3 ms·
Which isn't what's happening. The fine is for injuring somebody with your car door, not for failing to follow the officially approved method of opening it. But
by BucketsMcG 5y ago
Which isn't what's happening. The fine is for injuring somebody with your car door, not for failing to follow the officially approved method of opening it.
But you'd never get that impression from most of the reporting around this. Deliberately misleading outrage fodder in the headlines, followed ten paragraphs later by a more honest explanation of what's happening, which directly contradicts the original headline. It's pretty disgraceful, but the pervasiveness of it smacks of some lobbying outfit feeding copy to overworked journos.
- notapenny 5y agoThanks for clearing that up, had to look around a bit but this clears it up https://road.cc/content/news/press-misrepresents-highway-code-changes-289747 https://road.cc/content/news/press-misrepresents-highway-cod... "It is already an offence to open a car door, or cause or permit it to be opened, so as to cause injury, punishable by a maximum fine of £1,000." That makes more sense.
- notahacker 5y agoYep. To further contextualise this, the Highway Code is a set of guidelines which summarises good practice to avoid breaking actual laws and be seen as a considerate driver. There is a law against driving a vehicle in a dangerous condition, for example, and the Highway Code's suggestion you check the lights and brakes work every time you use the car will tend to reduce the chances of you being fined for driving your car in a dangerous condition. It'd probably be a good idea to do carry out those checks regardless of whether driving a vehicle in a dangerous condition or not. But it's neither necessary nor sufficient to carry out these checks to avoid being fined.