RobinXe wrote:
I am trained, tested and registered for EVERY mode of transport I use, and would certainly not balk at doing the same in order to continue cycling.
As a public transport user I am registered with TfL via my Oyster card and am able to use the system by virtue of my ability to read, understand and obey the posted signs, unlike the chaps in either of my examples, particularly the one who went through the no entry sign
I too, despite a being provincial, am registered with TfL but I do not recall being put through any test of my ability to use the underground system. Nor do I, despite being taught pedestrian safety as a child by my parents, recall being registered as a pedestrian. And there is no published training,testing and registering scheme scheme for the users of buses, coaches, railway trains or civil aviation.
The only modes of transport for which I am
trained, tested and registered are cycling, motoring and Sea King helicopters. Despite you high flown rhetoric, I doubt if (excepting your professional training) you are much different.
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you, as I suspected you would, have fallen into the "cycles are special" mindset
pray elucidate. I fail to see how you can infer that from my posts which contain two simple requests for information. The first, mentioned above, has little to do with the substantive part of your argument. The second was a request for further information to enable me to better to form an opinion.
At this point I am quite neutral on your proposal other than being broadly in favour of free cycling training being available to all children. My own children were taught to cycle by me, to a much higher standard than the training off offered by the Cycling Proficiency Scheme (in which I have acted as an instructor an was appalled by the low standard of testing). Such doubts as I have about the idea of registration are pragmatic doubts based on the cost effectiveness of such a scheme rather rather than philosophical ones based on an idea of the superiority of cycling over motoring
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Dcb, are you suggesting that cyclists on the road are so close to pedestrians that they should have no greater rules governing them?
Not quite. I am suggesting that on a scale of 0 to 10, with pedestrians at 0 and motorist at 10, cyclists would sit at about 2 or 3 and that the degree of regulation, compared to motorists, should reflect that I think that the present law does.
Whist I deplore the kind of incidents described I don't think they represent lack of skill,training or knowledge on the part of the perpetrators. Some of the worst examples of anti-social cycling are performed with consummate skill in the full knowledge of the inconvenience they cause. They are merely the result of a selfish mindset. And I am aware that the same mindset exists with a certain proportion (I am loathe to say minority, given the regularity of similar experiences) of motorists who, despite their much higher level of regulation, fail to give the required priority to pedestrians at road junctions.
Probably both feel special in their chosen mode of transport. But, when the high degree of regulation of motor vehicles fails to prevent millions of unpunished violations every day why do you think that similar regulation of cycling would have any more success in deterring illegal cycling? It would be easy to draw the conclusion from your and other comments that this desire to regulate cycling is driven more by vindictiveness than by any real hope of solving a relatively minor problem.
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MrCyclist, are you suggesting that since cyclists contribute so little to the fatality statistics (by which I imply no accession to your assertion that they do) that they should continue to be allowed to break all the rules of the road that they already do? No harm done, right?
Whilst I can't speak for Grumps I would say that that statement is closely parallel to the philosophy of this forum: that if breaking the speed limit contributes so little to the fatality statistics then motorists should not be punished for doing so. No harm done, right?