It's not fair!

Right from an early age we all have a built-in awareness of what is fair and what is not - just ask any young child. The proposal to make car drivers automatically at fault in any collision with a cyclist completely goes against this innate notion of fairness. Putting the onus on the car driver to prove that they are not at fault also goes against the idea of innocent until proven guilty. Yes, cyclists are more vulnerable than motorists, but they are no less likely to be the ones at fault if an accident happens. If the ones cycling around Edinburgh are anything to go by, they may even be more likely to be the ones causing the accident, given the way in which they frequently jump red lights, cycle across pedestrian crossings and otherwise ignore the highway code. Not that Edinburgh's drivers are paragons of virtue - Calton is quite glad that his normal mode of getting around the capital is above street level, giving him a bird's eye view of what is going on down below. What is really needed to reduce cycling casualties is for all road users to become a bit less aggressive and a bit more tolerant of other road users, regardless of how many wheels they are on, and for everybody to obey the highway code. Automatically blaming the bigger guy is not the answer.