Guys. While not wanting to interfere with free flowing debate, I would like to clarify that my intention in posting as I did, was to encourage discussion of the Green party's (and presumably the Police too?) proposition, to treat every motorist as being guilty of an offense, regardless of the cause or evidence, while also stating that a mystical pot of compensation be administered to the detriment of justice, should a cyclist or pedestrian be involved in an accident involving a vehicle. No mention of cyclist re-education, training, insurance etc etc, just a one-sided attack on motorists. I also ride a bike around town, so i'm not the one being one-sided about this.
What I also notice is that far from being dangerous, many motorists are simply being selfish. They are looking in their mirrors and positioning themselves defensively in order to prevent cyclists from undertaking or filtering. The danger of not doing this is sometimes incidental brake lever and pedal scratches along the sides of your car. So it's very much a case of tortoise and hare in Brighton and Hove and one will repeatedly meet the other along a road and have to go through the same rigmarole at every set of lights. That means it doesn't work. Slowing cars down to 20mph also doesn't work, unless a car and cyclist collide but that's very very rare and an example of using an exception to make a rule. Cyclists need to pull over to the side, get off and cross at right angles to the road on certain roads, rather than hang about in the middle of the road for a gap. It all about time and perceived importance.
As for the Greenwash party and it's daft Planet-saving notions, they are designed like a failing quasi-Marxist/ fragmentary 'Trot' party, the likes of which I haven't seen since the '70s or in The Life of Brian. Splitters! If it wasn't so true... I don't think they need to exist as a separate party. Perhaps they could administer just the recycling and bin collection as an internal department within another party?
The issues we (in Brighton and Hove) have been party to as a direct result of frankly bizarre mismanagement by the Greens, is nothing short of farcical, unless you think a '6% council tax rise or we'll cut your services off', which many members of the Green party voted against (Splitters!), is an acceptable threat. Millions spent on exacerbating congestion by giving much needed traffic lanes over to unnecessary cycle paths that are still barely used, then blaming the resultant single-laned traffic congestion on bad driving and over-use of cars.
However, the local Tories think the Greens will retain their only seat, so it may well be that the Greens get their way and create a congestion tax along the seafront after all.
A wise man once told me that "it depends". I sometimes agree.
