Driving through Tunbridge Wells earlier I was listening to a report on 5 Live on how cyclists can now put mini cameras in their helmets to film all us outrageously unsafe motorists.
As I was listening to this I was 'undertaken' by a cyclist who hand one hand on his handlebars and another clasping a mobile phone to his ear. David Cameron is not thought to be holidaying in Tunbridge Wells...
PS I'll be on 5 Live with Gethyn Jones from 10am till midday, among other things interviewing the Chinese Ambassador.
19 comments:
Strangely enough, I was travelling into Swansea on the Park & Ride yesterday. The bus was just starting off from the railway station, when a cyclist came down the outside and cut straight across the bus lane, in front of the bus, before disappearing towards the town centre. Everyone praised the bus driver for his reactions, preventing the prat from getting mashed. The cyclist may have narrowly missed a Darwin Award.
If that's the case I'll be putting a camera on my car to catch all the cyclists who go through red lights.
It's not just you, Iain. I'm consistently amazed at how arrogant these self-righteous schmucks are.
I think the legislation that automatically makes any contact between a car and a bike the fault of the driver of the car needs an urgent rethink.
Round here the cyclists don't bother with the roads. Why should they when we have perfectly good pavements and uncomplaining pedestrians and a police force that never gets out on the street?
I expect selective editing of the footage to come to the fore...
Here in Oxford a while back a cyclist was killed by a refuse wagon as he shot through a light on red.
For some people - people who hate the entire concept of motoring - cycling is a political statement a subversive terrorist act. They clearly regard themselves as beyond the law.
mMybe if Holywood really want to make a Batman movie reflecting the current political situation the next protagonist will be a crazed villain on 2 wheels. 'The Peddler'
There has been a change of attitude in the last few years. Cyclists have become arrogant, obnoxious, selfish and dangerous road users. I have lost count of the instances of dangerous riding I have seen. They think they are above the law because it is 'green'. And by and large they are, because the police never seem to charge anyone with the offences in ss.28-30 of the Road Traffic Act 1998.
28. Dangerous cycling.
29. Careless, and inconsiderate, cycling.
30. Cycling when under influence of drink or drugs.
If these sections were enforced there would be less of a problem.
What gets me about cars versus bikes is the shape of the drivers versus the shape of the riders. I can guarantee you ANY driver who bitches about bikers is obese due to a lazy life style and a pork pie and chips diet. Whereas a biker has an active life style and even if he DOES have a pork pie and chips diet he will not be obese. Oh, by the way, who costs the NHS a fortune?.....fat lazy drivers, naturally. Time for an obesity tax....come on Gordon, you know all those drivers have pots of cash still to be squeezed!
I ride a bike and a motorbike, I also own three cars and of course walk. It's all about respect on the road but sadly too many people don't give a damn for each other.
Drivers should try cycling, but they don't as it's... too dangerous. Cyclists should drive a bit more, to learn about blind spots and the Highway Code.
If a cyclist runs a red light, that's their funeral. But in a car, even simple things like not using the indicators can result in an accident and big injuries.
Ultimately the problem isn't cyclists or drivers, it's idiots and you'll find them everywhere.
Forgot to mention before that Dave Cameron was caught doing silly things on his bike:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2008/03/22/police-to-give-conservative-leader-david-cameron-cycling-safety-advice-89520-20358646/
It’s worth asking yourself what’s actually going on with your little dig at cyclists. You can probably hang a worthwhile political education on it.
There is undoubtedly something very irritating to drivers about cyclists. But the explanations that drivers find for their irritation don’t usually withstand much examination. This is not to diminish their experience of irritation, just their ability to explain it.
Sneer quotes for “undertaken”. Do you think cyclists should undertake or do you think this should be banned and they should only overtake? There are arguments for both policies but perhaps you would like to think through for yourself the merits of suggesting that they come around on your outside and then filter back to the inside.
Red lights and mobiles. If I jump the lights I kill myself, if you jump the lights you kill me. The same arguments apply to my use of a mobile versus yours. This makes a big difference, which you can phrase in terms of personal responsibility, autonomy and the liberty of Mill if it helps you.
