What do we want? A legal system that works

Turn on a television or iPlayer. Look at what the police shows are on in their drama category. go to IMDb see what's there in a collection of detective and police dramas it'll be about murder cases policeman trying to solve them, prosecutors trying to make a name for themselves, lawyers trying to defend the guilty or the innocent. This is what exciting. This is what policing about. This is what the legal system is about. This is why people joined the police.

Now try looking for something about cyclists being run over. Nothing. Maybe lurking in documentaries is something on Britain's shittiest teenage drivers -entertainment. Alongside Top Gear -a comedy that claims to be the BBC's men's show.

Turn on the news. There may be some dramatic stories on their there. Then maybe some tragic deaths but unless it is particularly dramatic it won't be about somebody being hit by a truck, car or bus.

Death by car is not interesting.

Imagine you are a police force. government cuts are coming down telling you you have to save money where are you going to do it? will it being road policing? Or will it be from those incidents which the press will cover and condemn you if you're seen to fail? Road safety doesn't stand a chance.

Imagine you are a CPS prosecutor. You want to do well in your career. You want recognition. you want things on your resume you can be proud of. You don't dream of prosecuting traffic classes -those are the kind of things you get assigned to when your career is going downhill.

The safety of cycling, the prosecution of cyclist deaths? It's not going to get a look in.

Which is of course precisely where we are today.

It's not just the police don't give a fuck -it's that nobody does: nobody in the legal system, and almost nobody in the national press. And the politicians? They don't have all their constituents clamouring for justice, and would rather talk about the "war motorists" than the war by tipper trucks against people.

The Michael Mason case is going to be a showcase issue. The inaction of the Met police is a story on its own. Their PR department knows it's disaster, which is why they put out that "we will prosecute" press release out. Too bad the rest of the police don't see that and are still doing fuck all. No doubt somebody senior gave the press Department a hard time saying "why did you publish this!" -missing the point that management should been saying "why you do nothing". All the police have to do is hand it on to the CPS. Yet they refuse to do that. It's becoming a point of principle: they don't want to surrender to the pressure we are placing on them.

We can all do something here that start by giving money to the justice for Michael campaign. If they get enough money for prosecution that will get the press we need that will show at the Met for who they are: a police force that doesn't care about the lives of cyclists.

Do it now: https://www.justgiving.com/justiceformichael

High publicity events in London can also be part of this. If one protest was enough to get the press release issued, bigger ones may actually stir the met into action. Hold one over a weekend and the rest of us across Britain can join in.

Getting the police to refer murder-with-car to the prosecution is only the first step. We need decent prosecutors who recognise that road deaths are the primary non-accidental cause of death in the country. We need investigators the care about the problem and do decent investigations for those prosecutors. We need expert witnesses for the prosecution themselves that don't believe "the sun in my eyes" is a valid excuse for killing people. Bez's articles showing up the utter failings of the legal system are a start here. He is documenting the wrongness. Now we need to get the rest of society to read those articles, to recognise the crimes that have been committed and how the police and the legal system are letting killers drive around the streets.

We need a legal system that gives a fuck about cyclists.

29 points - free to endanger everyone in Aberystwyth

the BBC is showing a dark subtitled police drama set in an obscure land right now: Hinterland.

The land is deepest mid-wales, centred on Aberystwyth -but with lots of time spent in the hills inland.  Mountain bikers should be watching it for the scenery, as should anyone who feels like exploring it on the Tregaron Mountain Road.

Like all rural detective stories, there is the challenge of dealing with one murder a week -a rate that puts it ahead of the CUBA conurbation -its utterly implausible.

That is, until you hear about a takeaway driver in the town allowed to drive after clocking up 29  points.

1. He already had 11 points in his license -i.e. one point from a ban.
2. Despite knowing any driving crime would remove his license, he was caught speeding.
3. Despite driving full time in a mountainous region, he wasn't even keeping his vehicle in good condition, and had a defective tyre. On mountain roads that actually matters all year round.
4. He was caught driving without insurance twice. Not once: twice, as though he didn't get insured after the first one.

The excuse was the usual: no car no job. Then added another: makes his family homeless.

