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@somebody
hi oliver,
yep i share your thoughts you made in your last post - yes i think some people are using the danger thing as an excuse for inaction and yes the perception of danger is often worse than the reality.
but on sat evening a driver deliberately cut across me (and others who were driving mpv's (two lanes of traffic)) to turn left. so much so that i had to brake. (i was going straight on.) a less experienced rider might have been in trouble / more intimidated. he was racing for the green before it turned red / being v pushy. but that kind of proves my point about rlj's and danger. i just want to get away from these people. and with a rlj one avoids the left turners and i get 200 / 300 / 400 m of 'monster free' environment.
(and that kind of incident can put off a novice / less robust individual from cycling. and i surmise that is why a significant proportion of riders are male and young and therefore less intimidated by such occurrences).
and / but i think 20 mph (in built up areas) is the silver bullet. i think that over a generation that will change the default mode of travel from mpv to cycling and walking. and that critical mass will then force change on all the other shortcomings in the design of our local thoroughfares. and noise and carbon output pollution per person will drop significantly. amen.
anyway back to the here and now i will attend the lorry / cyclist awareness event tomorrow out of curiosity.
and i will post on here how it goes.
i will, of course, try and remain polite.....
but i am not taking any rubbish talk / fuzzy logic from these people. if necessary i will ride away and pay the £30 fine.
maybe see you tomorrow at easts ?