Though I’ve never learned to drive and never had a bike, I know motorists and cyclists aren’t always best friends. There was the minicab driver who told me that anyone who gets a bike should get an asbo slapped on them. At the same time, many cyclist friends have had at least one near-death experience on the roads. So when my local authority got funding to introduce a “Mini-Holland” scheme, (for cycling – not cannabis cafes or prostitution), I assumed everyone would be happy. Life would be safer for cyclists with frustrated motorists no longer trapped behind them as they pedal up hills. What the response proved was that even when local authorities try something many of us might consider progressive, things aren’t always simple.

At the heart of this problem lies reluctance of true believers to accept that anyone can oppose them in good faith.

When I went to view the plans at a local school, the event was unusually well attended and animated. The plans themselves seemed innocent enough, the usual mix of cycle lanes, traffic calming and road closures. Naively, I asked one of the staff what the fuss was about. The guy, with a face like a Blairite at a Labour hustings, said he was getting a hard time from residents and not just from the usual suspect petrolheads.

Objectors included disabled drivers and some who rely on vehicles to pick up the elderly and children. Some were worried about emergency access, while others, even the sympathetic, worried about the cost and the time frame. The objectors also included many who suspected that whatever the results of the consultation, the scheme would be pushed through anyway as such things have been in the past. So what about democracy, they said. These people include neighbours I like and respect.

This controversy represents on a small scale a more general problem that faces those who support what they consider progress, environmental or otherwise. It’s very difficult to move things forward in society without the interests of innocent parties being hit somewhere down the line. Part of the problem is that politicians and activists are often very reluctant to admit this inevitable consequence. The plans for Mini-Holland included the rather unlikely claim that it would be good for motorists too. To many critics, that Panglossian claim merely added insult to injury.

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We see this phenomenon in politics all the time: a refusal to accept, acknowledge or understand the consequences for others of decisions or proposals. Many critics of austerity think its advocates cruel, corrupt or stupid. But the more likely explanation is that never having suffered austerity, its advocates simply don’t grasp what it means for the victims, and worse, don’t want to. Nor is this phenomenon confined to the right. I once saw a union rep from Sellafield reminding anti-nuclear campaigners that his members stood to lose good jobs if their campaign were successful. That of course doesn’t invalidate arguments for or against nuclear power, but is a reminder for activists that others might have good reasons for not seeing things their way.

At the heart of this problem lies the reluctance of true believers, whatever their belief happens to be, to accept that anyone can oppose them in good faith. It also explains why true believers, whatever their belief, often seem to get on so well. Anyone who’s ever been in an argument with a religious fundamentalist will know they have a simple explanation for your disagreement – you’re possessed by Satan. In the same way, I’ve met environmental campaigners who think that if you raise even mild objections to their ideas, then you’re truly possessed by Satan. Or Big Oil, which amounts to the same thing.

I’m no fundamentalist. I think we should take a secular approach to the environment. I don’t cycle myself but I support it, and think the risks cyclists sometimes have to take aren’t acceptable. At the same time, I would expect any objections to schemes that might help them to be taken seriously, acknowledged and addressed. But even when the answer seems clear, the process of change is always messy. We all want progress, but someone always loses something on the way.