HE SHOULD HAVE CHANGED HIS BEHAVIOUR AFTER GETTING TWO 11 POINTS

Dodging the first ban could have been a sign of leniency by the magistrates, but what it has clearly done is got him complacent and made him think he can keep speeding. No doubt his insurance premiums went through the roof, so all he did was stop insuring his car. But even after being caught once for being uninsured, he kept on driving. Does anyone seriously think he will get insured now? That he won't speed now?

Even the piston-head forums think he's taking the piss here. If it was just speeding you reach for the Keith Peat tinfoil hat and say "any speed is safe", but he was up for an unsafe vehicle and being uninsured. 

A DRIVER WITH A HISTORY OF SPEEDING WHILE UNINSURED IN AN UNSAFE VEHICLE IS A DANGER TO ALL

The magistrates were actually prepared to let this potential killer free. Which shows how the points system with its "exception hardship" plea is broken.

BY ALLOWING A HARDSHIP PLEA, DRIVERS WITH GOOD LAWYERS GET TO KEEP BREAKING THE LAW

But it is more than that.

BY PROVIDING A GET-OUT CLAUSE, DRIVERS WITH 11 POINTS IN THEIR LICENSE WILL HAPPILY SPEED ROUND IN DEFECTIVE VEHICLES AND NO INSURANCE.

If every driver going above 12 points lost their license, then every driver in the country, now matter how much they could spend on a legal team, would know that getting to 9 points meant "time to stop speeding", and getting to 11 means "I had better not break any road laws for the next three years".

THIS INCIDENT SHOWS PRECISELY THE POINTS SYSTEM IS UTTERLY BROKEN

New Zealand has a special workaround for the "I need it for my job/family" excuse, a Limited License.

From the document: 

The District Court can grant a Limited Licence if it is satisfied that:

• the applicant is eligible to apply for a licence, and

• the applicant will suffer “extreme hardship”, or someone else will suffer “undue hardship”,

• as a result of the disqualification, and

• public safety will not be put at risk by the granting of a licence.

Your disqualification is meant to be a penalty or a punishment, so the court won’t mind if you are merely inconvenienced. For example, if public transport is available to get you to work, the court may require that you take public transport for the period of your disqualification, even if it grants you a Limited Licence to keep on working.
When the court makes the order for the Limited Licence, it will specify:

• why the licence has been granted, the circumstances in which the driver is permitted to

• drive, and any conditions attached to the grant of the Limited Licence

• the details of the vehicle the driver is allowed to drive

• the days and times of the week the driver is allowed to drive

• the areas in which the driver is allowed to drive.

The purpose of the Limited Licence is to lessen the hardship of not having a licence. It is not a substitute licence allowing the disqualified person to drive whenever and wherever they want.
Before applying for a Limited Licence, you need to think about:

• which car you need to drive

• what times and days you need to drive

• where you need to drive (the areas, suburbs and streets) – creating a map to attach to your

• application is a great idea

One of most common conditions for Limited Licences is that the driver must carry a notebook (called a “logbook”), which they fill in every time they drive the car. The logbook should record the time and the odometer reading (kilometres driven), and the start and finish times of all car trips. It should also state where they left from and where they went, and why each trip was made.

It gets better. The application must include affadavits by the employer, and if the police object it's that much harder to get through -meaning they get a say in the matter, rather than just a magistrate with undue leniency towards "it could happen to anyone" tickets.

You can’t apply for a Limited Licence if you:

• have been disqualified from driving for an indefinite period (under section 65 of the Land Transport Act), or are currently disqualified because you were convicted of driving while disqualified, or of driving outside of the terms of Limited Licence, or

• have committed a serious driving offence (which has a minimum sentence of six months

• disqualification), within five years

• are disqualified from driving a passenger transport vehicle (for example, a taxi or bus) and

• you want a Limited Licence in order to drive that vehicle.

There's also an automatic 28 day "no driving" period if the total ban would be over six months, so you get to experience 4 weeks getting used to not driving. This makes it clear to the driver that they are being punished -and what their life would be like if they don't behave.

If you were disqualified for an offence with a mandatory sentence of six months suspension from driving, there is a 28-day “stand down” period between when you were disqualified from driving, and when the court will hear your application for a Limited Licence.

It may seem bizarre to have a get-out clause on a ban, but we already have one -exceptional hardship.

And once you have got that plea accepted, you can carry on before -no punishment at all.

