Nuxx:Caf7e4ea-64e6-4d2b-a311-228c6b36139e@c1g2000yqi.googlegroups.com

Path: num2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!num1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!number.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!postnews.google.com!c1g2000yqi.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Message-ID:  From: Nuxx Bar  Newsgroups: uk.rec.cycling Subject: Re: Points on driving license for cycling offence Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2009 12:58:36 -0700 (PDT) References:  <791965bb-f9fb-485a-8dc1-271e367d21a5@r25g2000vbn.googlegroups.com>   Lines: 58 Organization: http://groups.google.com NNTP-Posting-Host: 86.163.209.43 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: posting.google.com 1247601517 20893 127.0.0.1 (14 Jul 2009 19:58:37 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2009 19:58:37 +0000 (UTC) Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: c1g2000yqi.googlegroups.com; posting-host=86.163.209.43; posting-account=7_6kYAkAAABD6HrjM0VxehwvZOKMxm4g User-Agent: G2/1.0 X-HTTP-UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-GB; rv:1.9.0.11) Gecko/2009060215 Firefox/3.0.11 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729),gzip(gfe),gzip(gfe) Bytes: 4222 Xref: perfectly-safe.chapmancentral.co.uk uk.rec.cycling:717353

On Jul 14, 3:09=A0pm, JNugent  wrote: > Chris Gerhard wrote: > > Simon Brooke wrote: > >> On 14 July, 09:30, "PoB"  wrote: > >>>http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/south_of_scotland/8148763.stm > > >> Yes, heard this on the local news this morning. > > >> I've no sympathy, I'm afraid. You get a driving license as evidence > >> that you're a competent driver, and part of being a competent driver > >> is knowing the law as it applies to roads. Cycling on a motorway > >> clearly shows that he either didn't know the law, or thought like > >> Nuxxy that it didn't apply to him. So he isn't competent to hold a > >> driving license and should have had it revoked. > > >> It was a stupid, dangerous thing to do and he deserves what he got.. > > > He deserves to be fined, as he agrees in the article. > > > However I'm not sure it is legal to give points to a cyclist. I suspect > > the Police will find they have not applied the law correctly and so he > > should be able to appeal. > > > --chris > > A couple of years ago, an elderly *pedestrian* (who happened to hold a > driving licence) had penalty points added to the licence because he was > convicted of obstruction of the police (or something similar). > > He apparently stood at the side of the road and held up a placard warning > approaching drivers of a speed trap up ahead. No motor vehicle - not even= a > bicycle - involved. He still got an endorsement. It warms the cockles of = the > heart to see that so many here would also (presumably) oppose that.

Hehe. Once again you've hit the nail on the head with the hypocritical anti-motorist attitude of many here ("Such-and-such is wrong, unless it's used against motorists, in which case it's fine...anything goes in the War Against Drivers.")

The case to which you refer is one of the clearest indicators we've ever had that the authorities *want* to catch motorists speeding, and that the whole thing is absolutely nothing to do with safety. If they really just wanted drivers to slow down, they'd have no objection to people warning drivers about cameras (especially since cameras are supposed to be visible anyway), but instead they pulled out all the stops to make sure the thoroughly decent bloke in question got the book thrown at him (IIRC he actually got *banned* outright from driving). FFS, they even warn motorists about cameras themselves (well, they supposedly do, although of course they ensure that the "camera" sign is so frequent that it's useless).

The authorities quite blatantly want to catch as many motorists speeding as they "cost effectively" can, so they can make money and make drivers suffer, and anyone who genuinely doesn't think that (as opposed to pretending) is hopelessly naive and needs a serious reality check.