Doctor's prison sentence isn't a sea change for cyclists
...Still, drivers who enforce some imaginary version of the vehicle code by assaulting law-abiding cyclists tend to do so repeatedly; for this reason, I advise cyclists to report these incidents to police. A driver with a reported history of violent assaults will be less likely to get away with claiming, as Thompson did, that it was all just "an unfortunate accident." Real change will happen when law enforcement begins to take each report seriously, rather than waiting until serious injuries (or worse) have been inflicted.
But the most important change must occur within each of us, because when tempers flare on the road, nobody wins. The roads are common spaces, and their use is an ancient right for all -- except motorists. The state allows them to use the roads, and far too often that revocable privilege is misinterpreted by motorists as having some sort of superior right to the road. More often cyclists are endangered by drivers who are simply too distracted, or otherwise too careless, to even notice the cyclist whose life they have just endangered. And just as cyclists notice -- and remember -- the occasional dangerous motorist, it is the occasional rude cyclist that motorists notice and remember. It is these minority of bad actors on the road that lead to much of the resentment toward each other.
The real issue here is not "scofflaw cyclists" or "motorists hell-bent on killing cyclists;" it is competition for limited road space. For that, motorists owe cyclists a debt of gratitude; merely respecting our need for safety is all the thanks we need. Every cyclist you see on the road represents one less car contributing to congestion. Yes, you may occasionally have to slow down for a few seconds, but those few seconds are offset by the time you save for every car that is not on the road ahead of you. Cyclists also neither consume gasoline nor contribute to climate change, and they cause far less wear and tear on the road than cars. These are benefits that accrue directly to motorists in the form of less demand for limited resources, driving regulations and limited tax dollars.
... <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-oew-mionske12-2010jan12,0,5699488.story">http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-oew-mionske12-2010jan12,0,5699488.story</a>;
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