Institute of Advanced Motorists Cycle Helmet Poll

http://www.iam.org.uk/iam_polls/

Poll closes on 17 April. There is a reasonable range of questions, and not too many, and the chance to comment as free text. This is your chance to plug road danger reduction and point out that the benefits of helmets accrue to pedestrians and car occupants just as much as cyclists.

I am definitely against cycle helmet compulsion, and a cycle helmet sceptic in that I haven't been convinced that the benefits / advantages of cycle helmets outweigh the disbenefits / disadvantages, but this does not mean that helmets don't have benefits. If they do have benefits, and if compulsion will help realise them, then why should pedestrians and car occupants not be compelled to wear them too?

Fantastic new off road car parking facility

As you can see in this photo, drivers have decided that it is perfectly OK to block the cycle track (signed as a safe route to school) and half the footway in Pickering Road, Barking. There is apparently no enforcement. When and if it starts I suppose there will be loud complaints along the lines of  "we parked there before and got away with it. How come you've given us a ticket now?"

I cut my cycle campaigning teeth teeth campaigning about this area when I lived there. When the new estate was designed they ignored cycling (surprise!) and it was only campaigning that achieved this ill thought out cycle track. I had to read nonsensical arguments based on incorrect information about the traffic schemes that previously existed. I campaigned for the new flats and houses to have cycle storage, but I see bikes in front gardens chained to the railings, so I take it they haven't, and of course people move in without a thought for where they can park their car, hence this blatant illegal parking.

Car park