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Old June 9th 16, 10:19 AM posted to uk.rec.cycling
Anthony 'Piss_Taker' Janssen
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Posts: 420
Default 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 - ))
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