Drivers in the dock: Prime-time ITV show to address cyclist safety tonight

Just for info the English guy living in the Netherlands who was interviewed has quite an interesting blog about how they do things over there here: http://hembrow.blogspot.com/

missed it… and yet

heh. nice to see the classic panel make up: four reasonable people on either side of the argument and one giant anus flinging nonsense over the fence from each camp.

honestly, on one hand we've got the cabbie, we know what to expect from him. but that scouse drink of water, what's up with him? ride down the inside of a car indicating left and you get what's coming to you. man up and admit that he's in the wrong instead of wringing your hands and going on about mutual respect and trying to blame the driver for going where he said he was going to go. TiNuts is right, the main issue with left turns is that it happens the other way round: car overtakes cyclist, turns left into cyclist.

I thought the two illustrations summed up quite nicely the reason for automatic liability. a cabbie who could have lost his no-claims bonus - gasp! - and a father and husband who lost his life. who should we protect?

Yes, it was a lot better than I thought it would be, though it did remind me how little information you need to fill a TV programme.

And I'd like to think that none of the three featured accidents would happen to me. In the first one I would have been out in front of the moving car well before I needed to pull out to get past the parked car. In the second I would have been overtaking on the right, not going up the left. And I would have avoided the third because I leave a gap of at least a metre between me and parked cars. I have a metal plate in my wrist to remind me how dangerous cycling close to parked cars is. (I hit a dog which ran out from behind a parked car, and went over my handlebars.)

TiNuts - you've got to expect the cab driver that they've selected from all the cabbies that wanted to appear to be an arse of the highest order

well, i watched it. and despite being convinced i was going to have to turn it off before i threw the remote through the telly, i didn't think it was that bad. okay there was a heavy dose of pantomime but generally it was a more balanced view than i expected. from the channel that brought us the X factor

there's still a lot of misunderstanding about the role of automatic liability though, and the prog didn't exactly help to clear those muddy waters. i did feel like shouting at the screen at that point: look, it's really, really simple: in accidents between motor vehicles and bikes where there are no witnesses the cyclist is always – ALWAYS – the one that comes off worse. therefore the burden of proof should lie with the driver. Where there are witnesses, nothing changes. is it really so hard to understand? the same should apply to bikes hitting pedestrians, and artics hitting cars. it's just common sense, the natural order of things.

what did the panel think?

What an utterly useless program. I should really count to 10 (or maybe 1000) before posting, but really - it was atrocious. I think the thing that most sticks in my mind is the London cabbie (no surprises there, then) who clearly thought it was the cyclist's fault if he drove into a door that had been opened in his path by an idiot motorist. The program conveniently failed to mention that it is actually illegal to open one's car door in the face of oncoming traffic.

Aaaaaarrrrrgh!

I've just Sky +d it from my phone incase I miss it.

Pity I'll miss it at that time slot as I'll be getting my sons off to bed. But I'd be interested to hear what it was like.

Hmmm, here's to hoping its better than the cheap bikes on watchdog! At least cycling is hitting the mainsteam media agenda, I think that's definitely a good thing.