Postby Airsporter1st » 7 Dec 2018, 9:53am
Reminds me of the time when I was around 8 years old and my father and I made our weekly visit to a market in North London on Saturday morning. We parked, as always, in a residential street (not that many cars around in those days) and went off for a couple of hours browsing.
When we returned, a PC was patrolling up and down the street and, as soon as he saw us heading for the car, he homed in, telling my father that the street was a no-parking zone. My father, quite rightly, enquired where the signs were, to which the PC replied "its only just become a no-parking zone - the signs haven't been put up yet". Needless to say, my father argued the toss, to the point that he was then cautioned. When the PC got to the point of "anything you say...." my father exploded and gave him a few well-chosen words to put in his notebook. Subsequently, my father wrote to the Chief Constable and received an apology.
I can't help thinking that, had the incident been filmed, my father would similarly have been pilloried for his 'attitude', but the fact is he was 100% in the right and expressed his indignation the best way he could.
I must confess, as an impressionable 8 year-old, my respect for the law took quite a nose dive that day, but the point of my story is that, whilst he may not have expressed himself very well, I can fully sympathise with the cyclist's reaction to being unfairly accused. And I do believe, on the evidence provided by the film, that the cyclist was unfairly accused. As has been said already, no one would be taking issue with a woman(?) in a burka under the same circumstances.
If there were a blanket law that everyone's faces should be fully exposed when within, say, 100m of a school and that law was rigorously and impartially enforced, then it would be a different matter.