Cyclists, Motorists, etc.....

The story seemed fairly routine, a 'cut and dried' case. A Woman playing text tennis with her ex husband whilst driving, mows down a cyclist. Bang! Send 'er down! Except there are a few details that wiggled out with the story and are currently nagging at me like a sore tooth. Like the fact the rider wasn't helmeted. Now, I'm no lover of these things, if ever a device was designed to make you look like a tit, it's the cycling helmet, but surely if you're going to take to the roads on a bike, it should be something of a pre-requisite, no? This, to be honest is just an observation and not my main beef. When I go cycling I don't wear a helmet....... No, what caught my eye was the fact that the rider had gone through a red light. I know little of the details as to how the accident happened, and as such can only go on supposition, but what this suggests to me is that the cyclist decided that the red light did not apply to him and ultimately paid the price. I also would have thought there may also be a problem with linking the text the defendant received, to her 'inattentiveness' at the junction. I'm assuming witness statements pretty much did for her though, as did breaking the speed limit...... The argument goes that simply put she wasn't paying attention and it could have been someone slow to cross the road or a straying child that she hit. When you put it like that, 4 years is a little harder to argue with, even if she wasn't distracted by a mobile. I see them every day, foot down, brains in their arses and an accident waiting to happen............ Back to the cyclist. Some cyclists can be a massive fucking problem. I say this as a pedestrian who has to deal with them every day and will, one day, call one of the bleeders to a halt and attempt to cram their two grand-front and rear suspension-disk brake mountain bikes up their jacksies. (If ever there was a cycling equivelent of the Chelsea Tractor this is it... ) I understand why children cycle on the pavement, but grown men and women? Use the road, take a course in cycling proficiency and read the Highway Code if it all scares you a little, BUT DO FUCKING NOT cycle along the pavement at about 20 mph and shout at people for getting in your way, DO FUCKING NOT hop from road to pavement and back again at your own convenience and for the love of God, don't trundle through red traffic lights thinking the world magically stops just for you.............. You can't legislate for drivers being distracted by mobile phones, by something on the radio, by a passenger,by something they saw on the road quarter of a mile back........... The problem with cars is that they induce a sense of security and comfort, they remove a layer of consciousness that cyclists and bikers simply cannot shed. It's sad, but it's the way it is. What the lesser spotted trick-cyclists can do is stop treating the highway and it's environs like a BMX track, what they can do is realise that in the abscence of comprehensive cycle lanes, main roads are fucking dangerous places that require absolute concentration. A great many motorcyclists will tell you this for nowt, and they have to take a test and pay road tax. Oh, and for all the good it might do you, if you're gonna be mixing it with heavy traffic on a day to day basis, it might well be worth looking a bit of a tit in a helmet. I'm led to belive they are genuinely helpful in reducing head injury risks at low speeds. Whether a crash hat would have helped Mr Wickington though is debatable, that looks to have been one of those situations that was always going to happen, given the prevailing attitudes of two different sets of road users.......... **None of the above applies, of course, to cyclists who know how to ride the roads. Just steer clear of lorries, they're hell......