I seem to have had an awful lot of stuff to say about bikes and cycling of late. It's fair to say that my bikes and my riding are pretty important to me - I'm really glad I ended up getting back to riding due to moving here, and it is true that when I was deciding to buy this house, a test ride up here to see what sort of commute it would be was the clinching factor.
In a similarly clinching manner, there was a turning point for me where an enjoyable activity became as much a political subject, or a cause.
These flowers were left to commemorate the latest anniversary of the sad death of a cyclist who was hit from behind and killed by a driver who then left the scene. The driver who finally went to the police the following day, and admitted having been drinking before the incident, was eventually given a fine, and enough points on the licence to make another offence likely to incur a driving ban.
Fortunately there have recently been moves towards changing this ridiculous legal situation, where a person's life is merely worth a few hundred quid, as long as you kill them with a car. But it's not law yet, and every day I go past the place where this poor chap died, and I am reminded how far we still have to go.
I seem to have had an awful lot of stuff to say about bikes and cycling of late. It's fair to say that my bikes and my riding are pretty important to me - I'm really glad I ended up getting back to riding due to moving here, and it is true that when I was deciding to buy this house, a test ride up here to see what sort of commute it would be was the clinching factor.
In a similarly clinching manner, there was a turning point for me where an enjoyable activity became as much a political subject, or a cause.
These flowers were left to commemorate the latest anniversary of the sad death of a cyclist who was hit from behind and killed by a driver who then left the scene. The driver who finally went to the police the following day, and admitted having been drinking before the incident, was eventually given a fine, and enough points on the licence to make another offence likely to incur a driving ban.
Fortunately there have recently been moves towards changing this ridiculous legal situation, where a person's life is merely worth a few hundred quid, as long as you kill them with a car. But it's not law yet, and every day I go past the place where this poor chap died, and I am reminded how far we still have to go.
