London Banter - View Single Post - Institutionalised law-breaking using bikes

Jon Senior · October 17th 04, 04:01 PM posted to uk.rec.cycling,uk.transport.london

Silas Denyer opined the following...
No, that is nonsense. The most useful thing would be for every reader
here who does not agree with running red lights to start challenging
those cyclists they see who do run them. That is the *third* choice,
but it appears that nobody is prepared to do anything except wait for
state enforcement. Does this community have no moral fibre or sense of
social responsibility?

You labour under the daft assumption that we don't chellenge them. I
often mention it in passing as I overtake them on the way to the next
set of lights.

Furthermore, the resources required to plate cycles are hardly large,
are they?

You don't think so. OK. A standardised fixing system(s) has to be
devised that would allow a clearly readable plate to be fastened
securely to any bike (Or would you have the rider wear it?). A system of
montoring registrations and ownership would have to be created since I
doubt very much that the DVLA could cope with an influx of vehicle
registrations on the order of the number of bikes in Britain. The cost
of the plates (How much are a set of number plates anyway) would have to
be bourne by the cyclists and due to the lack of lateral support these
would be very likely to suffer frequent damage and thus rightly cause
complaint.

The infrastructure all exists, as do the laws, the
enforcement regime, etc. But I don't think anybody wants that, so time
for the human approach.

The laws and the enforcement already exist but are largely unused. As
demonstrated by my proposed experiments, using our limited (And they
_are_ limited) resources to tackle the problem of bad cycling is
somewhat pointless when bad driving kills or injures in the order of
hundreds more people every year. I don't condone bad cycling, but I
certainly don't see it as much more than a nuisance compared to the
damage to person and property that can be done by a car.

The bullet is already there (the law exists, as do the police, the
cameras, etc.) All that is needed is to put a tag on the cat as well
as the lion.

But the point is... which one is going to kill you? The cat might, but
it has to be pretty persistant and you have to be very unlucky. The lion
on the other hand...

Jon