Petition to make cyclists (and others) lifes safer

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/mobilemenaceban/

Worth signing.

I'm not sure, I think that the last thing that people need to do is to give the government yet another excuse to pass even more laws.

As I read it it's not a new law they're after it's a heavier penalty. The authorities won't catch more people unless they put more manpower into doing the catching, but a larger punishment will at least perhaps be more of a deterrent to some for the slim chance they may get pulled for it.

Why don't they just ask for more cycle lanes... or greater cycle awareness schemes??

I'd rather not get hit and have a nice cycle lane to ride down than get hit and know that the driver will get a slightly worse punishment.

I find it silly that on my entire commute from Hagley to central Birmingham I do not see a single cycle lane the entire way... that is 14miles of urban roads!

I was hospitalised by a silly motorist a month back, and I couldn't give a toss what punishment she gets, it's not going to stop all the other bad drivers... Prevention of accidents is a better idea than focusing on punishing the few that get caught, and since so little time is given to the cyclist cause, we should at least be asking for the right things. This is my opinion anyway.

Cycle lanes/segregation is pointless unless they do it to the entire road network which is stupid, unpheasible and aint gonna happen. The problem with Birmingham is that all the main infrastructure/roads into the city centre are aimed purely at the motor vehicle. The city centre is surrounded by big dual carriageways, tunnels and massive roundabouts shared by 44 tonne trucks and drivers totally unsuspecting of cyclists. There is no real understanding between cyclists or drivers of where the cyclist is supposed to be on these roads/junctions, you just have to take the centre of a lane to make people notice and hope no one gets angry or get hit by a truck. The worst things however is that drivers are completely unaccountable for any near misses due to poor driving unless they actually hit & injure/damage bike of rider. But as is obvious, if you get hit by a car on a big main road or roundabout, its likely to be very serious.

So we need either more awareness & accountability on the side of drivers, or a better designed road network that makes it safer for cyclists. This does not necessarily mean segregation though.