Posted By Paul Leadbetter Zoe You are right, I think; the roads on a school site are not covered by Road Traffic legislation. Paul

Posted By Ken Taylor Road traffic law will not apply on private roads but criminal law will. So an assault would need to be reported. Careful decisions need to be made therefore but, if in doubt, it is generally advisable to report something that you didn't have to than not to report something that you should.

Posted By peter gotch Zoe, The case law on this one is rather contradictory. My advice would be to assume RTA applies unless you have legal advice to the contrary! Peter

Posted By Martyn Hendrie I don't have my RIDDOR guide to hand, but the incident may be reportable to the HSE under RIDDOR if the child was taken directly to either a hospital or doctor's surgery. (Member of the public injured by an employee at his place of work and taken for medical treatment??)

Posted By Allan St.John Holt It's not unusual to see cases rather like this coming up in the criminal court. The application of the RTA is to a public right of way, and each case is decided on the facts. It turns on the question of whether there is an implicit or explicit right of way. For example, a supermarket car park is deemed to be a public right of way because there is no attempt by the owner to exclude the public. Pub car parks are the same. So, if there is a question of driving otherwise than in accordance with a licence (no licence, wrong type of licence) the driver can be found guilty or not guilty based on where the driving took place. In my experience on the Bench, most pub car parks are classed as public rights of way in practice. There is a right of appeal on the facts to the Crown Court. Can this be applied here? On this test, if the school allows parents and others (not just the staff) to use the driveway e.g. to pick up children, then this would likely be found to be a public right of way. The method of stopping the application of the RTA is to post a notice stating 'No Public Right of Way'. Allan

Posted By Jack Re RIDDOR, (if it met other criteria ie was taken to hospital) it is reportable if it "arises out of or is in connection with work". The question would be are traffic management and carparking arrangements on the site part of the governing bodies "undertaking". Probably answer would be yes. Re whether it's covered by RTA, Allan's point is convincing to me. I seem to recall an employee with bald tyres travelling on an internal (ie private) road being found guilty of Section 7 of HSWA.

Posted By John Donaldson If it helps this is what has happened in practice on my Campus. We have a number of private roads which pass through our Campus and are used by Public Service Vehicles and the Emergency Services. The roads are also used by members of the public to gain access to the car parks. Our experience has been that when a road traffic accident does occur, which they do from time to time, the Police deal with it under the Road Traffic Acts unless it occurs in one the Car Parks. Because of the Police action we do not report traffic accidents under RIDDOR. I have to say that if one of the numerous university vehicles was involved in a personal injury accident on a Campus Road, I would report under RIDDOR. John

Posted By Zoe Barnett Many thanks for all your responses - I am grateful as ever for the speed and quality of the advice (particularly that from Mr Maidment which I will be putting into action as soon as poss). The school in question is actually a Foundation School and the only one in my area not to buy their H&S service from the LEA - so really as the LEA adviser I shouldn't have had any involvement in the first place had it not been for a call from the school's secretary. They have since been advised to take the matter to the chartered surveyor who is their "competent person" - although whether a surveyor's training equips one to offer H&S advice is a whole new thread...

Posted By Ken Taylor This issue would arise on roads within Council Housing Estates (in England) where some roads had been adopted as public highway and others had not and were controlled by the Housing Department and so different law applied to each category. The roads within our schools are certainly private, we set our own speed limits, the public do not have freedom of access and road traffic law does not apply.

Posted By Ken Taylor Thanks, Martin. Fortunately we have gates on our school roads. Presumably this will emphasise the need for proper traffic signs on private roads that come under road traffic law?