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@roxy
Hi All,
I have glanced over this thread and had a good conversation about it at East End drinks, and while I totally support fgss getting off our asses and actually doing something, I'm really super disappointed by what I've managed to read here.
I think this could totally backfire without some sort of equal campaign acknowledging that the bigger the vehicle you choose to drive the more responsibility you choose to take.
While I agree that there are stupid/uninformed cyclists out there, in no way should fgss be advocating a safety campaign that is basically a "blame the victim" campaign.
This just wreaks of the same backwards thinking that "women who wear short skirts deserved to be raped" does.
Yes of course, riding on the left of a lorrie means they can't see you but that doesn't mean you deserve to be hit.
Someone, I think Tim, brought up making a double sided flyer one geared toward cyclists, one geared toward HGV drivers. I think this is a much better way to approach the subject.
-Explain to HGV drivers that many cyclists feel a need to be in cycle lanes and get trapped to the left of them while trying to obey traffic signals, etc
and explain to cyclists that HGV drivers are cunts, erm, no sorry, explain to cyclists that there is indeed real blind spots to be aware of.
-If I got one of these spoke cards above I would be really fucking pissed off. I'd tell whoever gave them to me to get on the right side of the debate and fight for cyclist's rights as oppose to only explaining that they shouldn't wear skirts or lipstick at night.
It's the same as when I got "explained" why running red lights was dangerous by an LCC guy who was supposed to be advocating more cyclists but was actually out defending pedestrians in Angel.
Or when TfL stuck an HGV in Trafalgar Square and invited cyclists to "see for themselves" how blind the drivers are.
How about a fund that will back fgss members who take HGV-drivers to court? How about a group that will write letters to every major goods carrying service, explaining that we will seek prosecution of HGV operating companies who's drivers hit cyclists?
Look, I get the idea of this, and I think it's nice, but as a cyclist, I'd be well pissed off receiving one of these flyer/spokecards. However, if I saw that HGV drivers were being given the same ones, I'd find it much more intriguing and fair. Plus, I think HGV drivers would probably feel the same way. They have to deal with crappy riders every day, I reckon they wouldn't listen to a similar card like above, but they may read one, if they saw that cyclists were also being told how to be more defensive.
Ok, apologies if someone has already said all of this.