Dangerous cycling: ‘Everyone should take responsibility for road safety’

National World - LocalTV

Do cyclists need to be punished for dangerous cycling? Campaigners think so, despite more people being killed by lightning and cows each year than cyclists.

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00:00I think that any government that wishes to bring in new laws which cracks down on antisocial

00:07behaviour or illegal practices or dangerous practices on our roads, that is something

00:13that we at IAM Roadsmart support. What I would say to this though is that there's an element

00:20of a little bit of fiddling while Rome burns and the reason why is because when you look

00:26at the statistics overall, the number of people that are killed by cyclists is an absolute

00:32fraction of what happens with motor vehicles for example.

00:38How much do you think that this will impact cycling behaviours and will it have a big

00:44impact on road safety as a whole?

00:46The majority of cyclists are safe, they just want to use a clean, healthy, active way of

00:53travelling to get from A to B and to do that in as safe a way as possible. So we would

00:59hope that any new laws would actually help improve standards on our road network among

01:06cyclists but as I say, the majority of cyclists need not worry because they're law abiding.

01:13Historically, shall I say, there's been some animosity maybe is the word to use between

01:18cyclists and other road users. What's the cause of this? Why is there so much, you know,

01:23butting of heads there? And do you think this new law change will prove to exacerbate that or

01:29make it better?

01:30There is always a lot of interest in playing cyclists off against drivers and the reality

01:36is that we've got to stop looking at people as part of a faction whereas in reality, people

01:43who get in their cars just want to get from A to B in a safe and efficient way and people

01:49on bicycles want to do exactly the same. It really is about everybody on the roads having

01:55responsibility, taking responsibility for their actions.

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