A limited license restricts what you can drive: example, you could drive an employer's vehicle for delivering takeaways, but not your own car to and from the takeaway. It restricts where you can drive, so if you can show the delivery zone, then the court would say 'here is the area in which you can drive". And if caught driving outside the zone: bye bye license, no excuses.

If you pull of the "need to care for a relative" story, then the judges could say "your house, their house, hospitals, valid routes and some shops on the way". No other destinations. 

And the larger the journey area you want to cover -the harder the judge will look at the application, and the more likely it will to be refused.

You can still hire those fancy lawyers, but now their job becomes to argue about the size of the limited area, not why the driver should be completely unpunished.

This is a far better solution to the exception-hardship-carry-on excuse. It allows people who can show they will lose their job to keep their job, without giving them freedom to drive as they like. It's still flawed -it lets some dangerous drivers keep driving- but we are clearly doing that today, without any ability to restrict their driving habits if the hardship plea gets excepted. 

Full/partial banning cyclists: talking points

For anyone advocating a ban on cycling, here are the questions you have to answer (based on ban type) before your proposal can be taken as anything other than a piece of ill informed bollocks from a fuckwit who doesn't know what they are talking about but merely has a set of irrational prejudices and projected resentment on an outgroup from spending too much time in a traffic jam in their car

Assumptions

1. Peak hour cycling traffic is primarily utilitarian: school runs, commuting
2. out of hour traffic can include utility activities such as shopping, trips to doctors, social calls.
3. Cyclists on utility journeys will not "vanish" just because of the ban -they will merely switch transport options.

Full cyclist ban

1. Will this be on road, or include shared use, dedicated cycle lanes and off-road paths?
2. Will it include private roads and private spaces?
   Yes: you can't cycle in your own garden
   No: what about: universities, hospitals, MoD land, public parks, royal parks, 
3. How are the cyclists expected to do school runs, get to work?
   Public transport: how do you address the issue London Underground is already at peak capacity,  while other cities lack functional public transport systems?
   car: won't this make congestion and parking worse?. 
4. How will this be enforced? Mass confiscation of all the unregistered bicycles in the country? Or simply fining/arrest of anyone cycling on a public road? And potentially anyone cycling on a shared pavement, dedicated cycle path, or private property? 
5. Will cycling be a fixed penalty offence, or a crime? What should the penalty be? 
6. How will mass protest be addressed?
7. If someone who cycles does not own a car, or live in an area with public transport, how will they get around?
8. Given that there are tangible health benefits from cycling, how will you address the issue that the health of the UK population will actually get worse?

Cyclist ban at "peak hours"

1. How will peak hours be defined? 
2. will this include bus lanes during their hours of operation?
3. will it include off-road paths, private roads, public parks, etc?
4. In London there's no rush hour per se, just continually busy? Will there be a 100% ban in London? If so where does the border begin? North Circular? Inside M25?
5. In other cities the peak hours vary by region -will we have regional peak hours, or a blanket 08:00 to 09:00 and 16:30-18:00 ban?
6. What about areas that don't have peak hours -like country roads? What about country roads near cities?
7. What if someone is still not yet at their destination when peak hours begin?
8. If cyclists are unregistered,  how can you enforce it if the cyclist doesn't stop?
9. How are the cyclists expected to do school runs, get to work? Drive?
10. If someone who cycles does not own a car, or live in an area with public transport, how will they get around?
11. Given that there are tangible health benefits from cycling, how will you address the issue that the health of the UK population will actually get worse?

Ban "leisure cycling"
The challenge here is distinguishing "leisure cycling" from "utility cycling?"

1. Will saying "I'm on my way to the shops" suffice?
2. Will it be based on clothing?
3. Will it be based on type of bicycle?
4. Will it based on attributes of the bicycle, such as a basket or a rack?

Make "holding up cars" illegal

1. How do you define "holding up a car" if there is congestion further up ahead?
2. Is there likely to be a time threshold above which a bicycle is deemed to be holding up traffic? If so: who measures and enforces it? How can it be shown that the car was "held up" by the bicycle merely because they failed to overtake
3. Would the ban be on the number of motor vehicles being held up by the bicycle? 
4. Would it be legal if someone on a bicycle was cycling at the speed limit.
5. Would it be legal if someone on a bicycle is cycling at the speed of a vehicle in front.
6. Will it be an offence irrespective of the goal of the vehicle driving behind? Example: cyclist is going to work, driver is simply driving "for the fun of it"?

