Cyclist attacks not uncommon

The unfortunate reality is that a significant number of motor vehicle drivers are either unaware of The Highway Code or choose to ignore it [‘Cyclist grabbed by angry driver in road rage ‘attack’’, November 21]. Rules 212 and 213 are quite specific and require drivers to give cyclists plenty of room when passing. Rule 163 is even more specific: “Give motorcyclists, cyclists and horse riders at least as much room as you would when overtaking a car.”

I was cycling with the group in question when this occurred in Faversham and I can tell you this is not an isolated incident.

Being ‘close-passed’ by cars and trucks happens every ride we take and this is very disconcerting for the cyclist who has so little protection.

I believe there is a misunderstanding here, again from lack of knowledge of The Highway Code, in that many motorists assume cyclists should ‘hug the gutter’ in single-file, but this is not only incredibly dangerous for cyclists - no room to manoeuvre away from potholes or other obstacles - but also does not allow the cyclist to maintain a presence on the road for better visibility and manoeuvrability.

Also, the law encourages us to ride two-abreast, where possible, which might appear selfish to many motorists, but actually helps as it shortens the line and therefore reduces the takeover distance for motorists.

I hope your article on an ugly incident draws wider attention to these issues so we can all focus on abiding by the law and creating more positive road behaviour. Michael Gower

Breakages were all too frequent. At the same time, you had to wait about three months for a new telephone line (mobiles had yet to be invented). Imagine such a queue for an iphone!

In the north west corner of the City of London, at the end of London Wall, there is a development known as the Barbican Estate, planned and built in the 1960s/70s.

This was planned with a projected construction period of originally about three years.

The state of the law about trade disputes in those days played into the hands of trade union agitators and the actual construction period was eventually well over a whole decade, on account of constant stoppages organised by agitators in the building trade.

Harold Wilson’s first Labour administration recognised that something had to be done and Barbara Castle produced in about 1968 a White Paper entitled In Place of Strife.

This contained a number of proposals along much the same lines as parts of Mrs Thatcher’s reforms of Trade Dispute law in the 1980s.

The Labour Party’s trade union masters would have none of it and it had to be withdrawn in humiliating circumstances.

It is little wonder that as a result of this sort of thing, the UK came to be regarded as the commercial and industrial “sick man of Europe”. When BT was created to take over the telephones, the waiting time for a new line rapidly shrank to about 48 hours and the telephone infrastructure was at last modernised.

All over the country, from Portsmouth to Newcastle, city centre redevelopments, many of bomb-damaged areas that had been waiting for decades, could at last proceed in the confidence that they would get finished on time, thanks to Mrs Thatcher’s reforms of industrial relations.

Corbyn and his sidekick Mcdonnell want to return to the conditions that prevailed in those days - they have said so in no uncertain terms - by taking telecommunications (and a great deal more) out of private ownership and going back to the old system of industrial relations that wrecked the UK’S competitiveness. Neither of them has ever had a real job, which is to say, one which depends on your firm’s ability to compete for custom in an open consumer driven market. Neither has the remotest idea of how business works even at this basic level and in government they could be guaranteed to produce chaotic business conditions once more.

Young voters (and Rosie) would be wise to study the industrial chaos of the 1960s and 1970s.

Under a Corbyn government it will happen all over again. They have been warned.

Christopher Smith

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