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Unreliable Evidence

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Unreliable Evidence: The Law of the Road

27/05/2015

The Law of the Road

BBC Radio 4 - Unreliable Evidence, The Law of the Road

Clive Anderson and guests discuss how the law might save lives on the roads.

Clive Anderson and guests discuss how changes to Britain's traffic laws could potentially reduce the numbers of motorists, cyclists and pedestrians killed or injured on the roads.

Clive Anderson and a panel of legal experts discuss how changes to our traffic laws could reduce the numbers of motorists, cyclists and pedestrians killed or injured on the road.?

Our road traffic laws effectively offer everyone at the age of 17 the opportunity to take to the wheel of a car - even under the influence of a modest amount of alcohol. Our roads are governed by a complex set of rules and regulations which are often hard to understand - and even harder to enforce.

The discussion ranges across raising the legal driving age, lowering speed limits, imposing stricter penalties for drink-driving and other offences, and reversing the burden of proof for the most serious motoring offences. 

Do the penalties available to magistrates and judges provide sufficient deterrent to breaking the laws of the road? And do the courts make sufficient distinction between motorists who flout the laws - violators - and those who merely make mistakes? Should a motorist who drives carelessly and collides with a pedestrian be punished more severely than one who collides with a tree?

Clive's guests are Sally Kyd Cunningham, professor of law at the University of Leicester who specialises in road traffic offences; Julian Hunt, former crown prosecutor and now a barrister who both defends and prosecutes in road traffic cases; Richard Monkhouse, chair of the Magistrates Association with over 18 years' experience as a lay justice; and Simeon Maskrey QC, barrister, Deputy High Court Judge, Recorder of the Crown Court and keen cyclist who admits that he's been known to break the law by jumping red lights in order to escape the attention of thundering lorries.

Producer: Brian King
An Above the Title production for BBC Radio 4.

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