{"id":315,"date":"2012-02-13T19:49:57","date_gmt":"2012-02-13T19:49:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.happycyclist.org\/?p=315"},"modified":"2012-02-13T19:49:57","modified_gmt":"2012-02-13T19:49:57","slug":"cycle-safety-minister-acts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/happycyclist.grahamecooper.com\/?p=315","title":{"rendered":"Cycle Safety: Minister acts! … Really?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Times handed over a dossier with 25,000 signatures and 5,000 reader stories, resulting “The Minister” being galvanized into action<\/a> (Note … irony there.):<\/p>\n

Norman Baker, the transport minister with responsibility for cycling, today told The Times: \u201cCycling is good for your health and good for the environment and, as a cyclist myself, I know how important safety is. That is why I am going to give councils the power to use Trixi mirrors to make cyclists more visible to drivers, rather than asking them to come to the Government for approval.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Well, I’m glad we managed to sort that out! I feel so much safer now! Cycling to work will be infinitely more pleasurable than it has been thus far.<\/p>\n

Don’t get me wrong; these mirrors will certainly help in cases where cyclists, often foolishly, allow themselves to be caught in the blind spot of a truck. But we are talking about the Minister responsible for cycling in the UK Department for Transport! This is the same minister who, last year, sent me this reply<\/a> via my MP, which basically agreed with everything I said, even reinforcing some points, then said words to the effect of: “but we can’t be bothered”.<\/p>\n

Sorry if I sound a little ungrateful, but it is really rather pathetic!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Times handed over a dossier with 25,000 signatures and 5,000 reader stories, resulting “The Minister” being galvanized into action (Note … irony there.): Norman Baker, the transport minister with responsibility for cycling, today told The Times: \u201cCycling is good … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,11],"tags":[13],"class_list":["post-315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","category-space4cycling","tag-cyclesafe"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/happycyclist.grahamecooper.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/happycyclist.grahamecooper.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/happycyclist.grahamecooper.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/happycyclist.grahamecooper.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/happycyclist.grahamecooper.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/happycyclist.grahamecooper.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/happycyclist.grahamecooper.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/happycyclist.grahamecooper.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/happycyclist.grahamecooper.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}