Ban bikes in cities

spring91
spring91 Posts: 69
edited October 2007 in Commuting chat
«13

Comments

  • Rykard
    Rykard Posts: 582
    Tabloid 'journalism'. What we now need is someone to make a video in favour of bikes.
    Cheers
    Rich

    A Vision of a Champion is someone who is bent over, drenched with sweat, at the point of exhaustion, when no one else is watching.
  • fossyant
    fossyant Posts: 2,549
    Oh that would be fun...... I'm an avid cyclist, but have ditched my job today and am really looking forward to getting a job within a 10 mile radius to commute on a bike (plus extra training circuits if the weather is good) - Sick of living in a car for two hours a day - give me a bike ! :D
  • Hairy Jock
    Hairy Jock Posts: 558
    Has no one told them about global warming, the torrential rain and flooding should have told them something, what are they waiting for, a plague of frog? It's just more tosser TV.
    **************
    Best advice I ever got was "better get a bike then"
    Cycle commuting since 1994. Blog with cycle bits.
    Also with the old C+ crowd at Cycle Chat.
  • bryanm
    bryanm Posts: 218
    My response sent to them,

    "You go ahead and give idiots like Philip Coppell a platform to spout nonsense. If there weren't bikes in cities there'd be more cars! What a bozzo. Cars constantly break traffic laws, difference is that cars are more likely to kill you when they hit you. Victorian mode of transport? Tell me again when the internal combustion engine was first developed......"
  • overmars
    overmars Posts: 430
    That article was probably written by a BBC producer in order to get an angry response from fair minded people.

    Not that I'm being cynical...
  • Hairy Jock
    Hairy Jock Posts: 558
    overmars wrote:
    That article was probably written by a BBC producer in order to get an angry response from fair minded people.

    Not that I'm being cynical...

    What the BBC faking audience participation :shock: they'd never do that would they :twisted:
    **************
    Best advice I ever got was "better get a bike then"
    Cycle commuting since 1994. Blog with cycle bits.
    Also with the old C+ crowd at Cycle Chat.
  • what a fu***ng knob, i hope he gets locked in a very small room with sloth from the goonies and shown the error of his ways. i offset my partners range rover use with my militant cycle everywhere attitude...when we all fade to black you'll be damn sure BIKES not cars will be there til the bitter end!
    :x
    dangerous jules.
  • ChrisLS
    ChrisLS Posts: 2,749
    ...I wouldn't get too worked up, the bloke is a dinosaur. He needs to go away and think things through before he spouts...
    ...all the way...'til the wheels fall off and burn...
  • georgee
    georgee Posts: 537
    That's absolutely first class,

    has any one dropped him a line yet?

    Can everyone go and pop a few adds on the gum tree selling second hand bikes, or possibly his ever beloved car?
  • spasypaddy
    spasypaddy Posts: 5,180
    i have nothing to do in the office this morning so i wrote this:
    Phillip Coppell is an idiot if he thinks that cyclists are the problem, he makes a fair point that there aren't any mountains in London, Leeds or Liverpool but not everyone can afford a fancy ROAD bike, which would be ideal for using on the road. Personally I ride both and use both for commuting to and from my work place and find that if I drove (not environmentally friendly and I don’t have a license), used public transport a 22minute journey door to door would take me 20minute walk to the bus stop to the office, an hour on the bus and then a 15 minute walk to the office. So that would be more than quadrupling the amount of time that it takes me to get to the office, I would also need to leave my house at 7am rather than 8.20am.

    It is also a great way to get fit, all we ever hear these days is about the environment and obesity, well ban bikes in the city and there will be even more people doing less exercise and putting on weight and obesity problems would rise again. I go to the gym if I was having to use public transport to commute to work I wouldn't get home from work till 8pm that is more than 12 hours out at work and would then render me too tired and drained to get in the gym whereas I cycle for an hour a day and go to the gym as well.

    The point that cyclists don't obey the Highway Code is also ridiculous, the majority of cyclists do follow the Highway Code and it’s only the ones that don't that get shown up and given abuse. No one ever gives me any credit for stopping at a set of traffic lights but as soon as I whiz through them whilst they are red the abuse is never ending!

    The only reason that a cyclist will give abuse to another road user (and yes I have done it) is when the other road user which is normally a car driver doesn't respect that they also have the same rights as a car on the road. I generally travel at over 20mph on the road so I’m not going slowly. From personal experience I know that when car users don't pay attention to the road and cut you up it hurts, it hurts a lot and as a result I am permanently scarred now. Just this morning someone cut me up and almost caused an accident, these things happen and the easiest way for a cyclist to let them road user know they have done something wrong is to shout at them hopefully as a result the road user learns and doesn’t do it again. I am 100% certain the gentleman that put me in hospital wont be cutting across a cycle lane again without checking properly.
  • BentMikey
    BentMikey Posts: 4,895
    Why bother to get upset about this? I think he's just a not-very-clever knob jockey.
  • Hackbike 6
    Hackbike 6 Posts: 3,116
    Here in Tokyo there is a totally different attitude to cyclists and cycling on pavements and all the other dodgy goings on that can be done on a bike.Nobody bats an eyelid.Still I find most cyclists considerate as well as the motorists.
  • Hackbike 6
    Hackbike 6 Posts: 3,116
    spasypaddy wrote:
    im not upset im bored

    Scarred or scared?
  • spasypaddy
    spasypaddy Posts: 5,180
    unfortuntately its scarred not scared... my knee looks a bit of a mess
  • Eat My Dust
    Eat My Dust Posts: 3,965
    Well done Wys!!