The trouble with this approach is that in a congested city it becomes impossible to point to any bicycle and say "they held me up", even if they are the vehicle directly in front of you -especially if they have a camera and can point to congestion ahead of them. Enforcement would be very hard. In particular, in a 20 mph zone, it is likely that a fit cyclist will be cycling at the speed limit -even if there is no congestion ahead of them.

Make cycling two abreast illegal.

1. How will one cyclist pass another? (The HGV passing problem)
2. What if it is a parent and child and the parent is positioned on the outside to make cycling to school safer?
3. As it is already illegal to pass someone on a bicycle too close, on a road that is too narrow to pass one cyclist , what difference will it make?

Some people think this already illegal. It isn't. 

Make cycling in large groups illegal.

1. How do you distinguish a number of individuals cycling on a route from an organised group of people cycling? (The Surrey Sportive problem)
2. What would be threshold?
3. Would it be legal for in individual on a bicycle to cycle past a group of cyclists one bicycle below the threshold?

Make cycling in cycle lanes by the side of the road compulsory.

1. What do they do when the lane is blocked by roadworks?
2. What do they do when the lane is blocked by an illegally parked vehicle?
3. What do they do when the lane is blocked by a legally parked vehicle?
4. What do they do when the lane is unsafe due to the quality of the road surface, state (water, snow), closeness to parked cars?

The problem here is that as well as being regularly blocked, it is near impossible to define when a cycle lane is safe. When Oregon introduced a mandatory cycle lane law, they required the lanes to be assessed as "safe", which is near-impossible to do.

make cycling on shared pavements alongside roads compulsory

1. what do they do when the shared use path is full of random street furniture, 
2. what if it is blocked by road works.
3. what if there is a vehicle illegally blocking the path?
4. what if there is a vehicle legally blocking the path?
5. what if it is in a condition that it is -in the belief of the cyclist- unsafe?

The problem here is a large proportion of shared use paths are shit.

Ban bicycles from certain roads.

1. which roads would bicycles be banned from?
2. if country roads: why? 
3. If urban roads: why?
4. If roads with a speed limit above 20 mph, will 20 mph zones be exempt:
5. if dual carriageways, will functional (safe, direct) alternatives be provided?

There is a legal ban on motorways, and roads such as the A1(M). There is a near de-facto ban on dual carriageways, though a recurrent problem is the lack of a safe alternative. Oftentimes it is safer to get onto the road of a dual carriageway to negotiate a roundabout than a multi-traffic island crossing where the cyclist has no right of way.

Make Cyclists Dismount signs mandatory
(UKIP transport policy, 2010 election)

1. Why? Is there a rational reason for this? 
2. Can a cyclist, when dismounting, stop in the road and hold up traffic? If so, is there a time limit?
3. Once dismounted, what is someone on a bicycle expected to do?
4. Will it be legal to walk across the road outside of a pedestrian crossing? 
5. If not -will pedestrian crossings be provided at every cyclists-dismount sign?
6. Can a cyclist, when remounting, stop in the road and hold up traffic? If so, is there a time limit?

This may seem a simple idea, but it assumes the cyclists will be docile and somehow jump onto the pavement and walk across. It does not address the situation where someone on a bicycle stops their bicycle in the middle of the lane, slowly dismounts, walks their bicycle over and then slowly remounts. This would actually impose more delays on the vehicles behind -unless you place restrictions on the dismount/remount process and require the dismounted cyclist to use a pedestrian crossing (which must therefore be provided).

Economic cost? 

1. Before this bill became law, cities would experience the most dramatic peak hour protests ever seen. What would the economic costs of mass cycling protests at rush hours be?
2. If the number of people driving increases, so will congestion and pollution. How will the economic cost of this be measured?
3. Given the health of the nation decreases from a reduction/elimination of cycling, what will be the impact both on productivity and NHS costs
4. If no economic benefit can be shown, and the pre and post legislation cost models show that were will be economic cost -is the cost threshold at which point the legislation will be cancelled?

