On Wed, 20 Oct 2004 08:13:11 GMT,
(Nick Cooper) wrote:


I daresay if you looked properly you would see a fair few comments by
me about motor vehicle drivers. However, I see just as many cyclists
behaving like aresholes as car/van/lorry drivers, so I don't see why
they should be excused comment.

First, "not around here" - remember this is x-posted to
uk.rec.cycling, whihc is where I live.

Second, I am not aware of *anybody* on urc who advocates cyclists
being excused from wrongdoing. We might be able to advance possible
reasons why they do it (e.g. riding on the pavement because of fear of
traffic and councils' blurring of the boundaries with their cans of
paint), what we take exception to is bald statements that cyclists are
lawless, when the clear evidence is that /all/ vehicular road users
are lawless, and a good many non-vehicular ones as well.

Why is that, I wonder?
Because you have a self-selecting chip on your shoulder?

Or not. We get a lot of cross-posts around here from people who
clearly walk and drive but never cycle, who then berate cyclists for
their behaviour without acknowledging the poor behaviour of other road
users.

One of the key contributors to road danger, in my view, is the
pernicious idea that all the danger is caused by the behaviour of the
nebulous "them" and that the things we do must necessarily be safe
because they have not yet ended in catastrophe.

Most pedestrians' representatives seem to have no trouble
distinguishing between the scale of risk posed by cars and bicycles,
and devote their efforts to controlling motor danger. We already know
that you are about 200 times more likely to be killed /on the footway/
by a motor driver than by a cyclist, after all.

Yes, I'm sure that's a huge consolation to any pedestrian who gets hit
by a reckless cyclist. Of course, cars do not routinely deliberate
travel on pavements, but many cyclists certainly do.

So explain, then, how car drivers, even though they almost never
venture on the footway, still manage to kill 200 times as many
pedestrians on the footway as do cyclists?

It suggests to me that the risk from cyclists is rather small, and
would be better tackled by addressing the source of most danger, which
is also conicidentally responsible for encouraging the cyclists onto
the footway in the first place.

If you can prove that I have never made an adverse comment about motor
vehicle drivers, you might have a point, but since you can't, you're
just coming up with the same self-selecting ******** again.

You started a cyclist-baiting crosspost. Prior behaviour is
irrelevant.

It is a strange and inconsistent view you have.
No, it's a strange an inconsistent defensive attitude you have.

On the contrary, my attitude is wholly consistent: all road users
should control their vehicles according to the law and the Highway
Code. I believe that if everybody drove and rode according to the HC
the roads would be much safer.

Please jsutify the use of illegal cyclist behaviour to excuse illegal
and potentially lethal bus driver behaviour.
And where am I supposed to have done that, smartarse?
Up through the thread history, that is how you started the whole
thing.
Really? I can't see any statement by me that "excuse illegal
and potentially lethal bus driver behaviour."

Ah, so you are making the pedantic point that you were merely singling
out cyclists from the much greater causes of risk, for some reason
known only to yourself. A difference which makes no difference in my
view, but I will concede the point if you like.

So you feel it's perfectly acceptable to use the behaviour of crap
cyclists to excuse that of crap drivers, but not vice-versa?
Fascinating.
Since I haven't, then obviously not. Admit it - you don't even know
what you're talkign about, do you?
Indeed I do, having spent a lot of time researching the matter.
Nice set of reasearch blinkers you have, obviously.

The blinkers are to be found on those who use only one type of
vehicle, a group which does not include me.

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at Washington University