Nuxx:B9631012-b5b3-4ec4-8e5f-5ea8503172f5@34g2000pru.googlegroups.com

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!postnews.google.com!34g2000pru.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Message-ID:  From: Nuxx Bar  Newsgroups: uk.rec.cycling Subject: Re: "Blackfriars cyclist safety debate 'evaded by Tories'" Date: Thu, 9 Jun 2011 10:12:19 -0700 (PDT) References: <9ca9866b-9b49-4910-8863-e877c9dd0c8b@v8g2000yqb.googlegroups.com> Lines: 55 Organization: http://groups.google.com NNTP-Posting-Host: 82.71.49.124 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: posting.google.com 1307639723 1803 127.0.0.1 (9 Jun 2011 17:15:23 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 9 Jun 2011 17:15:23 +0000 (UTC) Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: 34g2000pru.googlegroups.com; posting-host=82.71.49.124; posting-account=WrLs9woAAAD151hWKA9yknAtxFHW4kE4 User-Agent: G2/1.0 X-Google-Web-Client: true X-Google-Header-Order: HUALESNKRC X-HTTP-UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.7; rv:2.0.1) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/4.0.1,gzip(gfe) Bytes: 4071 Xref: perfectly-safe.chapmancentral.co.uk uk.rec.cycling:812400

On Jun 9, 6:01=A0am, Doug  wrote: > "Conservative Assembly members have been criticised for walking out of > the chamber prior to a discussion about cycle safety on Blackfriars > Bridge. > > A motion was due to be held in the Greater London Assembly urging > Mayor Boris Johnson to reconsider plans to scrap a 20mph speed limit. > > The motion was tabled after a temporary speed limit that was put in > place while roadworks were carried out was removed.

Where's the evidence that the 20mph limit made things any safer for cyclists? Actually, never mind about that, since the real reason for wanting to keep the 20mph limit is to inconvenience drivers, and "cyclist safety" is once again shamelessly, and shamefully, being used as an excuse.

Every time car-hating bigots do this kind of thing, they "dilute" and damage real and worthy cyclist safety campaigns such as the HGV left hook one. When oh when will the penny finally drop? The (very worthy) campaign to genuinely improve cyclist safety needs to be run completely separately to the (entirely worthless) campaign to bully people out of their cars, instead of the former so often being abused in order to prop up the latter (which of course needs a *lot* of propping up).

> Tory London Assembly member Andrew Boff said the issues were not being > evaded. > > Mr Boff said the walkout had nothing to do with the issue of > Blackfriars Bridge or air pollution. > > "This is part of ongoing action that the group is taking in response > to the Labour, Lib Dem and Green party groups voting en-block to > prevent Conservatives from taking up the proportional number of > committee chairmanships, thus depriving the 40% of Londoners who voted > for us a voice.

Sounds reasonable to me. Once Labour and "Green" start doing the decent thing, voting properly and not abusing process, the Tories will talk to them again (although what "debate" there needs to be about removing a *temporary* roadworks speed limit is beyond me...the car- haters are getting more and more shrill and irrational, and will pretend that *any* lowering of a speed limit automatically improves safety, despite all the research showing otherwise).

Of course there's very little chance of Labour or "Green" being anything but self-servingly dishonest; they have been up to the same sorts of tricks in Reading, which (thanks to some more abuse of process) now has to put up with a Labour administration again after a year of progress under the Tories and Lib Dems (who, shock horror, wanted to remove traffic lights where safe...can't have that...much better to change perfectly good roundabouts into traffic lights like Labour did...that'll learn the scumbag car drivers to come into Reading and boost the local economy...).