Political cost

1. Even a partial ban during peak hours would directly impact everyone who cycles to work. There's a lot of professionals in that category, who can be very effective when it comes to political campaigns. Is it politically wise to take them on?
2. A full ban would impact everyone who cycles for leisure. As cycling is one of the main forms of activity in the country, is it politically wise to take them on?
3. Will MPs who vote for a full or partial ban likely to see more or less votes in the next election?
4. Will a party that pushes through legislation on a full or partial ban likely to see more or less votes in the next election?
5. Given there will be widespread opposition, the opposition parties will immediately seize on repealing the law as a manifesto item. How long is a full or partial ban on cycling likely to last?

Questions for anyone proposing cyclist registration

Again, we have someone mandating compulsory cyclist registration, though this time it isn't someone dialling in to a daytime local radio channel, or adding comments in the bottom of some local daily-mail substitute paper in a classic newspaper columnist unpunctuated sentence that even Joyce would avoid:  "all cyclists should be licensed and have an MOT and have third party insurance and mandatory helmets and hi viz and use cycle paths and keep out of the way of cars" in those

This time, it is an EU MEP, Nikki Sinclaire MEP.

Apparently the cycle lobby has been insulting and using "silly" examples like wheelchairs and scooters.

Here then: no insults, no silly examples. Merely simple questions about execution.

Assumptions:

1. A law is being written that will require all UK residents who wish to cycle to be registered, with their registration number on hi-viz. These questions below look beyond the headline to "implementation details"
2. Bicycle registration, "MOTs", and tax disks are ignored.
3. Britain is still part of the EU
4. A independent Scotland may exist; if so it is part of the EU
5. At the time this legislation is proposed, a national ID card does not exist.

Section 1: Nationality

Will visitors from other EU countries be allowed to cycle in the UK without being registered?

NO:

1. how will this be legal within the framework of a EU legal system which already recognises EU drivers licenses and vehicles within the UK? 
2. Will it become illegal to cycle across the border for Ireland to NI without paperwork, or perhaps soon, over the Tweed from Scotland to Berwick-upon-tweed?

YES: how will you distinguish EU visitors from UK residents? Passports?

Passport-based exemptionIf you use passports to recognise who is allowed to cycle without registration -how will you handle UK residents with other EU passports -in particular the millions with/eligible for Irish passports (nearly everyone in Northern Ireland?)
No checks:
How do you stop any UK citizen who qualifies for an Irish or (soon) scottish passport can get one and so cycle without hi viz?
UK Citizens must be registered, even if dual national. How do you prevent someone rejecting their UK citizenship and yet remaining resident due to their Irish/Scottish residency rights?
Check against list of UK residents:  Require all Irish/Scottish citizens living in the UK to register for one. This implies the roll-out of a national ID card to track all UK residents, otherwise it would probably be illegal.

The implication here is that significant controls will be needed on EU nationals being resident in the UK, with an ID card and tracking for all UK residents needed to distinguish visitors from residents. 

Section 2: Age

Will children be required to be registered?

YES: age limited.
This implies at a specific child's birthday they will be required to register and start wearing hi-viz. How will this be enforced? Will police be required to stop children who look "too old" and ask them for ID? If so: requires national ID card. 

YES: "kid's bikes are exempt"
Implies a rigorous definition of "Kid's bike"

• Small wheeled bikes only: adults folding bikes will be exempt, kids bikes with 26" wheels will require registration -and police to be able to recognise wheel sizes.
• Frame size: at what point will frame size transition from "small adult" to "large child" take place? 
• Child's bikes marked at point of sale: fails to address existing fleet of bicycles

The implication here is that there is too much ambiguity unless it is 100% mandatory for all children to be registered

Section 3: Access restrictions

Where must cyclists be registered before they can cycle?

Public Roads: Unless private roads are included OR clearly marked, how will you will differentiate public roads from private roads. 

Private Roads: How to distinguish "private road" from "driveway" or "garden path"? Implies registration is required to cycle on any private property. IF not, issue of distinguishing from public & private road arises.

Public shared use pavements: Again,  how to distinguish this from private shared-use pavements

Public parks: if not, again, requires distinguishing from private grounds to which public access is granted.

Royal parks: see above.

Bridleways across private land?  if yes, implies mandatory registration/hi-viz across private land. If not, implies private land to be clearly distinguished from public land, even in wilderness areas. 

