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My issues is that I really done think you can judge a cyclist and a motorist in the same way.
A motor vehicle takes up the full lane and swerving isn’t an option in normal circumstances when a ped appears in the lane in front of them. It’s not the same for a cyclist, a ped and the cyclist can pass each other in the same lane safely. Also given cyclists own vulnerability they cant just perform an emergency stop without taking into account the traffic conditions around them at the time, you could very easily end up under a bus like that.
These are all issues that solicitors acting for cyclists need to get better at arguing, given that there fighting against a jury and judge who in all likelihood won’t have any sphere of reference of what a carful and competent cyclists would do given these circumstances.
In some respects I hope that the Briggs campaign gets there way with the change to the law as the wanton and furious cycling charge is way too easy to get a conviction, it holds cyclists to level of perfection that you don’t get with the motoring offences. If the cyclist offence come in and are apply in the same way a motoring offences then the conviction rate will fall to zero.
Not that any of this is a good thing, I’d prefer that motorist were held to the same standard as cyclists currently are.
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HousecatHST
I totally get that and agree that the law is not applied equally. However that is totally irrelevant to the matter of how a road user is expected to behave. Just because a law is unfairly applied doesn't change a thing about how anybody should operate their bike to be safe.