Motorist fails to slow/stop for five year rider and dad.

[Ming the Merciless]

Erratic - I don’t think so, the child rode in a very predictable manner and pretty straight line. No wild changes of direction or anything close.

 

[Jameshow]

The driver was clearly in the wrong for not showing grace rather than imposing his equal ride of way....

However I wouldn't put my child in that situation....

 

[Mike_P]

What has not been stated as far as I can see is how long the 5 year old has been cycling on road. Many families with very young children were cycling on road during the depths of lockdown.

 

[Bonefish Blues]

The driver was clearly in the wrong for not showing grace rather than imposing his equal ride of way....

However I wouldn't put my child in that situation....

Driver doesn't have equal right of way (priority) in that scenario though

 

[Jameshow]

Driver doesn't have equal right of way (priority) in that scenario though

No??

 

[Mike_P]

As the police have said in the link I posted ;

In law, all have equal right to be on this road.

In the heirarchy of road users, the cyclist is graded higher because of their vulnerability
The child cyclist is safely dressed and clearly visible in the conditions.

The child cyclist is more unpredictable as a road user because of their age.

The car has more than adequate space to stop / slow / give way.

Squeezing past as they did is inexcusable.

No doubt many of you will disagree, as is your want.

However, you are victim blaming / shaming a child for the actions of a car driving adult.

Cars do not, have not & will not, own the road.

Slow down.

Pay attention.

Respect all others on the road.

And don’t blame kids for the actions of adults.

 

[Bonefish Blues]

That /\/\

 

[slowmotion]

Inconsiderate of the driver given the young age of the kid but not something to write home about if you are an adult riding in London. Maybe I've been brutalised.

 

[KnittyNorah]

As the police have said in the link I posted ;

In law, all have equal right to be on this road.

In the heirarchy of road users, the cyclist is graded higher because of their vulnerability
The child cyclist is safely dressed and clearly visible in the conditions.

The child cyclist is more unpredictable as a road user because of their age.

The car has more than adequate space to stop / slow / give way.

Squeezing past as they did is inexcusable.

No doubt many of you will disagree, as is your want.

However, you are victim blaming / shaming a child for the actions of a car driving adult.

Cars do not, have not & will not, own the road.

Slow down.

Pay attention.

Respect all others on the road.

And don’t blame kids for the actions of adults.

The sentence I bolded is incorrect, and the Durham Police have agreed that it is incorrect.
All users do NOT have 'equal right' to be on this road.

All users classed as non-mechanically-propelled - from pedestrians to brewer's drays, with cyclists of all ages somewhere in that mixture - can use that road as of right. It is difficult - in law - to remove this right from these users.

All users classed as mechanically propelled - from 49cc mopeds up to artics, EVs to steam traction vehicles - have no right whatsoever to be on this road unless both the vehicle and its operator have fulfilled compulsory payment, licensing and other legal requirements in order to be granted permission - ie a limited right - to use that road and others like them. and that only while the requirements in question are still valid. It is easy to revoke that limited right.

This hierarchy of rights has been in existence for an extremely long time yet vanishingly few of the posters in the Twitter thread concerned have enough brain cells to acknowledge this.

 

[Bonefish Blues]

The sentence I bolded is incorrect, and the Durham Police have agreed that it is incorrect.
All users do NOT have 'a right' to be on this road.

All users classed as non-mechanically-propelled - from pedestrians to brewer's drays, with cyclists of all ages somewhere in that mixture - can use that road as of right. It is difficult - in law - to remove this right from these users.

All users classed as mechanically propelled - from 49cc mopeds up to artics, EVs to steam traction vehicles - have no right whatsoever to be on this road unless both the vehicle and its operator have fulfilled compulsory payment, licensing and other legal requirements in order to be given permission - ie a limited right - to use that road and others like them. and that only while the requirements in question are still valid. It is easy to revoke that limited right.

This hierarchy of rights has been in existence for an extremely long time yet vanishingly few of the posters in the Twitter thread concerned have enough brain cells to acknowledge this.

Correct, but a somewhat arcane point, I'd suggest. The car should have ceded to the more vulnerable road user in that scenario. If that's the message we can get across, then the roads would be safer. KISS and all that.

 

[Jameshow]

As the police have said in the link I posted ;

In law, all have equal right to be on this road.

In the heirarchy of road users, the cyclist is graded higher because of their vulnerability
The child cyclist is safely dressed and clearly visible in the conditions.

The child cyclist is more unpredictable as a road user because of their age.

The car has more than adequate space to stop / slow / give way.

Squeezing past as they did is inexcusable.

No doubt many of you will disagree, as is your want.

However, you are victim blaming / shaming a child for the actions of a car driving adult.

Cars do not, have not & will not, own the road.

Slow down.

Pay attention.

Respect all others on the road.

And don’t blame kids for the actions of adults.

Agreed however the hierarchy of road users is very new less than a year old.

 

[KnittyNorah]

Correct, but a somewhat arcane point, I'd suggest. The car should have ceded to the more vulnerable road user in that scenario. If that's the message we can get across, then the roads would be safer. KISS and all that.

Of course, in practice we should all use the roads together - it is perfectly possible to do so safely and considerately for everyone.

But the sheer number of people who sincerely believe that public roads are for cars (and other MP vehicles) is astonishing, it's obvious that they don't know what 'public' means and that they have no idea of history, be it recent or less so.

I sigh in hopelessness when the die-hards insists that motorists 'pay for the roads' via 'road tax'; it - and its result, the Road Fund - ceased being ring-fenced a full decade before its effective abolition in 1937 (the Treasury was never happy with Lloyd George's promise in 1909) and Winston Churchill, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, had already declared, in 1925 "Motorists are to be privileged for all time to have the whole yield of the tax on motors devoted to roads? Obviously this is all nonsense…Such contentions are absurd ..."
He feared motorists would lay claim to roads by dint of paying for a small portion of their repair, and, writing about motoring organisations' fervent opposition to changing the status quo on the ring-fencing of the tax, he declared that - despite road tax only providing a small contribution towards the costs of road repairs -

“It will be only a step from this for [motorists] to claim in a few years the moral ownership of the roads their contributions have created.”

How close he got to foretelling the future!

 

[youngoldbloke]

Just a thought - if cyclists should 'pay for using the road', surely passengers in cars should too?

 

[Fastpedaller]

I've come to the conclusion that some motorists just can't tolerate losing even one second in their journey. On narrow rural roads I have been confronted with drivers who basically force me to take to the verge because they won't slow down when approaching at about 35MPH. On the positive side I often have drivers stop for me to pass (leading me to think there may be an invisible car following me ) and they give a cheery wave (as I do in return) and all is good. Unfortunately, there are many VERY impatient people in our midst (and I think it got worse during covid)

 

[MontyVeda]

It's a very rare occasion that a driver yields when there's parked cars.