Edmund King, ( Mouthpiece of the AA) one time CEO of the RACFoundation who tend to be ideologically opposed to drivers and all things driving, has been busy promoting speed cameras, speeding fines and speed awareness courses even though AA depend on drivers for the largest part of their income.
Not one to miss an oportunity to jump on the latest populist bandwagon, Edmund has been promoting cycling -AA sell bike acessories too- of late. Not more than he promotes himself it has to be said.
An unashamed hero of a Twitter Account styled @CycleHatred, where the owners and followers accumulate as many examples of, what they believe are genuine expressions of hatred toward them from alleged drivers. Not one to allow peace to break out, Edmund weighed in with a talk about 'Two Tribes' supposedly to bring, in his words, 'harmony' between the two groups. However how such a public figure as Edmund thinks that such a topic doesn't actually foment problems is either because he is very stupid or very mischevous. Whether Edmund was silly enough to cite any of the examples furnished by @CycleHatred for his speach we do not know. But it had occurred to us that many of these could be bogus, some from the nastier cyclists themselves and in any case, given that there are 30 million drivers out there and there isn't actually any evidence that the threats are any more than a wind up because drivers simply are not aiming their vehicles at cyclists. All this shows that, anyone serious about road safety should pay no heed to Edmund and his Spandex Warriors of @CycleHatred.
Edmund has also been attacking Admiral Insurance, for quite rightly, not making a premium allowance for speeding drivers who elect to use the dubiously legal and coercive option of Speed Awareness Courses.
But fails to mention that, in his support for speed cameras, he and AA, who run these courses, have a vested interest in them. So we challenged Edmund King on this and also warned that he has no expertise in road safety or driving either. We said: 'Speed awareness courses run for profit by private companies on the basis of poor science and wrongful ticketing' Edmunds response? 'Barking'. No denial there then!
'Can politicians learn that @AAPresident is no expert in road safety and driving and has vested interests'. Edmund avoids the statement with: ' You are like a scratched record and a very boring one at that' So no denial to that either then. Apart from changing the subject with peurile remarks saying more about Edmund than he would like, how about the serious road safety matters that he isn't denying and seems to think is acceptable?
Edmund and the AA are an example of the big guns we are up against in our quest for genuine road safety instead of profit based road safety. By making us an adversary, he discloses that he is also adverse to genuine altruistic road safety and a supporter of the unnecessary prosecution of many thousands of perfectly safe drivers too.
