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@deleted
If you look at things from first principles the situation with motor vehicles in London is appalling.
Most of the cycle lanes I see in London don’t comply with the highway code, ie don’t provide enough room for motor vehicles to overtake a cyclist whilst giving them as much room as a car. The CPS/Courts accept SMIDSY as a defence and whenever somebody is convicted of causing death by dangerous driving etc the penalties are a joke.
Unsecure parking spaces around my area rent for over £100pcm, that’s the market price. It’s not much of a jump therefore to say that the state (ie everybody) is subsidising car owners who park on the road in my area to the tune of £1000pa. That’s before we look at the massive issues around the use of natural resources and the social, health and economic costs of pollution, sedentary lifestyles and the effect on cyclists, peds and our cityscape.
Ultimately we’re competing against the motoring lobby etc and it doesn’t seem unreasonable to say that a significant proportion of their profits accrue from environmental exploitation (ie everybody is paying for it) of one form or another. It’s impossible to compete against that on equal terms because almost by definition we’re not exploiting the environment to get cash to fund our campaigns.
In his official Police report into the 80s? Brixton riots Brian Paddick concluded/suggested that education has a major liberalising effect on Police officers and because they are allowed to use so much discretion in their work this is significant when we consider that, in London, the average Police officer is likely to be less educated that the average person of a similar age. My experience is that the average Police officer in London is innately biased against cyclists and often doesn’t know the law. If the Police actually enforced the laws we do have rather than acting like legislators themselves the situation would be much much better. How can the Police officially point black refuse to enforce laws (ie 20mph speed limits) and not get sacked?
I fully accept that reinforcing the differences between cyclists and motorists is generally not helpful but ultimately when are we going to say enough is enough? What if the situation is no different in 50 years?