Plans to introduce offences of causing death by dangerous or careless cycling have been described by cycling campaigners as “tinkering around the edges” of road safety.Well, yes. That's what governments do, mostly. And it's the turn of the cyclists.
And frankly, it's not before time, either:
The laws are being proposed by the government after 44-year-old mother-of-two Kim Briggs was knocked over and killed by a bicycle courier in February 2016.But the two-wheeled maniacs are an obstreperous bunch, and seen to wield a bit of political clout.
Time to get in the popcorn!
Yeah, that'll do to start with...
6 comments:
I had a quick skim of the comments on the linked article.
You're gonna need a bigger bag of popcorn ;)
This is good news - they're telling us who they are. The Lycra Nazis can spend all telling us they're just ordinary blokes, init, but the fact they're outrageously outraged by tougher laws against killing people does kind of put the lie to that.
Tinkering around the edges is correct. If 400 pedestrians a year are killed on the roads, shouldn't the effort go into addressing the 399 that are caused by motorised traffic?
Is it worth pointing out that there is already an effective law to prosecute a cyclist who kills or seriously injures somebody? Charlie Alliston was sent to prison for 18 months for killing Kim Briggs (although I still believe it was mostly for being an obnoxious dickhead) what will a new offence of causing death by dangerous cycling achieve?
I still think that the cycling lobby should come clean and admit that far too many cyclists ride like utter dickheads and maybe come up with ideas to address the problem. Instead they go all defensive and try to present cyclists as an innocent persecuted minority, which pretty much everyone knows is not a credible position. I am speaking as a motorist and cyclist.
I fail to see the point of this proposed offence, as I fail to see the point of the offence of causing death by dangerous driving. Surely manslaughter covers the matter?
"I had a quick skim of the comments on the linked article."
They were pretty awesome, weren't they? :)
"This is good news - they're telling us who they are."
Indeed!
"If 400 pedestrians a year are killed on the roads, shouldn't the effort go into addressing the 399 that are caused by motorised traffic?"
You're missing the point. The efforts have all been skewed that way so far. Now there's equilibrium, it's time to put some effort where you might do some good.
"I still think that the cycling lobby should come clean and admit that far too many cyclists ride like utter dickheads..."
It'll be when Satan starts strapping on ice skates.
"Surely manslaughter covers the matter?"
Good point. Maybe some review of the current plethora of laws would help?
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