MR BLANDFORD offers to 'respect' cyclists when they abide by a set of arbitrary regulations that have no bearing on anyone's safety of convenience.
When a motorist, I take extreme care not to risk the safety of other road users, after all I am the one who, for my convenience, have chosen to try to move about the city wrapped in a ton of steel. When a cyclist, I don't want respect because I have mudguards, I want respect because I'm a human who would like to stay alive.
Our roads are obviously crowded, so frustration from motorists is sometimes understandable, but the way to free up space for those who need to drive is to get more people cycling. In Copenhagen they have invested to transform about 7% of their roadspace into well designed cycling infrastructure. This now takes 62% of commuter traffic, more than halving the density of the remaining traffic.
If the same thing were done in Southampton it would be the equivalent for drivers of doubling the size of the road network at a fraction of the cost of even a small increase in road space.
Alistair Chaplin
Southampton
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