Why do drivers get away with attempted murder?
 

"Another week, another video that shows a driver intentionally targeting
a cyclist and turning a moving car into a potentially deadly weapon".


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/recre...empted-murder/
--
Bod

Why do drivers get away with attempted murder?
 

On 09/06/2016 09:46, Bod wrote:
"Another week, another video that shows a driver intentionally targeting
a cyclist and turning a moving car into a potentially deadly weapon".


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/recre...empted-murder/

From that same article:

" Over 200,000 people were injured on UK roads in the 12 months to
September 2014 and 1,800 were killed. Nearly all these deaths and
injuries involved a motor vehicle. So, given all this, shouldn’t we be
viewing this incident like we might view firing a gun at someone and
hitting them in the shoulder?"

--
Bod

Why do drivers get away with attempted murder?
 

Bod wrote:

Why do drivers get away with attempted murder?

Because you let them.

--
john smith |MA (Hons)|MPhil (Hons)|CAPES (mention très bien)|LLB (Hons)
'It never gets any easier. You just get faster'
(Greg LeMond (1961 - ))

Why do drivers get away with attempted murder?
 

On 09/06/2016 09:48, Anthony '****_Taker' Janssen wrote:
Bod wrote:

Why do drivers get away with attempted murder?

Because you let them.

*I* "let them"!? Please explain!

--
Bod

Why do drivers get away with attempted murder?
 

Bod wrote:
On 09/06/2016 09:48, Anthony '****_Taker' Janssen wrote:
Bod wrote:

Why do drivers get away with attempted murder?

Because you let them.

*I* "let them"!? Please explain!

You is also a plural pronoun.

You are aware of my view that everything is 'incentive'? Read the very
good book _Freakonomics_ by Steven D. Levitt, in which he espouses this
theory.

People do things because there is incentive. Money, sex, power, whatever.
At the same time, the only way to stop someone doing something which he has
an incentive to do, is to make the result more unpleasant than the original
incentive.

The history of road traffic management in the UK has been seventy or eighty
years of 'asking nicely' (the Highway Code is the perfect example of this).
It's not really surprising, in a social, political and economic basket-case
like Britain, but it needs to change. If, that is, you want things to
change.

Asking drivers nicely to respect other road users has failed. It is
patently obvious that it has failed, and indeed, in their defence, why
should it not fail? The car driver is king of the road for the simple
reason that aside from larger vehicles, he dominates every other road user.
He is bigger, faster and heavier. No matter how much people dislike it,
they will get out of his way, because if they don't, they will be hurt or
killed.

As we say in French, 'la peur doit changer de camp'. Fear has to change
sides. If you want car drivers to respect you, then you are first going to
have to let them know that their behaviour is going to cause them to be
hurt or killed if they persist.

There is no other option. None.

Drivers have to learn that if and when they get out of their car and get
mouthy, then they are going to be _seriously_ hurt. Whether this is with
fists, a D-lock or a firearm is irrelevant. If you want the rate of
cycling deaths to be reduced, then this is the only option.

If you continue to ask them nicely, or to try 'education' or indeed, to
rely on the support of an executive too concerned with its ideological
transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich, then the carnage is going to
continue.

--
john smith |MA (Hons)|MPhil (Hons)|CAPES (mention très bien)|LLB (Hons)
'It never gets any easier. You just get faster'
(Greg LeMond (1961 - ))

Why do drivers get away with attempted murder?
 

On 09/06/2016 09:46, Bod wrote:

"Another week, another video that shows a driver intentionally targeting
a cyclist and turning a moving car into a potentially deadly weapon".

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/recre...empted-murder/

A rant from a cyclist with a blunt axe which apparently needs
sharpening, one "Rhymer Rigby" (it's good to see that parents sometimes
have a sense of humour).

Devalued by passages like this:

QUOTE:
The contempt and blithe indifference drivers have for other road users
is everywhere. I cycle in London and I lose track of the number of times
people just pull out in front of me without even looking. Or look and
then pull out anyway. It’s something they’d never do if I were a car...
ENDQUOTE

Rhymer, you aren't a car. But perhaps you could be a railway locomotive:
Rhymer the Puce Engine, perhaps?

Mind you, Rhymer does have the beginnings of a sense of proportion and
self-perception. He attempts to head off inevitable ridicule by saying:
"Now, before you say I’m being ridiculous...".

Too late, Rhymer.

Too late.

Why do drivers get away with attempted murder?
 

JNugent wrote:
On 09/06/2016 09:46, Bod wrote:

"Another week, another video that shows a driver intentionally targeting
a cyclist and turning a moving car into a potentially deadly weapon".

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/recre...empted-murder/

A rant from a cyclist with a blunt axe which apparently needs sharpening,
one "Rhymer Rigby" (it's good to see that parents sometimes have a sense
of humour).

Devalued by passages like this:

QUOTE: The contempt and blithe indifference drivers have for other road
users is everywhere. I cycle in London and I lose track of the number of
times people just pull out in front of me without even looking. Or look
and then pull out anyway. It’s something they’d never do if I were a
car... ENDQUOTE

Rhymer, you aren't a car. But perhaps you could be a railway locomotive:
Rhymer the Puce Engine, perhaps?

Mind you, Rhymer does have the beginnings of a sense of proportion and
self-perception. He attempts to head off inevitable ridicule by saying:
"Now, before you say I’m being ridiculous...".

Too late, Rhymer.

Too late.

'Just look at the speed of those goalposts'...
--
john smith |MA (Hons)|MPhil (Hons)|CAPES (mention très bien)|LLB (Hons)
'It never gets any easier. You just get faster'
(Greg LeMond (1961 - ))

Why do drivers get away with attempted murder?
 

On 09/06/16 11:59, Anthony '****_Taker' Janssen wrote:
JNugent wrote:
On 09/06/2016 09:46, Bod wrote:

"Another week, another video that shows a driver intentionally targeting
a cyclist and turning a moving car into a potentially deadly weapon".

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/recre...empted-murder/

A rant from a cyclist with a blunt axe which apparently needs sharpening,
one "Rhymer Rigby" (it's good to see that parents sometimes have a sense
of humour).

Devalued by passages like this:

QUOTE: The contempt and blithe indifference drivers have for other road
users is everywhere. I cycle in London and I lose track of the number of
times people just pull out in front of me without even looking. Or look
and then pull out anyway. It’s something they’d never do if I were a
car... ENDQUOTE

Rhymer, you aren't a car. But perhaps you could be a railway locomotive:
Rhymer the Puce Engine, perhaps?

Mind you, Rhymer does have the beginnings of a sense of proportion and
self-perception. He attempts to head off inevitable ridicule by saying:
"Now, before you say I’m being ridiculous...".

Too late, Rhymer.

Too late.

'Just look at the speed of those goalposts'...

It was amazing wasn't it. I blinked and almost missed them.