BOATs and RUPPs: Yes: unless Bridleways also require mandatory registration, will need some way to distinguish these from Bridleways. No: need a way to distinguish BOATs from public roads.

Schools and hospitals. These are state owned properties with access restrictions. Would they be private land or public land? 

MoD land: example -much of Salisbury plain? 

Canals: property of British Waterways.

Council paths on council land: if mandatory, will need to include council parks

The implication here is that there is too much ambiguity unless it is 100% mandatory for anyone to cycle -anywhere, even on private land and their own driveway- without registration and hi-viz.  

Section 4: Roll out

How would this be rolled out? 

Personal application without ID. There would be no way to prevent fraud and someone applying for more than one, hence being able to ignore penalties

Personal application for registration with ID: implies all UK residents who wish to cycle must have some form of photo ID. Drivers licenses would not cover any children, nor any adults without them. Passports are not ubiquitous. The only 100% available document would be a birth certificate -however northern ireland and scottish certificates are managed independently from English & Welsh, so validating these is hard and expensive.

This also requires proof of residence to stop someone registering with a false address -and so being unreachable for any enforcement

By post without ID: Acquiring multiple registrations in false/stolen names just got simpler

By Post with ID: Add cost and logistics of securely managing ID postal.

The implication here is that a national ID would be the only effective way to manage to roll out.

How would a lost registration hi-viz top be dealt with?  User receives new top with new number. Old one "invalidated". Police now required to stop cyclists to verify that they are not cycling with a stolen hi-viz top. 

Section 4: Cost of execution

How would this be funded? 

1. General Tax: is there anything better that could be done with the money
2. One-off registration fee:  How much would it have to be to not only cover one-off costs of registration, but all ongoing costs of enforcement? 
3. Annual registration fee: If someone says "they no longer cycle" how will this be verified? Will the police be required to stop cyclists with hi-viz to verify they are current with their registration?

What will the costs of verifying cyclist registration be? 
This includes:

• stop and checks that a teenager cycling without hi-viz is above the mandatory registration threshold.
• stop and check that someone cycling with a hi-viz top is using their own top and not one that is stolen, found or fraudulently acquired. Again, implies national ID card of some form
• costs of stopping adults who are cycling without hi viz and confirming that they are EU nationals who have the right to do so
• costs of stopping and verifying that anyone cycling is not a cyclist who has their registration revoked 

Although it would seem simple "stop anyone without the hi-viz top", the need to identify revoked and fraudulent registration would imply a regular stopping of anyone cycling. Unless EU nationals -including visitors -were somehow mandated to also carry a top, it would become impossible to distinguish EU national from single-nationality UK citizen. In inner cities -especially London- there would be too many EU nationals to stop


Will costs include enforcement costs of inevitable protests and civil disobedience?

The police operational of mildly controversial issues such as badger culling turned out to massively increase the costs of the operation -the same for protested road building exercises.

A national roll-out of a cycle registration is likely to be the most controversial event in modern cycling history (possibly ever) and the opposition to it will be national. Unless these costs are correctly predicted and included in the cost models, they will be underestimated and come out of general police funding.

Will costs include impact of mass cycling protest in city centres at rush hours? 

Cycling protests will be guaranteed to be held at the most dramatic times of day, which implies nationwide protests in city centres designed to bring the cities to a halt at peak hours. How will the indirect cost of such protests be measured and included in any cost/benefit analyses?

Will mass gatherings by cyclists be made illegal?

Blatant acts of junction blocking would be accompanied by legal protests such as mass groups cycling at 5 miles an hour down key roads in the cities, including dual carriageways and roundabouts -the latter where the same group can cycle round repeatedly.

Mass gatherings of cyclists is currently legal.

Such protests would only be preventable by introducing laws restricting the number of cyclists that may gather in groups, how many times they can cycle round a roundabout or which roads they can cycle on. Even then, how would you distinguish a group of cyclists merely commuting on the same roads from a mass protest?


Section 4: Political Cost of execution

Do politicians want to deal with the backlash?

While the proposal may garner support from local radio phone-ins, during the period in which the legislation is being passed some of the largest ever mass protests by cyclists ever.

