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  • (1) Very strict punishments and many more cameras. 5 year ban for doing 36 mph in a 30 limit. 5 years for tailgating on the motorway. 20 years for causing an accident. Too unpopular amongst drivers to be government policy and too harmful to the economy to have half the country unable to drive to their jobs and pay taxes.

    Do you really believe the 'harmful to the economy' argument or are you just using it as a parody of newspaper articles? Up until the 1980s loads of people got the (at that time nationalised) buses, or walked, or cycled to work. Even outside London in semi-rural areas, as I well remember...the roads were full of guys clanking round with their Ever Readys burning. The economy didn't grind to a halt and they didn't even have home working via the Internet in those days.

    If we're talking about the lack of appetite to restrict car drivers, the problem is purely that these days everyone sees car ownership as a right, not a privilege. It's far too easy and comparatively cheap to own a car - any fool can manage it, and there's just as much casual transgression of rules by motorists as by cyclists (who even knows what a 'parking light' is used for now for example? They're still required by the Highway Code on some roads). There's a reason those old codgers with string backed driving gloves invariably have immaculate cars and are often slow (and careful) drivers. They remember a time when buying a car was a massive commitment - and it should be a massive commitment; you're wielding a ton of metal after all. Ideally we should be looking at ways to make driving, psychologically, a little bit more like the privilege it once was.

    /csbish froth over

    In short I don't see any reason for cyclists to give much leeway, even if some of them are gutter riding nodders. There's a far more significant principle here

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