In fact aren’t pushbikes more like pedestrians than they are like motorcars when it comes to the threat they pose to other road users and the amount of notice they need to take of traffic lights? (Stopping rather than giving way at lights costs me 5% of my commuting time – three whole working days a year: I don’t do it – can’t justify it to myself.)
So where does the irritation come from?
I think it’s simply the unpredictability of bikes’ appearance around you in the traffic and of the lines they can take, even legitimately. If they are not to be startled, drivers find they have to pay attention to what they’re doing and this is a chore, a distraction from a quality of inert relaxation that may not really be such a good state to be driving in anyway.
Drivers also often seem to start off a bit frustrated, and ready to let off some steam, so this irritation acts as a trigger to release a bundle of emotional energy that the driver has already brewed up.
From what I can see, with exposure to more bikes, and particularly to bicycle couriers, drivers do get more used to the potential of being startled. Most often the courier has judged the spaces and the line perfectly well and any reaction by drivers is not needed, and even not helpful. Once they accept this, drivers do find it easier to keep calm.
Typically however, drivers will react emotionally and blame the cyclist as some sort of mad fule, out to kill himself. Why not just relax? He knows more about what his bike is capable of than you do, and it is after all himself he will be killing not you. Don’t lash out at him emotionally; just ask yourself why you are irritated. I guarantee it isn’t a simple altruistic concern for his welfare.
Another source of unnecessary distress for drivers is a misevaluation of the scale of the injury that a cyclist will receive in a crash. We all start off thinking something close to “touch car=die”. Cyclists learn that colliding with a car, or the ground, is not usually terribly serious: it hurts, it might be expensive but it’s almost always not disabling or terminal. Drivers don’t learn this, so they continue to exaggerate the dangers they perceive around them, and they are disproportionately alarmed as a result.
There are idiot cyclist who do inconvenience other road users, but by undertaking? By using a mobile phone? Really?
You were looking particularly buff in T.Wells if I may say....
Anonymous, you say that if you jump the light or use a phone while cycling you kill yourself. You seem to have forgotten about pedestrians. As someone who commutes by rail and on foot, I have lost count of the number of times I've encountered an idiot on a bike who has assumed that traffic signals don't apply to him and ploughed on through a crowd of pedestrians on a crossing. It appears that your Lycra-clad comrades can't be bothered with one-way systems either, and ride the wrong way on the pavement instead. But of course that's OK because you're saving the planet isn't it.
You may recall that a cyclist knocked down and killed a young woman recently, yet astonishingly got away with a £2000 fine for dangerous cycling instead of the jail sentence a car driver would have got for an equivalent crime (or anyone else would have got for manslaughter).
Last week an idiot cyclist crashed into the rear side of my car because he had not expected me to stop half on a roundabout. He just careered down the hill head down and saw my car at the last moment. I had no choice but to stop and let the old folks crossing, complete their crossing. I wasn't going to run them down or even attempt to frighten them by hooting. Of course the idiot cyclist had no insurance and I now drive around with a slight dent in the car. Pity he didn't damage his own bike!
I lost count last year of the number of times I had to swerve out of the way of a cyclist who jumped a red light....whilst pushing a pram with my newborn baby inside! I just couldn't believe that they weren't even willing to stop to prevent themselves from crashing head first into a pram.
There are many arguments for and against cyclists but in short they are a mega pain in the ass and ought to be banned....
"There are many arguments for and against motorists but in short they are a mega pain in the ass and ought to be banned"....drivers are fat unfit bastards...bellies hanging over belts, three chins, talking on mobiles, usually drunk, usually into road-rage, and killing people on a regular basis in their stupid tractor SUVs...tax them out of existence. Problem solved.
Anonymous has not forgotten about pedestrians - it is absolutely wrong for cyclists not to give way at red lights, but giving way is all that's needed, not stopping.
And an effective sanction against those who don't give way and who cut up pedestrians and drivers would be confiscating/clamping the bike until a fine has been paid.
Lumping all cyclists together (and it would appear you only comment on those bad ones) would be a bit like me saying that all car-drivers are small-cocked, unfit planet destroyers who like getting into their cars drunk and setting off to wilfully kill pedestrians and cyclists, wouldn't it?!!
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