as crazy legs has already said don’t fall into that trap. I drive, you probably drive, next time you hear about a driver doing 140 down the motorway or driving 20 times the legal limit you wont think “that utter bastard giving us honest drivers a bad name”, it’s not a diver or a cyclist or whoever giving a everyone else in the subset a bad name, it’s just someone being a colossal dick, end of.

Unfortunately in some colossal dick drivers minds all cyclists are lumped in together. I’d rather be disassociated with the colossal dick and/or suicidal numpty cyclists

I’m pretty sure you’re correct, police forces get told to ignore drivers and concentrate on cyclists. The public have this illogical fear of things. Rabid immigrants, lizard overlords, paedos in the park etc etc. The stuff that is more harmful to them and theirs is the everyday, motor traffic, household accidents but ask what they are worried about and it’s some daily mail fantasy headline.

IIRC I read something lately where police said after consultation in one area the number one thing people wanted them to focus on was bad cycling – despite the stats.

It may have been said and i will probably antagonise a few but its true in my mind from experience

Truckers (on a whole) aint the brightest or most gentile of folk, tipper drivers (muck shifting guys) are the lowest form of trucker, the ones not trusted to drive lorries, have crashed them or just qualified. They are the sort who drive all day, and drink all night. There are so little margins in muck shifting that they are always rushing to get an extra trip done in the day as it makes a big difference to their take home as most of the trips go to cover costs, so if they get 6 trips in instead of 5 they may take home £120 instead of £80.

With this in mind they drive like ass holes and pay so little attention its untrue, and hence the skewed number of deaths by them. If it was a visibility thing then they would cause half as many deaths as Articulated trailered trucks cause. I dont know exact figures but know its considerably more than them.

Now car drivers are to blame too, and cyclists are also to blame, me included, however im a lot better rider than someone new to commuting and have been in dodgy situations, however i know what to look out for and im better equipped to get out of a situation if it occurrs.

However back to the point, JUST AVOID TIPPERS LIKE THE PLAGUE and take on board what i say, its through experience of meeting them continually, not on the off chance i met one prat.

Condolences to all taken this week too, its played on my mind a lot when around traffic this week

I’ve said it before and i’ll say it again.

A National TV ad campaign promoting the LIFESAVER.

Oh yes.

I have another controversial opinion – in tandem with my earlier remarks – each collision is to be investigated properly , and ‘death by dangerous driving’ taken off the table to be replaced with manslaughter, murder or assault – with sentencing to match. Motoring offences to constitute a criminal record rather than jokey misdemeanors as they are now seen.

adjustablewench: please include my whole comment, including what I propose should replace ‘death by dangerous driving’ – I’ve already been misrepresented as advocating a ban on deaf cyclists (which is totally NOT what I said).

I’ll sign. And in the meantime, in addition to being a CTC member, I am quietly campaigning away by myself, by writing letters to TfL (bus driver who ‘punish-passed’ me), the RAC (learner driver who cut in front of me) and Boris himself.

As for the Police. One morning I found a police van, with two officers in it, parked in the bike lane in Crouch End. This particular bike lane has a qualifying sign giving its times of operation, and is bounded by a solid line. Notwithstanding this, the police van was parked in the bike lane. When I stopped to challenge the police officers they were cocky and condescending. The driver started to wind his window up while I was speaking, and only stopped when I said “Don’t wind your window up while I am speaking”. Their rationale was some bollocks about a dangerous prisoner (why one would wrestle a dangerous prisoner across a busy road escapes me). I told them that they were setting a very bad example which ill-became them as officers of the law and rode off.

adjustablewench: no problem, I totally get both your points (just a tiny bit sensitive due to being COMPLETELY misrepresented :))

There are (in my opinion) two points here: one is to change the law/attitude/climate

and one is to stay alive

The first: write to your MP, bus company, truck operator, taxi company, join/support campaign groups .

The second: look after yourself when you ride. Give yourself the best chance of survival: use lights, ride in primary, keep good observation, second-guess what drivers are going to do; use all of your senses; KEEP AWAY FROM TIPPER TRUCKS.

Karin, you probably need to understand a bit about what you are proposing. Before the death by… offences were invented this is exactly how these matters were dealt with (well manslaughter). But those offences are common law crimes that have been defined over centuries and have quite clearly established principles, and therefore also a range of defence strategies. Precisely because manslaughter was too hard to prove the death by… offence was invented – it is a statutory offence (clearly* defined in law). Abolishing s1 of the RTA 1988 would simply mean more people ‘get off with’ manslaughter and/or fewer prosecutions.

However, as I and others have pointed out on here before, even if you were to redefine the death by offences into something simpler to prove with a huge sentence on it – it would be little impact to PREVENT accidents. Nobody sets off in the morning with the penalties for “Death by…” in their head and thinks “oh well its only likely to be [a year in prison / a year driving ban / a community sentence]…”. Because its highly likely that if you drive like a **** you will get away with it (both physically and legally). If you want the judicial system to make the roads safer you need to focus on catching the “minor” offences where no death occurs.

* some people may argue the clearly part – however there is a specific act of parliament and sections of that act which apply.

Tragically you need to update the thread title….another cyclist was killed last night

FFS – I’d better “dodder off” and voluntarily hand my license in then, as I won’t see 60 again.

I dont want to sound all Daily Mail but it’s a national disgrace that is being ignored by the powers that be.

Seriously 🙁
http://road.cc/content/news/98854-londons-killer-roundabout-claims-another-cyclist-woman-dies-bow

Oh well thats ok then, carry on folks 😕

Just to make this not London centric, it is six in nine days as a cyclist was killed in Nantwich day before yesterday in a hit and run by a lorry – driver has now been arrested.

I used to cycle around Aldgate as part of my commute, its a horrendous gyratoy.

RIP

http://road.cc/content/news/98950-cyclist-killed-bus-crash-whitechapel

Yeah I did cheers.

a load of stuff which sounds exactly like victim blaming. Dick. Has he had the results of the all the investigations then? Had a quick inquiry that concluded cyclists were at fault? Or is he just trying to deflect attention away from him?

<edit> closer to (my) home 🙁

You can not call Boris a moron in these circumstances, but what you can say is Boris is a moron.

5 deaths, and he’s pretty much blamed them all on cyclists running red lights and not look what they’re doing, despite knowing nothing about the accidents.