Bicycles Harassing Drivers

A recurrent theme in the Evening Post web site is how bicycles harass cars. Finally we have collected evidence of this, from our instrumented cyclists.

First off, somerset street, Kingsdown. A taxi is waiting in the middle of the road. The cyclist cannot get past. This is not the taxis fault, it is the fault of the car that has chosen to park on the pavement to the right of the taxi. Together: no room for a bicycle.

When the tax dodger comes to a halt, the taxi/minicab waves their hand to point out that spring hill is to the right, the cyclist could back up and go up that road. But no, the cyclist stays put, and after a bit more hand waving the driver turns their engine on, backs up a bit. And the cyclist continues -then turns up Montague Hill, so making it clear they could have gone up Spring Hill, but were just being selfish and lazy. Think of the extra fuel wasted and pollution costs of forcing the car to turn their engine on and reverse -yet these troublemakers imply they are the "green" transport.

Another day, the Nugent Hill Contraflow. As usual, a car needs to run the one-way system so as to get to Arley Hill and the new tesco project on Cheltenham Road.

Initially the bicycle blocks the car by staying in the middle of the no-entry section, but then even when the tax-dodger deigns to get out the way to the driver paying for the roads, they get their camera out and harass the driver by threatening to photo them as they do "a bit of contraflow work". And who doesn't do that, from time to time? Yet now with these digital cameras built into phones, stuck on bicycles or helmets, anyone can take a video of an innocent motorist, send it off to the police and have someone get more penalty points on their license.

As the Daily Telegraph says, quoting the AA, "There is a wide range of new regulations waiting to catch you out." driven by NuLabour and their "new government road casualty targets". This nanny-state government went and made up new anti-car laws waiting to trap the innocent motorist, like "being involved in a fatal accident while unlicensed or uninsured" and "causing death by careless driving". As the Telegraph says, if you innocently kill someone while carelessly driving in an uninsured car -and how can you insure your car once the DVLA takes away your license from some minor drink-driving offence- it's now a prison sentence. In the old days, with their requirement for "reckless" or later "dangerous" driving, you could get a lawyer who went to the same school and participated in the same hunt as you and the judge show that you were only slightly careless when you ran your range rover through a zebra crossing full of people while talking on the phone. Now killing people through mere carelessness has penalties! This is so wrong. It is exactly the kind of thing we look forward to a new government fixing. Remove penalties for running red lights and contraflowing, ban the bicycles! Yet will any of the mainstream parties stand up for the motorist? We doubt it!