This is precisely the type of attitude I take issue with. One would think that cyclists would behave like the vulnerable vehicles they are, yet a 15 minute observation of the typical cyclist will no doubt show numerous traffic offences, inclusive of some that most motor vehicle operators would never think of committing. This is common knowledge to all who use the roads we are supposed to share.I don't have any data to support or desupport this claim that a 'typical' cyclist will show 'numerous' traffic offenses in any given 15 minute observation. Anecdotally, today I saw a car stopped in a no-stop zone, a car pulling off a roundabout without indicating, cars pulling onto a pavement and two cyclists crossing at a crossing onto a cycle path and one cyclist pulling over to let cars past.
I take issue with this:
I think you actually encourage bad behaviour by removing or lessening liability for a class of road user dependent on their ease of injury. Road safety starts with personal responsibility
Because you are suggesting that cyclists don't care about being injured, but only whether it will cost them money or not, as if a broken leg and a week off work is fine as long as it's free.
understanding that you are doing an inherently dangerous thing with a fast moving vehicle that could result in your death and the death of others.
Road safety is about this - an understanding that you are involved in traffic and what you do matters. It's just that what motorists do matters more because it is amplified by their machinery.
A cyclist cuts up a car and they swerve to avoid it and hit another car. Any traffic going at a speed where a cyclist could cut them up is slow enough that the cars would crunch a bit. A car cuts up a cyclist and the cyclist swerves into something, and the cyclist gets hurt.
For the sake of their own safety, cyclists should be as careful as they can be. For the sake of avoiding causing accidents cyclists should be careful. But for the sake of protecting cyclists as a class of society, car drivers should be held to a higher standard. That doesn't say cyclists should be held to no standard, it says people whose actions are amplified should have to be more careful than people whose actions are not.