Boris Johnson's Narrow Escape

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.

Oh yes of course no one is able to pay 100% attention all the time, but we should be aiming for that, if someone is aiming for 80% attention, they're gonna slack even more. As much as I hate to i've gotta disagree with that second bit though, the way I look at it, if you're using the road, you should bear the same responsibility as everyone else on the road. Like my comment on attention, if a cyclist/biker/car driver think they have less responsibility that someone else, they'll just slip even more.

Now, can we get back to talking about redheads? I can't stand it when threads get dragged off-topic ;)