Safety group wants motorcyclists blamed for crashes with cyclists – even if they hit us.

Motorcyclists should be assumed to blame for crashes with cyclists, a major road safety charity has said.

We should be made to pay the cyclist compensation unless we can prove they were at fault, according to RoadPeace.

Amy Aeron-Thomas, director of RoadPeace, said the group was calling for the law to be changed so that “In any collision involving a pedestrian or cyclist, the motor vehicle driver is held responsible for civil compensation… unless it can be proven that the cyclist or pedestrian made the error.” 

In other parts of Europe including France, Germany, Belgium and Holland, motorcyclists and car drivers are already assumed to be liable in accidents with pedestrians or cyclists.

Compulsory motor insurance includes extra cover for any compensation claims.

Proposals in 2002 to introduce a similar system here were rejected in European Parliament.

Sheila Rainger, spokeswoman for the RAC Foundation, said it would give “Carte blanche to pedestrians or cyclists to behave as recklessly as they like.”

A new report has claimed cyclists are more at risk from pedestrians and roadside objects such as lamp posts than from us.

Transport think tank Two Wheels Better says cyclists are eight times more likely to die from hitting roadside objects than from collisions with motorcycles and twice as likely to die from hitting pedestrians.

Click here to read the report.

For more details, go to www.twowheelsbetter.org

Get MCN, on sale November 21, to find out who RoadPeace wants blamed for crashes between motorcycles and cars.