juliet: (Default)
juliet ([personal profile] juliet) wrote 2004-09-16 10:50 am (UTC)

Depends on where & how. Impromptu blocking of entire street - no, don't think so. Planned/agreed blocking of street, or stuff like the no-traffic-day Shoreditch is having this month - yes (just as I'm happy with planned marches etc which stop traffic). I don't believe that yesterday's convoy was agreed in advance - that's certainly not the impression I got in the news.

A better comparison, actually, might be Critical Mass (the bike ride thing), which at least in the Mayday version, wound up delaying a fair amount of traffic. On the other hand, that was partly cos the police insisted on just stopping everything else (like with a protest march) - I believe that wasn't the plan. I don't know how the monthly rides work (whether it's deliberately-slow-down-traffic or just lots of bikes going along at a normal pace & asserting their right to use the roads). OTOH, Critical Mass is *about* cyclists' right to use roads without being shoved off them, so asserting that right *on* the roads makes more sense.

It's also bloody dangerous to do that sort of thing on the motorway - much more so than in cities where everything's moving more slowly anyway.

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