Victoria Pendleton: Car drivers put my life my life at risk

dondare

I've seem Mrs Marshall's reply to your letter (and sent a reply to that) but not seen your letter that she's replying to.

downfader

I'll try the link again Don incase I made a faff of it

http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/search/displ ... turned.php

I've found myself getting more political in the past year on issues like this, learning how to write to and who to write to. I'm starting to feel the need to create a more positive "propaganda" for cycling and walking

dondare

Got it now. (I'd missed the hyperlink, don't use them myself.) Anyway, I've written another couple of lines. Let us know how this debate pans out.

downfader

dondare wrote:

Got it now. (I'd missed the hyperlink, don't use them myself.) Anyway, I've written another couple of lines. Let us know how this debate pans out.

Cheers for your input Don!

the_hundredth_idiot

In a similar vein, anyone else seen this rant from Howard Jacobson in Saturday's Independent? http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/co ... artindex=0

If the guy was posting on an internet site, he'd be called a troll. Just a sample selected purely at random from the article (well, perhaps not purely at random )

"In fact, I agree with her about cycling and would go even further. Cycling is worse than futile, it is malevolent. Not a day goes by, unless I cower in my house and lock all the doors, when I am not put in danger by cyclists – whether it's cyclists riding the pavement, jumping the lights, weaving between pedestrians and traffic, overtaking on the inside, chaining their bikes where they are bound to cause obstruction, abusing and on occasions threatening me for pointing out any of these infractions to them, or just adding to our stock of vexations by their carbon-free complacency. For holier-than-thou smugness, only a mother breastfeeding in a public space beats a cyclist. Both have been licensed by our society to believe they are forces for beneficence – true children of nature in a naughty mechanistic world – whereas the one only makes the planet more dangerous and the other only contributes to its overpopulation."

Futile, eh? If you're still around in 30 years' time, ask your grandchildren why they cycle rather than drive. "But, Grandpa, the oil has virtually run out and only Roman Abramovich can afford to fill his car these days."

And malevolent? "And, Grandpa, driving cars was killing all the baby seals and polar bears in the arctic."

Honestly, I don't understand why cyclists get called holier-than-thou.

dafruk

The Hundredth Idiot wrote:

Honestly, I don't understand why cyclists get called holier-than-thou.

Cos non cyclists haven't realised they can look this good in lycra too.

warwickbiker

i remember when that "sober" pedestrian was run over by a cyclist on the "pavement" a few months ago and there were many similar articles about claiming that it was a daily occurrence of some sort competely on sided, but thats just journalism eh!

As for the 'holier than you' thing that is probably all in this guys guilty jelous head, because he knows that he could be cycling and getting fit instead of sitting in traffic. I know i wish i cycled more, and sometimes think that but they are just bettering themselves and we think they are trying to rub our noses in it but they are not.

We were almost killed the other day by an ignorant motorist and we were in a car!
The driver decided that he would overtake the cyclists in his huge car around a blind bend, we had to swerve because he was to lazy to. ( if he did he would probably have just pulled into the cyclist like drivers do when the realise they cant overtake so i'm glad he didnt )

downfader

The Hundredth Idiot wrote:

In a similar vein, anyone else seen this rant from Howard Jacobson in Saturday's Independent? http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/co ... artindex=0

If the guy was posting on an internet site, he'd be called a troll. Just a sample selected purely at random from the article (well, perhaps not purely at random )

"In fact, I agree with her about cycling and would go even further. Cycling is worse than futile, it is malevolent. Not a day goes by, unless I cower in my house and lock all the doors, when I am not put in danger by cyclists – whether it's cyclists riding the pavement, jumping the lights, weaving between pedestrians and traffic, overtaking on the inside, chaining their bikes where they are bound to cause obstruction, abusing and on occasions threatening me for pointing out any of these infractions to them, or just adding to our stock of vexations by their carbon-free complacency. For holier-than-thou smugness, only a mother breastfeeding in a public space beats a cyclist. Both have been licensed by our society to believe they are forces for beneficence – true children of nature in a naughty mechanistic world – whereas the one only makes the planet more dangerous and the other only contributes to its overpopulation."

Futile, eh? If you're still around in 30 years' time, ask your grandchildren why they cycle rather than drive. "But, Grandpa, the oil has virtually run out and only Roman Abramovich can afford to fill his car these days."

And malevolent? "And, Grandpa, driving cars was killing all the baby seals and polar bears in the arctic."

Honestly, I don't understand why cyclists get called holier-than-thou.

I'll have a look at that this afternoon, see what rant I can either send in letter form or on the site itself.

Actually, come to think of it, cyclists are now getting the same vitriol and paranoia that was once reserved for people hunting peados. How many times 10 years back did we hear "theres one on every street!"

Ok.

Anything thats good for you, or fun (have seen the bitterness thrown towards my other hobby of photography - as we're all apparently terrorists or peados too, lmao!) and people go nuts.

ratherbeintobago

The Hundredth Idiot wrote:

In a similar vein, anyone else seen this rant from Howard Jacobson in Saturday's Independent? http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/co ... artindex=0

Wouldn't worry about it - the Independent seems to go out of its way to employ irritating columnists, to wit:

Johann Hari, who seems to be a male version of Millie Tant & Her Radical Conscience Jasmin Alibhai-Brown, who is just annoying Bruce Anderson, who seems to be under the impression he is writing for the Daily Mail (a newspaper whose existence serves to demostrate that we never won the war against fascism)

Not sure why I read it, really...

RBIT

SmellTheGlove

The Hundredth Idiot wrote:

In a similar vein, anyone else seen this rant from Howard Jacobson in Saturday's Independent? http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/co ... artindex=0

If the guy was posting on an internet site, he'd be called a troll. Just a sample selected purely at random from the article (well, perhaps not purely at random )

...licensed by our society to believe they are forces for beneficence ...

If such a licence exists perhaps Jacobson could tell us where to get one. Perhaps he's worried about the threat of being marginalised by tens of millions of cyclists. And would he be surprised to find that they aren't defined in all their characteristics by their choice of transport?

Five-star kn*b.