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@dr.oblong
i just want to say that i did not come off the bike and i was not hurt in any way yesterday. i am saying this because people have posted accounts above of incidents way more serious, where people have actually been hurt and the incredibly indifferent response of the authorities has truely added insult to injury.
too many lazy journalists writing articles about dangerous cyclists and too few forwarding qualified arguments for strengthening laws against bad driving. as cyclists we may have a responsibly to use the roads safely (if only to avoid fueling the crass arguments against us that distract from the real issues at hand) but legal recourse should not have to be preceded by serious injury in an RTA or an assault after expressing ourselves to the offending driver (kipsy). you may be lucky enough not be hurt on the occasion you come across that dangerous driver but it is surely only a matter of time before some one is. for most people a car is probably the most dangerous machine they will ever be responsible for. how many 'near misses' should we (as a society) tolerate a driver being involved with before we take away their rights to drive?
a while back i was delivering 'bikeability' in newham when a driver deliberately risked injuring trainees because he was irritated at having to wait for them. there was no collision, no body got hurt, but that does not change the fact that he demonstrated a willful disregard for other road users and should not be behind the steering wheel of a car. if (as described by others above) the police are not prepared to do anything on the occasions when a car has hit somebody and someone has been injured and there are witnesses (who are even in the police force) where does that put cyclists in the 'food chain'? i think people get into more trouble when they mistreat animals, which means we are basically unprotected by the law.
at the risk of sounding like a vigilante, if drivers don't perceive a risk to themselves from us as cyclists they don't perceive any risk at all-legal or otherwise. i suspect that if it were not for the expensive paintwork on their cars, even more cyclists would be injured and killed. in the absence of a change in the law and policing does this mean that a motorist has to die at the hands of a cyclist for anything to change!