Boris Johnson - Slot-brained, jovial psychopath or just mad?

[dazza500]

I think round condemnation should fall on this squalid little man's head for such an insult to
the recently bereaved. Typical Tory blame game to extricate himself from the ordure.

There are bad cyclists as there are bad drivers. To single out cyclists is despicable after such
carnage on the roads. Cyclists killed by cars in London this year :14.

People killed by cyclists: none.

Utterly despicable man.

[tyreon]

Sure(read positive)I have a date when Boris and Camron were both caught on camera/video riding through red lights on their way to/from work.(Captured on separate occasions) Asked a policeman only last year if this was a criminal or civil case,and could they still be prosecuted. To be fair to the policeman,he admitted he didn't know...and which I respected.
Any legal eagle here who knows if he/they could still be held to account. And if anyone is irresponsible...or calling the kettle black...its our 'honorable' leaders.

Dates kept in me diary! One's a duffer,the other's...

[dazza500]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJbBooj ... ata_player

Here's tne YouTube link to Cameron jumping reds and cycling the wrong way up a one way street.
Five prosecutable road traffic offences in one morning. ...




Hypocrites... They'll probably try and delete it before the weekend.

Who says it wasn't 1984. Big brother is policing you!

[thirdcrank]

I think the main point is that for someone to be prosecuted for RLJ (more correctly, failing to conform with a traffic sign) a notice of intended prosecution must normally be served on them within 14 days of the alleged commission of the offence. Beyond that, the general rule is that a prosecution for a summary offence must be started within 6 months of the commission of the offence. As usual, there are exceptions, but none that I can see which would apply here.

More generally, I fancy Bozzer Jozzer or whatever they call him is one of the most astute politicians in the country. That's not a judgment on his politics but an assessment of his ability to promote himself.

[dazza500]

Yes. Jovial psychopaths do tend to get to the top of the pile pretty quickly in British politics.

Where I am based (North East) The coppers turn a firm blind eye to the vast majority of
RLJing as the seem to realise that most cyclists only do it to get away first from snarling traffic
and dangerous rush hour junctions. I'm not saying one law for cyclists
and another for cars, but it seems up here discretion is used and only loons
jumping entire intersections ir endangering life are charged with an offence.

[reohn2]

For Boris Johnson read Weasel dressed as Buffoon
And yes,his comments on the dead cyclists are quite simply despicable

[beetroot]

It'a a trick question isn't It? The answer is all of them.

[dazza500]

Johnson riding while using his mobile phone - you could not make it up.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-ohThn ... ata_player

[motty]

Hopefully the crass comments were due to bad advice and he will get some better advice in the next few days

[dazza500]

I like your style. First he tries to blame cyclists for this carnage, and now you (on his behalf)
want to lay the blame for his despicable outbursts at the door of a masked advisor!

<moderated>

Idiocy doesn't excuse his vile finger pointing and affront on
five recently bereaved families, of entirely innocent road death victims.

The man beggars belief.

[andrewk]

I am NOT commenting on the recent fatalities or on any specific incident but I think it unjustified to attack Boris for speaking some home truths. Not all accidents involving cyclists are the other party's fault. I have seen several instances of bad and dangerous cycling, eg. going through red lights at cross roads. Face up to it, lorries and buses are hazards, some lorry and bus drivers do not give cyclists the attention they should but some cyclists also put themselves in harms way, I have seen many instances of this.
One can not put all the blame on drivers, nor can one protest against the truth that some cyclists display behaviour akin to a kamikazi.

[dazza500]

But this thread IS about Boris and his despicable comments!

There are bad drivers as there are bad cyclists. But to make political capital out
of such carnage is a filthy response. Not unexpected from the mouth of
what Benjamin Zephania described as 'The most dangerous political entity in Britain'

But even this low point is beyond comprehension.

'SOME CYCLISTS ARE BAD'.

Maybe so, but when did a bad cyclist kill a pedestrian or put another
road user off the carriageway.

