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The problem with the respect thing is, road safety has nothing to do with respect. It is just about safe driving/ riding/ walking. We should all practice it.
Once you think of safety in terms of rights rather than duties, you open the debate up to arguments about people losing their rights, not being entitled to them and so on.
so the only example we have of an accident at a red light was caused by the cyclist not jumping the light?
I've had the same. Stopped at a just-changed-to-red light and the Audi behind missed me by millimetres as he swerved round me to jump the lights.
The problem with the respect thing is, road safety has nothing to do with respect. It is just about safe driving/ riding/ walking. We should all practice it.
Yep, people saying cyclists need to earn their respect are more of a problem than any cyclist I've seen on the roads.
To my mind its a tribal "them and us" situation in the UK. Cyclists are seen as a group apart and are given a hard time by road users, this then leads theminto a situation whereby they feel " why bother with the highway code" as obeying the highway code does not get car drivers to do the same and the situation escalates over years until both groups hate, blame and behave badly to the other
The parallel is with travelling people. 100 years ago valued members of the rural economy welcomed onto farms for the temporary skills they bring. As they got a worse and worse press and attitudes towards them hardened they became detached from society and (some) of them began to behave in ways outside of society's norms thus increasing the antagonism towards them and thus reinforcing the antisocial behaviour
The other aspect is simple jealousy. Cars are sold on the basis of this wonderful dream of the open road and stress free travel. the reality is somewhat different and this is frustrating. the car driver then sees the cyclist enjoying stress free travel and [i]they don't even pay for it[/i] and that causes them to hate the cyclists
Round 2 today. Though there seem to be more cyclists than drivers today, and the level of bile is fairly low so far:
I was musing on this thread and the half baked comments from readers in the local paper in response to police using go pro footage to prosecute drivers and a couple of things occurred to me.
1 - out of all the people I've travelled in cars with for business and leisure over the last few years if i had to pick a top ten people I feel safe with as a passenger: eight ride bikes or have ridden bikes regularly, of the other two my wife is an infrequent family cyclist and the tenth is simply a good driver. I'd struggle to find many more non cyclists if that list went to 20.
2 - why are drivers so fearful of go pro footage etc? The police cannot prosecute if there is no crime. So if I go out all camera kitted and you don't drive like a tool and illegally you have the sum total of NOTHING to worry about. If you're worried your driving is not up to scratch and you aren't as careful as the law requires then improve it, don't moan about getting caught for being a tit!
[quote=garage-dweller ]2 - why are drivers so fearful of go pro footage etc?
It's a combination of the "persecution of drivers" narrative they've all been told and the sense of entitlement many drivers get - which extends to them being allowed to break the law if they want to. I think many drivers know subconsciously at least that they regularly break the law, but they think they should have a sporting chance of getting away with it.
I'm sure you're right. I think the only thing I'd disagree with is "sporting chance" what many want is a [b]cast iron, platinum plated guarantee[/b] that they'll get away with it (especially if it's just some scummy cyclist).
I drive 20,000 miles a year. Persecuted is not a word I would choose to associate with trying to maintain a sense of order on the roads. I fear I am in the minority!
I'll save the word persecuted for those who are acting legally and getting routinely bad treatment as a consequence of their beliefs, life choices etc.
Getting nicked for not being able to wait 20 minutes to read your e-mails is not persecution it's their own fault!