pjclinch wrote:Pete Owens wrote:Given that the purpose of cycle lanes is to speed up motor traffic by clearing us out of the way...
And here were lots of us thinking the main idea was to enable safe, reasonably pleasant routes for relatively inexperienced riders like primary school children who shouldn't be expected to mix it with fast and/or heavy traffic...
Well that is certainly what the big misters in charge of the roads would have you believe.
They have been trying force us off the roads long before their open hostility to cycling became politically incorrect. Originally, back in the 1930s they were quite open about this and assumed that we would be required by law to use the farcilities. Fortunately, our government was rather less authoritarian than the regimes on the continent at the time. Since the war they have engaged in a sustained misinformation campaign to try to persuade us that segregation is for our benefit - though they still attempt to delegitimise our presence on the roads each time the highway code is reviewed.
The trouble for them is that some motorists have also fallen this propaganda - so have started agitating against segregation. Hence, we now see the absurd situation of a cycle campaign group patiently explaining to motorists the fact that segregation is intended for their benefit. Indeed going to great lengths to measure just how much faster the traffic is as a result.