mjr wrote: ... That's no hope, then. If CUK persists with its misguided approach of criticising bad cycling first and only then moving on to the campaign, then all many outlets will report is the criticism, as a sort of "look! Even cyclists hate cyclists!" story element, as we've seen in the Alliston case, even from the BBC.
Few approaches have even a chance of working IMO. Maybe one is to push for the first part of that review to postpone its final assessment until after a more general Road Justice reform to come out of the second part, while continually reminding people that motor vehicles are hundreds of times more dangerous.
I think it will be difficult but there's always room for optimism. It's rather unfortunate, for example, that the increased priority given to personal violence after decades of campaigning should have contributed to a switch of resources / change in priorities which have moved traffic policing to a chapter in history, but it does show how campaigning can bring about change. I also believe that the driverless car technology will have an earlier impact than many imagine and certainly before the general introduction of fully driverless vehicles. In mistaken anticipation of a failed MOT, I recently spent a bit of time looking at the specs of new small cars. I was amazed to see how many offered features like crash reduction technology designed to warn a driver that a crash may be imminent and automatically begin to brake. I've since read that this is a part of the top NCAP rating. All sorts of pro's and cons, of course, and a lot depends how the technology is programmed but there's room for campaigning to have this set for safety rather than speed at the danger of vulnerable road users. We are also seeing an unfortunately slow extension of camera-based technology to enforcement. I'd like to see the general use of cameras at traffic lights and there's other innovation increasingly available. I believe that compelling all traffic to observe traffic signals would facilitate the introduction of driverless vehicles.
I've not been slow to criticise the CTC/Cuk, but in this case I'll reiterate that I think they've taken the only workable approach. This crash couldn't have come at a good time, but against the background of Cuk trying to get the govt., to complete (start) the long-awaited review of the wider subject, this trial has come at a bad time. The defendant has presented anti-cycling media and social media with a bogeyman beyond their wildest stereotypes. The less publicity he gets the better IMO.
As a human being, he has my sympathy and when he's released, presumably after an expensive nine months in youth custody, he won't be a better person than he was when the judge sent him down. But as a
cause célèbre, he's not one to campaign for.
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Tangled Metal
You posted while I was scribing. Don't fall into the trap of accepting that a low casualty count = safety. While casualties are to be reduced as much as possible, frightening vulnerable road users off the roads with vehicles designed to protect their occupants at everybody else's expense isn't safety.
