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You're driving your car along the road and come across someone in the road. You then stick your head out the window and yell to them, "move because I'm not stopping.." For whatever reason, they're still in your way and there's a collision as a result.
If they subsequently lost their life because you ran into them, you'd expect the judge to throw the book at you wouldn't you? You'd expect no less than to spend a very long time sharing a small space with a big guy called Ron and quite rightly so.
So why is it then, that a cyclist who did exactly this gets off with a £2,200 fine? (source: BBC News) It just doesn't make any sense and as the father of the young girl in this case said, the punishment was "laughable". Well I for one agree with him. It's about time the law was changed so that cyclists are as accountable for their actions as any other road user.
It's a few bad apples that spoil cycling for everyone
I've lost count of the number of near misses I've had with selfish cyclists over the years myself, particularly as a pedestrian in places like Oxford and London. Some of these idiots think they have priority over everything else around them, pedestrians, cars, because they're all treated with the same contempt. A quick ring of the bell and everything and everyone is supposed to get out the way. As for traffic lights, pedestrian crossings and pavements, they're all treated as cycle paths by these arrogant and selfish cyclists.
I'm not pointing the finger at all cyclists because I am aware that the vast majority of them are law abiding and considerate. It's a few bad apples that spoil cycling for everyone and by the way, I don't advocate a change in the law to such a degree that cycling becomes inaccessible.
Accidents involving cyclists, and in particular relatively rare cases where pedestrians have come to harm should be at least be treated as seriously as they deserve to be. What say you?
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As the cyclist wasn’t close enough to be put into danger I pulled out in front of him as I wasn’t going to wait for him to pass when he should have waited behind the car which was giving way to me.
The cyclist waved his hands and made remarks at me. If there was no car in front of him and he was where he was I would have waited but he was too impatient to wait behind the car so I wasn’t going to give way to him as he is the one who should have waited, not undertook and expected me to wait until he had passed.
And once established there will even be a benefit to pedestrians for a change. There will be no excuse for cyclists to ride on the pavements any more!
Or a new mattress (and then the old one to the tip), or a chest of drawers, or an exhaust for your other half's car, or 2 bags of compost and about 10 or 15 plants in pots plus 3 or 4 large ceramic pots..........and so on.
Or then maybe some of the people you saw were trying to get to the airport for a much needed holiday. 100 miles with 20k of luggage on a bike?
I know you are rabidly anti-car but they do have their uses!
Then of course there are no figures recorded of how many accidents are caused by diversions funneling all the traffic from the closed road onto roads which aren't designed to cope with it, and other ways "secondary" accidents occur.
A while ago I was delayed by a bad accident; several hours after the accident had happened I saw the aftermath of another accident which had happened in the held up traffic. A body was being removed from this secondary accident and I can't help wondering if that person would have lived if the road had been cleared more quickly.
You are right to say that increased speed increases damage done in accidents; but it's better if you don't hit somebody in the first place, which is why drivers need to pay more attention. However if you are driving along a road with a limit set well below the 85th percentile speed accidents are statistically more likely to happen. Setting the limit at the 85th percentile speed gives the lowest accident rate; lower or higher and accident numbers go up!
Speed in itself may not cause accidents but it increased the damage done and the likelihood of death to pedestrians, cyclists and the occupants of cars. Getting there in one piece is more important than getting there fast.
Where did you get those figures?
"So would people who hadn't passed their green cross code exam and not paid third party pedestrian tax be confined to their homes?"
This is "reductio ad absurdum", a sure sign that someone has no sensible point to make.
Fred, you said "As it is the blood is quickly cleaned from the road, the bodies whisked away to mortuaries". Have you ever seen the chaos caused by a fatal accident? Years ago getting the traffic moving again was seen as the priority; then a Welsh idiot decided that all fatal accident scenes had to be treated as potential crime scenes. So now the traffic is held up for hours while the "crime scene" is investigated down to the minutest detail. The drivers already on the road are definitely not a priority; how long they have to wait matters not a jot.
Fred, don't put so much emphasis on keeping to speed limits; many are now set far below the 85th pecentile speed and are therefore too low. As you say drivers taking more care is definitely what is needed. Lack of attention is what causes accidents, not "speeding" in itself.
Strikes me as very odd how people are so keen to chastise the source of what is of course a terrible and wholly avoidable incident whilst turning a blind eye to the real issues out there resulting in death and severe injury. Something to think about isn't it?!
collar
It's simply not possible to bring these individuals to book, and I value a good driver. Most 'cyclists' are rubbish, far too bad at road sense.