Public Inquiry: Get Britain Cycling

The cycling laws in Japan are incredibly lax - in fact, they're 99% of the time ignored by both cyclists and the police themselves.

However, there is one (debatably) good side to the overall road laws in Japan -
In an accident involving vehicles, cyclists, pedestrians and any combination thereof, the guilt is immediately allocated to the larger object. So if a cyclist hits a pedestrian, the cyclist has the burden of proof to show they were not at fault. No proof means the cyclist is going to pay out big time. Likewise, a car hitting a cyclist is forced to show they were driving safely.

In and of itself, it's a horrible way to allocate blame. However, as most drivers know they're going to be financially fucked if they clip and down a cyclist, they generally (generally) give cyclists a wide berth. Taxi drivers are different as their companies have special insurance deals in place, but for the general road-using community it all works out pretty well.

I'm absolutely sure the system would fail back in Blighty, but the element of fear for drivers does work.
They have something like this in the rest of Europe, but as Blighty likes to think of itself as an island whilst toying with the we are/are not part of Europe dilemma, the do-gooders will fuck around all day sitting on the fence before they will ever get anything truly practical and efficient enforcing cyclists safety on our roads.

Hence I've given up riding my bike on British roads and since seeing this attack on a cyclist: http://road.cc/content/news/81677-no-charges-road-rage-van-driver-who-assaulted-cyclist-video-incident and the plod didn't prosecute when the evidence is stamped on their forehead, it gives me little hope of cycling in a safe environment.

I know others whom have also stopped riding as the law is a fucking ass in this triple dip recession country.

Sadly...