Boris Johnson's Narrow Escape

Oliver I don't think that was Dave's point. He's trying to say, (and rightly so IMO) that the larger and more dangerous the vehicle, the greater responsibility the driver has to show care and pay attention. this applies regardless of how often the driver gets behind the wheel.

I think it is possible to demarcate behaviour and consequence, and recognise that people hold responsibility for both.

Yes, quite right, fred. Sorry, Dave, I did mean to add something like that but forgot (too tired last night). Given the greater potential for harm, it is certainly not the same situation for a cyclist and the operator of a motorised vehicle. Of course, all have the same responsibility to operate their vehicle safely, but the potential consequences are vastly different.

And I'm not just talking about consequences in the event of a collision, but also about things like close overtaking or speeding.

The problem is that if potential consequences were taken into account, the responsibility attached to driving would become crushing. In fact, it has been suggested that if drivers were fully aware of it, many would not drive.

I can't help thinking, though, that 'responsibility' isn't the right word to capture both notions--standard of behaviour and responsibility for consequences, and that may be partly responsible for it being such a contentious point.

I know it probably comes across that i'm just hunting for an argument, I promise i'm not, but I think that's a very dangerous attitude to take, saying you have less responsiblitiy because you're on a bike, just remember, a cyclist can cause an accident on the road as anyone else, sure, they don't kill people directly very often, but that's not to say they don't cause accidents too, anyway, back to my point, if you're on the road, you should be paying 100% attention, which is why I think this "##### should pay greater attention" is a dangerous train of thought, it makes others think they can get away with paying less attention, we all share the same road, we should all share the same responsibilities.

I agree with some of that, Michael, but what I keep saying is that we shouldn't have to have a traffic environment in which people aren't allowed to make mistakes. No-one is ever going to be able to pay 100% attention. The myth that the street environment is 100% unforgiving is a 'Road Safety' myth, a product of a position that refuses to reduce road danger at source.

People are required to be equally responsible because they are people; but they are not equally responsible considering what tools they use. Yes, everybody has the same duty of care in principle (i.e., irrespective of potential to do harm) to avoid harm through their use of such transportation tools (indeed also as a pedestrian, which need not involve any more sophisticated transportation tools than feet or shoes) but in practice (in view of the actual harmful consequences) it is extremely unfair to place the same burden on cyclists and pedestrians as on people using motorised vehicles.