Cycling’s lost genius

@SVXY At night a cyclist not in high viz will be hard to see and 4 persons cycling abreast are not only near impossible to overtake but cycling against the highway code which states you should not cycle more than 2 abreast. There may not have been provocation from the cyclist but there was no evidence of mens rea from the driver either. No cyclist should of course ever ride in sandals unless say a track over fields, even on a 20 or 30mph limit road that would be dangerous let alone a 60mph one

@mitsky Why should you be banned for life if you weren't even judged by a court to be driving dangerously, as he wasn't? At most he should maybe have got a few years longer ban and mandatory retest

@SVXY Shurely some feeble attempt at humour here! Or are you saying that a person on a bicycle in daylight is invisible from behind unless wearing hi-vis (and perhaps that's contributory negligence or recklessness?) but 4 persons (not sure where you get that from?) are ... also invisible? Because per previous comments about no mens rea you couldn't possibly be suggesting that this amounts to provocation, because that wouldn't apply if it was an accident. And careful competent trained driving instructors (no doubt fully in command of their emotions and committed to safe road use) wouldn't be provoked? Also: presumably 4 persons sharing the back seat in a car or bus are exempt from this "abreast" rule, even if the conveyance is not moving at all? Unless they're ... wearing sandals??

another Mail reader said: “She was swaying from left to right with each turn of her pedals. She was an accident waiting to happen” I'm surprised nobody else has yet commented about this aspect of what the unsurprisingly repellent Mail reader wrote: most of us sway with each pedal stroke, to varying degrees. The stabilisation setting on much camera video (almost all of mine) minimises the apparent degree of sway. There was nothing remarkable about Ms Tanton's cycling, yet exceedingly stupid and malevolent (forgive the tautology) expletive-deleted Mail Reader views this as an excuse for the ******* driver and an 'it's her own fault' comment because a cyclist just being on the road is enough for those b******s and for our very own loathsome trolls. Many of us, including me, would have been further out from the road edge, and could well have been even more horrifically injured as a result. Make no mistake: chance alone has protected those of us who have so far been lucky enough to evade such an assault from an unrepentant driver untroubled by his joke suspended sentence. She is forced to rely on the civil court for recompense and the punishment and justice which should have resulted from the criminal court case. I hope it's a massive settlement!

@SVXY Rape has always been a serious indictable only offence and it was right the marital exemption was removed. Careless driving even now remains only a summary offence, careless driving causing serious injury is now an either way offence but that is to do with the outcome. The offence remains careless driving not with intent like rape. Yes he should have slowed down but there is no evidence he saw the cyclist in which case he likely would have. Cyclists who choose to ride on 60mph limit roads could also help themselves by wearing high viz, not wearing sandals and ensuring they don’t ride 4 abreast

I live in Scotland (smug mode initiated).

@james-o A great philosopher once said: "naughty naughty, very naughty!"

@mjvande@pacbell.net TLDR typical Septic thinking the USA is the World. This is the UK, you know, the place without the guns.

@wtjs just because I feel the need to ask, doesn't mean that I expect a rational answer - it was more of a rhetorical question (hence the roll-eyes)

@chrisonabike yes, those would be suitable approaches for the hard of thinking...we need to know who those folks are 😉