Overwhelming support for giving up more road space to cyclists,........

[clid61]

When I was at school, I recall a teacher explaining that something or other was theoretically possible but wouldn't happen, in the same way that any of the constituent parts of the soviet union could theoretically leave.
He was wrong about that. You are, I hope, wrong about this.

I hope im wrong too !

 

[w00hoo_kent]

Exactly, User13710 - but, if you assume that people are losing the right to drive regularly, that means alternatives have to exist. As is, it's taken for granted that people will want or need to drive when they're angry, stressed, tired, sad, ill and a million other things.Yet with a transport system that offers reasonable alternatives - so that those who've been banned, or those simply not feeling their best, can still get from A to B reasonably efficiently, then who really needs to drive those trips at all?

If you lose the right to drive a car there are a huge number of alternatives you can use already.
There is a public transport network. Where that isn't convenient for you, there are bicycles, there is walking, there is asking a friend (presuming you have one) there are taxis. I have a large number of friends who have never bothered to learn to drive. They are at times very annoying, but they are also not housebound hermits unable to go anywhere. They have to make compromises, and they have to be aware of more information than car drivers. It's arguable if they spend more money in the long run vs car ownership. But they exist quite happily and most of them have been living this life and surviving as functioning adults for decades. And no, they aren't all in London (most of them aren't in fact). And this is people who have chosen, for some reason, not to go for car use. I don't see why we need to worry more about the people that had to be banned for abusing the privilege of having car use. We don't currently and while we don't seem to ban many people, it does still happen. It's possible the extra patience that they would have to learn would help them appreciate driving more when they came back to it.

Similarly, a lot of people driving cars aren't driving them per se, they are just going from place to place in them. They are a tool like the knife and fork they eat their dinner with or the smart phone they need to tweet on. Regularly reminding them, with retests etc, that they need to drive properly is not a waste of time when it comes to making places safer. Reminding them that there are things they have to care about outside of their car is a positive thing. It's not just the utter tossers that need dealing with.

But I think this is the basic point isn't it. Everyone can see that the right thing to do is to make the people who are driving around in a ton or more of metal do it better. Some people still hold out hope that that can happen, some have already submitted and are now looking around for the next best thing. But it'll never be as good as making the roads safer in the first place, if only because at some point you will have to interface with the rest of the traffic and if they've been allowed to forget you even exist, it'll be a lot worse than it already is.