[Gllug] Cyclists (off topic)

[David Damerell]

On Monday, 11 Aug 2003, Doug Winter wrote:
>Not in this country.  This is the case in Austria, iirc.  Seems a bit
>weird to me anyway - cyclists are just as bad as drivers, in fact
>probably worse.

Something like it is in the case in many EU countries; the intention
is to establish that liability generally rests with the people who
make the roads dangerous by operating motor vehicles on them.

To say that cyclists are just as bad as drivers misses a point; there
are a like proportion of idiots on bikes and the low point of the
idiocy is just as bad (testosterone-crazed teenagers), but the likely
consequences of the idiocy are less severe; this is why being drunk
and disorderly is a minor offence, being drunk in charge of a pedal
cycle only marginally less minor, but driving while intoxicated is a
very serious crime. The level of impairment is the same in each case,
but the consequences of the impairment are different.

One of the many things wrong with the "tax, license, insurance"
idiocy is that it would of course increase road deaths - if you
displace people off bikes some of them are going to drive cars.

-- 
David Damerell <damerell at chiark.greenend.org.uk> flcl?

-- 
Gllug mailing list  -  Gllug at linux.co.uk
http://list.ftech.net/mailman/listinfo/gllug