly more) offences for which they received a ban. Secondly, that on three occasions (presumable once per ban, but perhaps not) they have ignored the ruling. Thirdly, that the rate of offending – rather, the rate of being caught and successfully prosecuted for it – at this severe level is around once every 30 months. Fourthly, that they were found guilty of some offence on this occasion. And fifthly, the point which I am really making here, the judicial system was either unwilling or unable to recognise that this is clearly a persistently dangerous driver who disregards the law, and gave him only a derisory minimum sentence.

The degree to which the law tolerates people who operate vehicles in a manifestly dangerous manner, and who cannot adjust their behaviour, is nothing short of dumbfounding.

There are times when you simply have to say, “you are not fit to drive a vehicle”. Driving is an earned privilege afforded to those who have means and – supposedly – demonstrable competence. It is not a human right.

5. Statutory corporate responsibility

Referring back to the Mary Bowers case, Petre Beiu (the driver) was engaged in a telephone call to another driver from the same haulage firm at the time of the incident. At the very least, there is another driver who should be convicted for using a phone whilst driving, and if he was aware of Beiu being on the phone at the time he should be considered accessory to Beiu’s offence.

However, one wonders if this was standard practice. I have seen no mention of an investigation into how the firm enforced driving standards, but if it was accepted behaviour – whether explicitly or implicilty – then surely there is some degree of corporate culpability.

Anecdotally, I observe the standards of professional drivers to be lower than those of private drivers. And I am far from alone. Many professional drivers also have greater levels of distraction in the car: taxi drivers, for instance, regularly use phones and radios.

Without a level of research for which I regrettably lack the time, it is difficult to say exactly how legislation should be used to enforce greater driving standards amongst professional drivers; especially as there is a significant cultural factor. But I would think that a requirement to consider corporate manslaughter whenever a driver of a company vehicle causes a death would at least be a start.

Fundamentally, companies can and should serve a pivotal role in terms of encouraging and enforcing acceptable standards. Where any corporately approved or tolerated practice is found to be a factor in any incident on the roads, the company should accordingly be held wholly or partly responsible.

6. Introduction of presumed liability

Cyclists have called for presumed liability for years. Presumed liability says that in the case of a collision between a motor vehicle and a non-motorised road user (equaestrian, cyclist, pedestrian), the driver is presumed to be at fault unless the more vulnerable can be proven to be so.

This is in no way about seeking to give cyclists, nor anyone else, some sort of immunity on the road. If they can shown to be partly or fully responsible – for example, not using lights in the dark – then they shall be held accordingly. (Presumably witness reports of incompetent cycling such as jumping a red light would also be valid – though bearing in mind that the jurors in the Sam Harding case had to be explicitly instructed not to bear prejudice against cyclists and the key reason for the Crown’s inability to prosecute the driver who killed Tim Sanders was a witness who hated cyclists, I accept this with a slight sense of foreboding.)

What this is all about is two things: Firstly, recognition that the overwhelming majority incidents of this type are actually the fault of the driver, yet in many of the cases no successful prosecution is brought. Secondly and, in my view, more importantly, it is recognition of the relative vulnerability (and kinetic energy) of road users. It is not really difficult for drivers to leave plenty of space when passing, or to look twice before pulling out of a junction, but this adjustment of the law would provide a potent real-time reminder for road users to carry out their responsibilities.

Summary

These are, in my opinion, changes which would vastly improve all responsible road users’ sense of safety on the road, not just cyclists. Moreover, there is nothing in here that would be in any way detrimental to any responsible road user.

This is all about dealing with incompetency on the road, from the seemingly minor to the persistent and severe, any of which can become fatal with a roll of the dice. This is all about dealing with the attitude that’s it’s ok to be “a little” incompetent on the road; about preventing jurors from projecting the fear of being punished for their own shortcomings; about preventing people wriggling out of entirely appropriate punishments designed to ensure others’ safety, when those others have no say in the matter.

This is essentially all about the recognition of the fact that controlling a ton or more of metal at significant speed is something that requires skill and attention, and that when those attributes are absent it is nothing less than dangerous.

This is, simply, about common sense.

I write to you as a cyclist, a motorist and a pedestrian. As someone’s son and as someone’s father. As someone who seeks to go about his daily business in reasonable safety, and as someone who has no greater or lesser claim to that desire than any other in this land over which you preside, nor any greater or lesser right to it.

You fail me.

You fail me, and you fail others, because you are not there to protect us. This is your primary purpose: a duty of care, a memorandum of understanding that affords safety and equality to us.

Specifically, you fail us on the road. Here, there is no memorandum of understanding. There is no affordance of safety. And, most palpably of all, there is no equality.

This week you have provided three stark examples of your failure.

Firstly, there is the prominent case of Mary Bowers.

Ms Bowers was waiting in an advanced stop area when a lorry driven by Petre Beiu set off. Beiu had failed to observe the cycle lane and had failed to observe Ms Bowers despite her being visible through his windscreen for at least 10 seconds. He was using a telephone at the time, and was using it to give directions to a colleague who was also driving. He drove his lorry over Ms Bowers, had to be alerted by others to the fact, and failed to stop his vehicle properly. Upon being questioned by the police, he lied to try to cover his own back, denying his use of the telephone. He has admitted other offences.

The punishment for this is a £2700 fine and an 8 month ban.

I should point out, my dear Judicial System, that were I to be so abhorrently incompetent as to have committed that offence, such a sentence would have little impact on my life. The fine is not a punitive amount. The ban, whilst clearly an issue for a professional driver, would be inconsequential to me. I have a wife who can drive, and I can buy train tickets.

Therefore the message that you send to me, and millions of others in similar positions, is that I can destroy someone’s life, a life saved only by the country’s exceptional medical care, and I can destroy the lives of all who are close to them, with entirely negligible consequences to myself.

