Highway code petition
Apr. 18th, 2007 02:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lnrThe highway code is preparing for a new version, as it regularly does, and the current version before parliament for consideration contains the phrase "cyclists should use cycle facilities where possible" - regardless of whether convenient or even safe. There's a petition up on the number 10 site requesting that this clause be re-thought. As many of my friends-list cycle I thought I'd mention it here (previously it has travelled through cam.misc, the cambridge cycling campaign mailing list, the #chiark irc channel, and another friend's LJ - it's interesting that I can recognise names from all those places). Anyway it's here if you're interested: http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/roads4bikes/.
In other news, and on which I'll try and write more later, since nothing has really happened until you've blogged about it:
- My sister is married and the wedding was utterly utterly lovely.
- We still don't have a desk, but may do tomorrow if we're lucky.
- And 65 Days of Static were excellent last night at the Junction 2 - proper tour later this year, do catch them if you can.
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no subject
Date: 2007-04-18 03:25 pm (UTC)The response to the consultation was "oh dear, that bit's rather ambiguous, and no we don't intend to force cyclists to use cycle facilities rather than the road [*]; we'll make sure it's fixed in the final revision".
The "fix" consisted of disambiguating it in precisely the wrong direction.
As I understand it, it'll now go through on the nod in 40 days (from the end of March), because it's assumed that civil servants will competently and appropriately implement change based on the consultation and current government policy. Unless sufficient stink is raised that it gets voted on, that is.
[*] this is confirmed by the prime minister's response to a previous epetition (http://www.pm.gov.uk/output/Page10784.asp):
"The use of cycle lanes is not compulsory for cyclists. They can choose to ignore them and use the remainder of the carriageway if they prefer to do so. "