Nuxx:4e1e08b5$0$2932$fa0fcedb@news.zen.co.uk

Path: num2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!num1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!number.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border3.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!goblin1!goblin.stu.neva.ru!news.musoftware.de!wum.musoftware.de!weretis.net!feeder4.news.weretis.net!ecngs!feeder2.ecngs.de!zen.net.uk!hamilton.zen.co.uk!reader02.news.zen.co.uk.POSTED!not-for-mail Message-ID: <4e1e08b5$0$2932$fa0fcedb@news.zen.co.uk> From: Nuxx Bar  Newsgroups: uk.rec.cycling Subject: Re: Boris rejects 20mph limit Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2011 22:05:55 +0100 References:  Lines: 56 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.7; en-US; rv:1.9.2.18) Gecko/20110616 Thunderbird/3.1.11 MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To:  Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Organization: Zen Internet NNTP-Posting-Host: 7a9a103a.news.zen.co.uk X-Trace: DXC=B9gl[ZQRJMBJb;NVcgkZoMYjZGX^207PK`5gGJKIKgHE_MG3U3^4D?M X-Complaints-To: abuse@zen.co.uk Bytes: 4253 Xref: perfectly-safe.chapmancentral.co.uk uk.rec.cycling:816639

On 13/07/2011 17:02, Tom Crispin wrote: > In a shocking betrayal of cyclists, the London Mayor, Boris Johnson > rejected calls to limit motorists' speed to 20mph, even though he > accepts that motorists' average speed across the bridge is 12mph. > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4H9SINEWUqY

"Shocking betrayal"? Don't be so ridiculous. Who is being "betrayed", except for the car-haters? There is no evidence that a 20mph limit on that bridge (or anywhere else) would make things any safer for cyclists, and it's really time that otherwise intelligent people like you stopped falling for the massively oversimplified "slower is always safer" nonsense.

This bridge (along with most London bridges) is a particularly absurd place to have a 20mph limit, as it is wide and straight, and (obviously) between the two ends has absolutely no junctions or places where pedestrians or cyclists can emerge from. In fact, at quiet times, it is one of relatively few places where you can look down the whole stretch of road/pavement and (if there are no other road users) you can categorically say with 100% confidence that there are *no* hazards or potential hazards whatsoever.

It is ludicrous to say that when a driver can see hundreds of metres down a wide, straight piece of road, and can be absolutely certain that it is empty and will stay empty, then it is unacceptably dangerous for that driver to travel at 24mph. The same goes for 35mph in fact, but that is tolerable as an upper limit, whereas 24mph is much less bearable, which of course is the real reason why the usual suspects are so keen to have the 20mph limit. "They" never even attempt to show why it's so important to stick below 20mph in particular, because the know they can't, so instead they use deliberately vague, emotive bullshit as "justification", and hysterically screech "You don't care" and "You just want to be able to drive as fast as you like" at anyone who points out that they don't have a case. Surely such a "strategy" could be used to "justify" absolutely any speed limit reduction? Why not make it 15mph...isn't that "safer" still?

When will these unpleasant bigots start being truthful about wanting people to stop driving, and stop pretending that they're calling for restrictions on motoring because of "safety"*? Maybe when well-meaning but frankly gullible people like Tom Crispin and Simon Mason stop falling for their dishonesty.... Tom and Simon, if Jenny Jones and co were calling for it then would you support a 15mph limit on that bridge (if such a limit could be enforced), and if not, why not? How about a 40mph NSL on single carriageways...again, why not?

--
 * See:

http://www.conwayfor.org/images/stories/policy-papers/PolicyPaper-Transport.pdf

"The freedom provided by the motor vehicle is not universally applauded, however: there are those who resent the loss of state control over individual choice that the car represents. Such people rarely admit their prejudices openly; instead, they make false or exaggerated claims about the adverse effects of road transport in order to justify calls for higher taxation or restrictions on mobility."