This would also bring them out to form some of the most co-ordinated political campaigns to convince politicians not to vote for the legislation.

It is also likely to encourage active campaigns against the re-election of any politician who voted for the legislation -irrespective of whether or not the vote was passed. Parties supporting such a vote via any form of whip would find all MPs experiencing the same backlash.

The closest equivalent is potentially the Countryside Alliance campaign, except they were not represented in the high-population constituencies around the country. Any cycling campaign would focus on the cities, and, in EU elections, actively campaign against MEPs who supported the plans.

Will revocation of the legislation be a manifesto item in future elections?

Given the inevitable backlash, it is likely that revocation of the legislation would be a manifesto item for the parties in opposition at the time the legislation was passed.

As such, the lifespan of the law is likely to be 5-10 years. Given the cost of rollout, it is hard to justify.

Conclusions

1. A national ID card may be requiredd. Indeed, the cyclist registration may become that national ID card. 
2. Unless the UK withdraws from the EU it is likely to be impossible to prevent EU nationals from cycling without registration. Even if it does, Irish and Scottish citizens cycling in Britain will be exempt unless there is a strict policy that requires a "guest registration" for all visitors, 
3. The ambiguities about age ranges for children imply the cutoff date would probably be about 8-10, but even then enforcement would be impossible unless children were required to carry an ID card. Mandating registration across all age rages would be simpler
4. The ambiguities about public vs private land would only be resolved by mandating that one cannot cycle without registration and hi-viz even on private land. That would likely to include one's own driveway. 
5. The costs of execution -including enforcement and handling protest would not be covered by a one-off fee -yet per-year fees hard and expensive to implement.
6. The indirect costs of mass protest on peak hours would not be reclaimable and potentially very damaging to the UK economy.
7. Legislation may be needed to prevent mass gatherings of cyclists at peak hours
8. The political costs of supporting the legislation would be high -and the law likely to be rescinded at the next election.

Betrayed by a Legal System

A key point of the APCG report on cycling was a legal system that protects the vulnerable. It is clear this week that we do not.

Earlier in the week, Martin Porter discussed why a videoed road rage assault wasn't something the CPS could be bothered to prosecute -even though the prosecutions from the riots showed it was perfectly possible if they wanted to.

There's a key difference between rioters and drivers who assault cyclists: rioters threaten the very stability of society, whereas drivers are pillars of society, and it is cyclists who are abnormal.

One thing Martin Porter missed was that if that Birmingham driver had, instead of getting out of his van to start a fight, had just "clipped" the cyclist, even if the CPS had tried to prosecute the driver, the "a momentary lapse in concentration" defence would have got him off.

We've seen in Bristol judges letting off speeding drivers who cause injuries using the phrase "you didn't intend to hurt someone" as the reason to not punish them. We've seen in London that killing someone by dooring them or driving them over in an HGV not something to penalise.

Today's scottish punishment "you can kill someone and the victim gets blamed" shows how fucked justice is. The driver didn't even have to try the "sun in my eyes" gambit, make up some medical condition and get let off -because in the UK you are not only allowed to drive until you kill someone, you can keep driving afterwards.

In the US, there's evidence of racial bias in Judges, though little seems to be done about that, or juries.

In Northern Ireland, Diplock Courts attempted to address juror bias in acquitting/convicting suspected terrorists. The Diplock report blamed juror intimidation, which no doubt was ubuquitous, but there was also "the danger of perverse acquittals". Having three judges rather than a jury of peers was considered fairer.

This year we've seen many perverse acquittals, and this time a sheriff who gave a driver a mild slap on the wrist -though perhaps if the community service consists of 300 hours of cycling up and down the A9 he may not only appreciate things differently, but he may experience a death penalty administered by someone who could use the "momentary lapse of concentration" gambit.

The Times cyclesafe campaign has been one of the key drivers for visible change in England, triggered by the near death of Mary Bowers, again a case where the outcome could only be described as perverse.

This needs to be fixed. Obviously the petition calling on parliament to act is something everyone should sign, but it is not enough. Every needs to get out there and demand better treatment.

For everyone in Scotland who wants to cycle and live, Pedal on Parliament, is where they need to be in May 19.

But let's go one better. Let's have people from England go up there too, to show how much everyone in the country thinks that this week the Scottish legal system has betrayed us all.