I originally voted 'yes,' but now I've changed my mind: I agree with the idea in principle, but don't think it's really workable in practice. More free or cheap courses on offer would be great, for all ages, and more enforcement of the current laws against dangerous cycling - that's more realistic.
An aside: I once did an experiment where I counted the number of laws I saw being broken by cyclists on a particular street, and the number of laws being broken by drivers, and worked out how they compared - taking the numbers of cyclists and other vehicles into account, of course - and the motor vehicle law-breakers outnumbered the cyclists by 6 to 1.
Dr_Herbz said:
You started off ok but wrong answer... the cyclist is at fault because he failed to see the apparent danger and died as a result.
Regardless of who would have been found to be at fault in a court of law, the fact remains that a cyclist failed to recognise an apparent danger and got squashed as a result. It doesn't matter who is to blame if you're dead.
And before you all rip into me for this statement, think it through.
But you stated that the HGV driver didn't indicate - so how was the cyclist supposed to know there was an apparent danger? I steer clear of HGVs and indeed any motor vehicles when turning left, but if one turns without indicating then it's not my fault that my psychic abilities failed to let me know the driver's intentions.
GarfieldLeChat said:
which is why i suggested a school level based education thing where it just become manditiory like computor studies and using laptops you enforce the cultral cange at the base level as kids are growing ti become the enviroment that they are born into ... this creates the society... this would mean that in effect every child would be a licenced cyclist from get go... by default but would also improve no end their ablity to actually have soem road sense...
(personally i'd also like to see manditroy swimming lessons at schools too...but that's another thread)
Swimming lessons are mandatory at schools. For almost all schools, of course, the entails taking the kids to the local pool. This often requires a long coach journey and most of the 'lesson' is spent either getting changed or standing in a long shivering line by the side of the pool waiting your turn to get in.
My daughter, who's been swimming since she was 4 months old and can swim a full length underwater, is in the same lesson with kids who can't attempt a doggy paddle. She absolutely hates her school swimming lessons. Next year I'll probably suggest that they don't take her.
It's better than not having lessons at all, but it's not as useful as it sounds at first.
My daughter's school would also have to take kids out of school to do cycling lessons. They'd have to travel to a park, have bikes available and have external teachers. (This is a city school, which doesn't have the space to store bikes, and most of the kids at her school don't own bikes themselves). The school don't do the cycle profinciency test for these reasons.
So it would, again, be more difficult than it sounds and possibly not very effective.
