FORCE FOR DRIVERS
TO BOOST COUNCIL COFFERS OTHER HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONALS TO CARRY OUT DVLA CHECKS
All drivers are legally required to meet the medical stan- dards for fitness to drive and to help make these decisions, the DVLA often requires questionnaires to be completed by a driver’s GP or consultant.
The government is considering changing the rules on who can conduct medical questionnaires - which is currently restricted to just doctors.
A consultation that ended on December 6 raised the pro- posal of allowing other healthcare professionals, such as nurses , to complete the questionnaires to ease the growing workload on doctors and help accelerate licence renewals.
CHANGES TO THE HIGHWAY CODE HIERARCHY
A new ‘hierarchy of road users’ system has joined the Highway Code this year to protect the most vulnerable people, including cyclists.
Ultimately, it means those in larger vehicles will have to take extra caution to ensure they’re not putting cyclists and pedestrians at risk. In the event of an accident, the driver of the larger vehicle is most likely to be held responsible.
The new hierarchy is as follows: 1. Pedestrians 2. Cyclists 3. Horse riders 4. Motorcyclists 5. Cars/taxis 6. Vans/minibuses 7. Large passenger vehicles/heavy goods vehicles
COUNTRY-WIDE BAN ON ALL PAVEMENT PARKING
Parking on the pavement is already illegal in London but changes to the law are expected in 2022 that will give local councils across England and Wales the power to issue on- the-spot £70 fines to those who mount the kerb.
The government held a consultation on the matter in Novem- ber 2020, with a proposed blanket ban to prevent motorists blocking pavements for parents with pushchairs, those with limited mobility and anyone reliant on a seeing-eye dog. The DfT’s consultation proposed three options to reform the rules on pavement parking:
FEBRUARY 2022 85
• Improving the Traffic Regulation Order (TRO) process, under which local authorities can already prohibit pavement parking.
• A legislative change to allow local authorities with civil park- ing enforcement powers to enforce against ‘unnecessary obstruction of the pavement’.
• A legislative change to introduce a London-style pavement parking prohibition throughout England.
SPEED LIMITERS IN NEW CARS
New cars will be fitted with speed limiters from July 6, 2022 to improve road safety. The Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA) black boxes will use GPS to work out what the speed limit is and will then ensure the car doesn’t break it.
A new regulation will be imposed by the European Commis- sion in the General Safety Regulation having been approved by the European Parliament in 2019.
ISAs will be mandatory for all new models given ‘type approval’ from 6 July. This means any new car brought to market from that date, rather than new cars already in production.
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