Of course, had Ms Bowers died, you would have been empowered to do a little more. But you chose to conduct sentencing while she exists in some appalling limbo. And you, the British Judicial System, make a huge distinction between someone whose actions result in death, and someone whose actions result in someone being in a long-term coma with no quality of life and surely a desperate prognosis; a state that some, indeed apparently Ms Bowers’ own father, might be inclined to argue as a state worse than death.

The difference is but a few critical moments around the arrival of paramedics. The difference is not in the actions, the stupidity, the incompetence, the flouting of the law, the deception of the investigating officers, the sheer danger presented to others. You choose not to differentiate so much on these criteria as you do on the actions of the medical staff, out of the hands of both the offender and the victim.

Let us, then, consider your second example of the week.

Yesterday, Wlodzimierz Umaniec was jailed for two years for defacing a Mark Rothko painting. The cost of repairing the damage is estimated at £200,000.

Now, British Judicial System, it should be noted that the damage done here is repairable. Expensive it may be, but it is repairable.

Moreover, it is damage to property, specifically a piece of modern art. There are four consequences: firstly the repair cost, secondly the inconvenience to the public of the work being removed during the repair, thirdly a potential loss of value of the original work, and fourthly some potential upset caused to some people. I would contend, especially given that a common purpose of modern art is to challenge and offend, that the non-financial aspects of this action are inconsequential in comparison to those suffered by Ms Bowers and her friends and family. Leaving us with financial implications only.

It seems strange that the action which has such devastating and irreparable physical and emotional consequences is punished by a derisory fine, whilst that with purely financial consequences is punished by a custodial sentence almost reminiscent of that issued to Pussy Riot earlier in the year.

Yet, my dear System, if this stark disparity in justice was not a sufficiently damning illustration of your lack of fitness for purpose, there is more.

The third example of the week is the case of Sam Harding, who was proceeding in a cycle lane when Kenan Aydogdu, having parked his car, opened his door directly into his path. Mr Harding was flung onto the road, then to be run over by the bus which was following him. He died.

You allowed Aydogdu to walk free. His actions were without legal consequence. This is, depressingly, nothing less than we would expect of you. Had someone accidentally dropped a piano from a bridge into the path of a car, my God, we would expect you to have acted decisively. But in this case, the driver is the party making the mistake, not the one suffering the consequences.

Yet, all of the above merely brings me to the point of my letter to you.

The point of my letter is that you overlook the nature of your role. Your role is to provide security, safety and protection. Even were you capable of acting in an egalitarian manner, your powers cannot provide any security for vulnerable road users.

You see, you miss things.

You miss the fact that a haulage company appears to be comfortable with their drivers operating telephones whilst driving, of drivers giving and receiving directions instead of stopping to consult a map or program a satnav.

You miss the fact that a court saw fit to – apparently unflinchingly – allow the statement that “there was nothing the driver of the 153 bus could have done to avoid running over Mr Harding“, when quite clearly there was: he could have left sufficient distance to stop. What should be expected of a bus if a cat runs into a cyclist’s path? (I should add that this happened to me only last week and quite clearly I was fortunate not to have a bus immediately behind me.) The implication is that it is quite acceptable to drive straight over them.

We all know that when one car crashes into the back of another, the insurance battle will not be drawn-out: in almost all cases it is the rearmost vehicle’s fault; they had been required to leave sufficient space.

Yet you allow this not to apply to cyclists. You fail to see bicycles as vehicles and protect the people using them to the same degree that those in motorised vehicles are protected. You fail to apply the rules of the road to others around them.

Whilst society and the media berate cyclists en masse because of a minority who irresponsibly fail to adhere to some rules, both are markedly unfazed by drivers of motorised vehicles who do the same.

You display this same hypocrisy – and you display it repeatedly and predictably, even with persistent offenders – and this is not becoming of an entity which should stand for protection and equality.

You have, apparently, no powers – and certainly no appetite – for addressing the real issues here.

There is no corporate manslaughter charge offered against a haulage company whose drivers exceed regulated shift times and use telephones in the cab.

There is no investigation into a bus company whose drivers roll over the vehicle in front.

There is barely a potent consequence for any driver, professional or otherwise, whose driving is littered with carelessness and lack of diligence and responsibility. Many thousands of drivers continue to talk on phones whilst driving, many thousands fail to adhere to all sorts of standards which should be expected of them, and you can do nothing. Even when the same drivers appear in court time and again for serious offences, you can do nothing.

Need I remind you that last year, when Peter Stubbs was killed by Charlie Willbourne, you gave no verdict. The driver protested that she was blinded by the sun, yet you deemed that wilfully driving into invisible space was entirely acceptable. You sent the message that driving a car into someone and causing their death was not something to which you would respond.

This year you went further. When Elizabeth Brown was killed by Daniel Mackay, you saw fit not only to absolve him of blame, but to actually make his incompetence his defence. The case, as far as could be gleaned from the reports, hinged around the fact that “another van had suddenly swerved in front of him, blocking his view until it was too late”. In other words, it was the fact that he was driving too closely to the vehicle in front that allowed the jury to excuse him for not having seen Miss Brown.

There are numerous other examples, my dear System. You have the records.

Basic standards of care and diligence on the road are pandemically absent from the driving population.

The public tolerates this. The media ignores it. Professions institutionalise it. And you, in the most literal sense, legitimise it.

I therefore ask you to take on this challenge. Start addressing this cancer of dangerous driving – and let’s make no mistake, legalese aside, carelessness is dangerous when you’re in charge of a ton or more of metal.

I hope you can change to address these stark shortcomings. I believe I won’t be the last to make this request.