Are you Bojo's Auntie? Because there is no excusing his disgusting comments
or the horrific insensitivity shown to five grieving families.

I wonder how supportive you'd be if it was your son/daughter lying dead on a
mortuary slab with likely horrific injuries and you had to identify them?

[reohn2]

Hopefully the crass comments were due to bad advice and he will get some better advice in the next few days

That statement is to totally miss the point by a mile.
Anyone with half a brain wouldn't need advice not to make any such remarks,let alone someone with the influence BJ has.To blame dead people for being killed,by complaining about some other cyclist's behaviour when no conclusion has been reached by any police investigation,is crass in the extreme.
Or is he sucking up to the motoring lobby and their monopoly on our roads,not to mention their filling of his party's coffers
BJ's comments are matched only by Jon Snow's similar comments earlier this week,claiming that all cyclists jump red lights!
It's waaaayyyy beyond time to put the blame for the causes of deaths and seriously injured vulnerable road users is put where it lies.
Motors have free rein on our roads,their drivers have become so used to getting away,literally,with murder that they've come to think that killing and seriously injuring others' is an unavoidable occurrence.
It's not.
It's very avoidable,by good driving practice,lower speed limits in built up areas,good policing and heavy penalties for those that don't conform.Not to mention educating all road users that the roads belong to everyone and not the might is(n't) right prejudiced situation we have ATM.

[Gearoidmuar]

I am NOT commenting on the recent fatalities or on any specific incident but I think it unjustified to attack Boris for speaking some home truths. Not all accidents involving cyclists are the other party's fault. I have seen several instances of bad and dangerous cycling, eg. going through red lights at cross roads. Face up to it, lorries and buses are hazards, some lorry and bus drivers do not give cyclists the attention they should but some cyclists also put themselves in harms way, I have seen many instances of this.
One can not put all the blame on drivers, nor can one protest against the truth that some cyclists display behaviour akin to a kamikazi.

I've often seen cyclists going through red lights and I occasionally go through them myself, but only if there's no traffic at all. However, I've seldom seen cyclists doing it in a dangerous fashion as most cyclists are reasonably careful about themselves.
One thing, cyclists can be at fault, but the evidence from helmet cam studies (one I read about in Australia) is that the cyclist was probably at fault in a whopping 13% of cases and the motorist clearly at fault in 87%. That would tie in with my own (considerable) cycling experience. I've nearly been hit a few times, avoiding such by taking evasive action, and on every case the motorist was in the wrong. I've also been hit once where the motorist was totally in the wrong. I've never hit a car (apart from the one who hit me) or a pedestrian in my time. The only thing I've hit was a dog which ran out from behind a parked car when I was cycling past. I was attacked by gravity on that occasion.
Whenever you hear one of those rants from motorists about cyclists, ask yourself, "is that my driving experience with cyclists?" It's certainly not mine and I drive lots..

[ArMoRothair]

I am NOT commenting on the recent fatalities or on any specific incident but I think it unjustified to attack Boris for speaking some home truths. Not all accidents involving cyclists are the other party's fault.

Cyclists are people. They are not some homogenous alien life force beamed down to the planet. Thus there are good cyclists and bad cyclists, fast and slow, tall and short, thin and fat, employed and unemployed, religious and atheist, law-abiding and law-breaking - you get the picture.

We don't go in for collective punishment in this country because the "I saw a cyclist do a bad thing, therefore they all deserve to die" is a callously flawed logic.

Boris is not speaking the truth. He knows cyclists are not throwing themselves under HGVs, he must have read the coroners' reports from the recent fatalities and thus knows RLJ'ing was not a factor. He is a typical populist politician and knows the "cyclists do mad things" claim will chime with Joe Public.

When motorists are killed we don't say "bet he was texting instead of paying attention, he deserved to die". Instead we put Shell-grip on the surfaces of dangerous junctions, we remove trees where cars have previously left the road, put in Armco to protect the speeders on one side from the speeders on the other, and put in a forest of signage advising on hazards.

What do we do for cyclists? Blame them; even when they are not to blame.