A councillor lambasted his colleagues for criticising cyclists yet never passing motions ‘when motorists are buried’.Those bastards, looking after public safety like that!
Dave Smith, who rides his bike to the Town Hall, spoke out as his colleagues tried to pass a motion on Tuesday night after a four-year-old girl suffered a broken leg in collision with a cyclist.
You can’t make a cycling paradise omelette without breaking some four-year-old
Cllr Smith said: “My heart goes out to the little girl that was injured. Please pass on my thoughts to her family.Yes. But not on the bloody pavement at speed!
“But can we get it into context?
“I suspect there are tens, if not hundreds of people killed on the roads in Dorset every year.
“I never hear anyone come to council when somebody is smashed up on the road, being buried. You don’t come forward with motions then.
“In fact, you get councillors saying keep the speed limit, ‘We want to go fast’.
“We want to be encouraging people to cycle.”
… Cllr Dennis Gritt said: “A policeman said to me, ‘What if I have to say to a 12-year-old boy, get off the pavement and ride on roads like Kinson Road’ and then he has an accident’?Yes. Because he’s enforced the law, no matter what the guidelines dictate:
“Do you think he could live with that on his conscience?”
Cycling on pavements is illegal. However the Home Office has advised officers not to take action against vulnerable or responsible cyclists occasionally using the pavement to keep safe.I suspect the clue there is in the words ‘responsible’.
And I have to ask Cllr Gritt the question, what if that hypothetical twelve-year-old knocked down an infirm pensioner? Or doesn’t that count, either?
8 comments:
‘What if I have to say to a 12-year-old boy, get off the pavement and ride on roads like Kinson Road’ and then he has an accident’?
I thought child size cycles could be used on the pavement. I'm sure it was when I was a kid (and was made to do cycling proficiency)... or was that one of Tony's umpty thousand new laws.
AE, it was one of the uncountable laws introduced by the previous bunch of ****nuts, you are correct. Yet another unenforceable law discrediting all the others IMO.
Now, as a responsible cyclist I would love the police to arrest the many idiots cycling recklessly on the pavement and indeed elsewhere. They give the rest of us a bad name and endanger everyone around them.
The cretin responsible for this "accident" should have the book thrown at him.
Ah Jiks, one of the responsable cyclist.. you don't ride on pavements, you don't ride two abreast (and more) on the highway, you stop at every red stop sign, you take notice of cars indicating, you don't side up to a car indicating left and your turning right, and you don't give the 2 fingers standard cyclist jesture, if so Sir I salute you.
Jan,
Exactly, as I do not have a death wish.
Plus I find not being a complete twat on a daily basis makes for a better nights sleep.
I thought child size cycles could be used on the pavement.
Not really, but a child under age 10yrs, (who usually ride those bikes) cannot commit an offence, so could ride on the pavement.
"...or was that one of Tony's umpty thousand new laws."
Spot on! Who can remember them all?
"The cretin responsible for this "accident" should have the book thrown at him."
They've got to catch him first...
"Ah Jiks, one of the responsable cyclist.."
There are some!
"... but a child under age 10yrs, (who usually ride those bikes) cannot commit an offence, so could ride on the pavement."
And they are planning, by hook or by crook, to raise that age.
Who can remember them all?
I think my comment shows how hard it is just to remember how many there were.
>Cllr Dennis Gritt said
Council Gritter?
I'll bet that prole had an easy ride (heh) at school.
Dennis Gritt,
Dennis Gritt,
he's a
and full of commonsense, Labour, skim from people who work and waste it on those who don't rhetoric.
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