I, too, think that we need to have some kind of national road safety campaign on TV but, I do think that it needs to be wider focused than ‘Cyclist v Drivers’ as that is just confrontational and emphasizes any existing ‘us and them’ mentality.
Whilst I totally get the fact that cyclists are very vulnerable, the standard of driving in general has to be addressed – I commute by car (too far to commute on a regular basis) and the things that I see on a daily basis (in the same old, predictable, locations) would make you hair curl.
It’s a bit like saying “we need to clamp down on criminals that exploit vulnerable old people”, where we really just want to clamp down on criminal behaviour in general. (Which, in my opinion, is what a lot of driving behaviour could quite easily be classified as – criminal)
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Why a wider focus? Drink driving, seat belt use, think bike – all very focused campaigns that worked. This is about how cyclists are treated, not about the general shambolic nature of our roads.
