And just like all the other nonsensical, sometimes grossly untrue road spin, 'Speed kills' 'Living Streets' 'Traffic calming' it sounds so sweet, kind and benign doesn't it?
Don't be fooled. Most of these are ideologically anti driver based in origin and certainly used to curtail useful progressive driving. The fact is that because our whole society depends on all driving, any adverse comment against driving, or to its disadvantage, amounts to an attack on the community too.
It's very worrying when a Police Traffic Chief Inspector reveals an anti driver bent in this tweet.
You will see how I take him to task too:
@CIPhilVickers @KeepMeOnTheRoad Haven't you worked out that this benign #sharetheroad ideology is to the disadvantage of #drivers ? Jeez!— Drivers E. Midlands (@EastMidsDrivers) June 7, 2016
@CIPhilVickers @KeepMeOnTheRoad #sharetheroad ? What like sweeties, comics, a football? This isn't the playground but major infrastructure!— Drivers E. Midlands (@EastMidsDrivers) June 7, 2016
@CIPhilVickers @KeepMeOnTheRoad But we need drivers. That's the point. You're equating the 2 as equal. Cyclists are an unneeded hazard.— Drivers E. Midlands (@EastMidsDrivers) June 7, 2016
'Sharing' ? This isn't playground kiddies sharing sweeties, choccies, biscuits and footballs, it's about running major infrastructure. Do we 'share' railway tracks for goodness sake? To reduce UK's 35 million drivers on whom the whole community, including Mr Vickers and his unit depend, to no more than a minority lobby that society doesn't need, is, by definition, anti driver.
That's the clever thing about this anti driver spin and soundbite; even when, like 'speed kills' it's opposite to the truth, it's not until we question it closely, like The Emperors New Clothes, it turns out to be utter nonsense. So these benign and kindly sounding terms, hard to oppose, are in reality well constructed, crafty and very aggressive. It's exactly the kind of language that any police officer on the promotion ladder will adopt after his course with the Court of Common Purpose. See more of them here.
So what we have identified is an attitude within the police against genuine road safety and drivers.
So far Suzette Davenport, head of roads policing, has refused to address these very valid and true issues. She's probably a common purpose appointment. Is she going to ignore truth, put her fingers in her ears? Are you going to let her do that?Are our police chiefs going to let her ignore this?
If we are to address road safety and take it from the hands of vested interests, profiteers, ideology and Common Purpose, it has to begin with regarding roads as infrastructure and then asking who we do not need to 'share' roads with going forward.
What Ch.Insp Vickers, Edmund King, Carlton Reid and Chris Boardman don't get is that millions of times a day drivers are taking care of cyclists or else they would all have been mown down by now. Yes of course drivers, being human, will get things wrong but that is a massive leap from them not tolerating or sharing the road. Only anti drivers suggest that: as indeed do those, like Edmund King who evokes a mythical two tribes war, to foment aggression between cyclists and divers. See how he does it here in this post of November 2012. He did it again yesterday on BBC Humberside
Highway Code for cyclists: Edmund King @TheAA_UK tells @bbcburnsy "the roads are here to be shared..it shouldn't be about two tribes"— BBC Radio Humberside (@RadioHumberside) June 6, 2016
Well the game is now up. The Hans Christian Anderson boy has spotted the naked Emperor, The fancy rhetoric is now exposed, Common Purpose may seem the way to get promoted but in road safety, it screws infrastructure and kills people. No more of it.
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