    You do realise that some of the experts who's opinions this documentary was largely based on, have asked for an apology from the production company who made this, for taking comments out of context and generally misrepresenting their professional opinions. If it had been a newspaper article it would have been in the Daily Star!!
  • Hackbike 6
    Hackbike 6 Posts: 3,116
    spasypaddy wrote:
    unfortuntately its scarred not scared... my knee looks a bit of a mess

    Um sorry about that. :(
  • spasypaddy
    spasypaddy Posts: 5,180
    its all good, been back out cycling for three weeks now and i only had the accident 6 weeks ago unfortunately it took 6 weeks to get my bike fixed! There was a thread about it on the old CP which possibly didnt get transferred... i'll do some digging
    heres the thread
    http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtop ... highlight=
  • Hairy Jock
    Hairy Jock Posts: 558
    WyS wrote:
    global warming is a lie.

    http://tv-links.co.uk/show.do/9/4841

    And Elvis is alive... and living with the fairies at the bottom of the garden...
    **************
    Best advice I ever got was "better get a bike then"
    Cycle commuting since 1994. Blog with cycle bits.
    Also with the old C+ crowd at Cycle Chat.
  • Hackbike 6
    Hackbike 6 Posts: 3,116
    spasypaddy wrote:
    its all good, been back out cycling for three weeks now and i only had the accident 6 weeks ago unfortunately it took 6 weeks to get my bike fixed! There was a thread about it on the old CP which possibly didnt get transferred... i'll do some digging
    heres the thread
    http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtop ... highlight=


    Glad you are back in the saddle. :twisted:
  • cupofteacp
    cupofteacp Posts: 578
    I'm waiting for the BBC to write an article saying that we all need 4X4 due to global warming.
    How else will we get round with all this flood water
    15 * 2 * 5
    * 46 = Happiness
  • Hackbike 6
    Hackbike 6 Posts: 3,116
    cupofteacp wrote:
    I'm waiting for the BBC to write an article saying that we all need 4X4 due to global warming.
    How else will we get round with all this flood water

    How about a boat? :twisted:
  • WyS
    WyS Posts: 254
    Well done Wys!!

    You do realise that some of the experts who's opinions this documentary was largely based on, have asked for an apology from the production company who made this, for taking comments out of context and generally misrepresenting their professional opinions. If it had been a newspaper article it would have been in the Daily Star!!

    load of bs then or any truth to it?

    I remember seeing electric cars on tomorows world 15 yrs ago. what happened to them?

    I thought wed all be pootling around in spaceships in the year 2000.

    seems not.

    :/
  • Hairy Jock
    Hairy Jock Posts: 558
    WyS wrote:

    load of bs then or any truth to it?

    I remember seeing electric cars on tomorows world 15 yrs ago. what happened to them?

    I thought wed all be pootling around in spaceships in the year 2000.

    seems not.

    :/

    Climate change is a reality, where you want to believe it or not. There are electric cars on the roads, mostly in London where they don't pay the congestion charge, but the major economic drive to make them mainstream is missing. As for spaceships Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic is already taking bookings for the worlds first fully commercial space tours in 2009. Your ignorance of such things doesn't make then any less real.
    **************
    Best advice I ever got was "better get a bike then"
    Cycle commuting since 1994. Blog with cycle bits.
    Also with the old C+ crowd at Cycle Chat.
  • spasypaddy
    spasypaddy Posts: 5,180
    Glad you are back in the saddle.
    back and with avengance!!!!!!!
  • WyS
    WyS Posts: 254
    Hairy Jock wrote:
    Climate change is a reality, where you want to believe it or not. There are electric cars on the roads, mostly in London where they don't pay the congestion charge, but the major economic drive to make them mainstream is missing. As for spaceships Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic is already taking bookings for the worlds first fully commercial space tours in 2009. Your ignorance of such things doesn't make then any less real.

    did you even watch the link?

    i know its real. it has happened naturally for millions of years. i know there are electric cars on the road, im not blind. my point was electric cars should be mandatory. they could have phased out petrol like they did with betamax and now vhs.

    Ignorence? who put sand in your vag?
  • Sporty Stu
    Sporty Stu Posts: 12
    This was the response I wrote on the BBC website...

    To try and ban bikes in cities is a ridiculous idea for a number of reasons:

    i) The more people that cycle in cities then the less the pollution levels will be.
    ii) People can often commute faster in many cities on a bike than they can in a car.
    iii) Cycling is an affordable option of transport for many people who might not be able to afford a car or public transport.
    iv) Cycling also gets people fitter and therefore helps reduce the burden on the NHS.

    maybe all cars should be banned from cities instead!
  • Hackbike 6
    Hackbike 6 Posts: 3,116
    I think this is all global warming...Either that or it doesn't make sense.
  • spasypaddy
    spasypaddy Posts: 5,180
    im going to watch the one show to see whether any of our responses get read out