Save a cyclist campaign

amyling

Hello,

I've recently start the #saveacyclist campaign

The campaign aims to raise awareness of road safety issues and bring compassion and mututal respect to our roads.

If every cyclist became an ambassador for road safety - on AND off their bikes - maybe those ignorant people who class cyclists as second class citizens might start to see us as "normal" peope just like them. We're all human beings although some people don't treat us that way just because we're on two wheels!

Save a cyclist campaign is all about changing peoples' attitudes towards cyclists. We need people to be able to relate the "annoying" cyclist to the man he saw shopping with his family earlier in the day. We need them to see cyclists as human beings as well! T-shirts will soon be available by demand to those who want to help promote safety on our roads and do their bit to reduce the amount of cyclists injured/killed in road accidents. How many innocent people have to die before awareness is increased?? If you can change just one person's attitude towards cyclists, and that in turn saves someones life one day, then it'll be worth it!

After seeking adviice re: petitions, I have found out that there are laws already in place that can protect vulnerable road users, the problem is that they're not enforced! The way to make the government listen is to raise publicity and put pressure on them.

IT'S NOT A RACE, GIVE CYCLISTS SPACE!

Follow me on twitter @amyling or join the facebook group
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/page ... 0304636842 keep the hash tag going on twitter as well #saveacyclist

Be safe x

shouldbeinbed

thanks for that I'd never realised there were laws in place to protect vulnerable road users, please god don't use that as your opening gambit with people that know what they are talking about or their cruel mocking laughter will haunt your dreams. Are you 16 and have you recently taken up cycling?

*takes sarcastic head off and tries again*

Nice idea and sentiment but maybe you should have had a wee look round particularly the road & commuting oriented bits of this site first. Invariably we are ambassadors for cycling and well aware of the law and its inadequate application.

there are any number of threads quoting and in some cases debating to very minute detail the laws and Police/CPS choices in their application and prosecution, you can see in the most recent current streams we have a grip on where to find the legislation (making it legal to ride side by side - cake stop) and deplore the boorish and ignorant cyclist (bloody cyclists - commuting chat) type that give the rest of us a bad name.

I don't mean to offend but this is the sort of thing my children come up with having just got totally into their latest fad and make the mistake of thinking that they are in some way unique in caring or have discovered some arcane secret that has bypassed the rest of humanity until now.

have a look at this link http://road.cc/node/30023 an ongoing issue right up your street, get onto him or onto your local MP and lobby him to support if you wish but don't expect much of a response & see the awful RAC defensive response to it, totally misrepresenting cyclists/cycling in a negative and prejudicial way.

That said, Cyclists aren't uniquely innocent, pure and altruistic road users, a lot of 'us' are complete dickheads who need just as much interest from campaigners like you to behave sensibly and fairly on the roads and censure from enforcement agencies as any mad motorist does. What are your views or Red Light Jumping (RLJing if you go looking on here) or riding on pavements?

I'm all for more awareness and would love to see just one of the many many many campaigns like this make even a scrap of difference but as you look into petitioning even further you'll find that numerically and commercially the motoring, petrol, haulage etc lobbies have far far more sway over government thinking and can dangle far more lucrative fiscal arguments and incentives in front of ministerial faces than can us humble cyclists

you'll also find that the even most affable and mild mannered of people outside of a ton and a half of airbagged and insulating armour can turn into frothy mouthed ranting loons behind a wheel and all the hashtags in the world won't make a single scrap of difference to something primevally hardwired into their brains.

I talk to people at work and socially about the 'dangers' of cycling and how they can help me and my fellow vulnerables out when they're around us in cars (careful when dooring, wider passing, wait that 20 seconds till the pinch point is past, don't beep just for the fun of it, dip their beams for us s well as other motor vehicles.......), I link to stuff on here, twitter and elsewhere and have even been known to stop and have a quiet word with someone if they've been particularly dangerous or stupid but frankly I'm going to concentrate my efforts of making myself as visible as possible and riding in a manner which I have found through many years of experience keeps me as safe as I can be and generally makes cars give me respect and road space in the way that a catchy t-shirt slogan and a twitter account don't.


the trouble is that campaigns like you and yours are ten a penny with zero influence and support, its like the diverse Judean rebel factions in the Life of Brian. if any of you really want to have any tangeable effect, you need to start talking to each other and joining forces into one big cohesive national campaigning unit, rather than coming on here like some messiah with a new mesage that we've all heard a thousand times before.

biblical references over.

amyling

Thanks for the comment

But I think you've got the wrong end of the stick. Please take a look at the updated information section of the facebook site. http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?topic ... 842?v=info . There is more information on the issues that we are hoping to do something about on there.

I won't waste time replying to all of the comments, but frankly the comments you made made you look more childish than me. I have got a lot of contacts within the pro cycling community of the UK, a british team has ordered tshirts for all it's team members and staff to show their support - which will be worn at their team launch, and other very high profile riders have also shown their support. My boyfriend is a pro himself so I'm not just making tedious links here either. I think that you're a prime example of an "attitude that needs to be changed" because you obviously are so cynical that you don't want anybody to try to make the roads a safer place for cyclists.

Hope that helps

Amy

spoonerman

SHOULDBEINBED
As your name suggests, you are a likely candidate to end up in bed after a collision with a motor vehicle. As far as I can see, no-one is throwing accusations and laws about, only a message regarding mutual respect. Assuming that common sense should prevail and not the blinkered attitude that you appear to have, the roads should be fairly used by everyone who wishes to use them by whatever means.
Why can't you try and respect someone else's views instead of picking a perfectly worthy cause to pieces. This campaign might even stop YOU being hit by a car or stop YOU from jumping a red light etc., just through it's message. So why not stop criticising and know a good thing when you see one.

dodgy

Saw this in a re-tweet yesterday, think it was Atherton maybe?

dodgy

On here too http://blog.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/2011/0 ... a-cyclist/

dodgy

On here too http://blog.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/2011/0 ... a-cyclist/

dodgy

On here too http://blog.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/2011/0 ... a-cyclist/

Looks like there's at least some traction.

pinno

Please have a look at my 'Shoot Clarkson' campaign. It is a debate about the judicial process in the event of death or serious injury to a cyclist, pedestrian, horse rider i.e a raod user not in a vehicle.
My proposal suggests we don't need a change in the law, but a change in the judicial process.
If someone was injured or died, a small private court hearing could be heard so that both sides could present their case and the court would decide if there was enough to make it a criminal proceeding.
Yes, there are problems with it but when a cyclist gets hit (many cases cited in my thread), drivers get away with negligible repercussion. It seems that we are 2nd class citizens. I would really like to kick the campaign off again, unfortunately the last one got hijacked by one or two who were intent on dishing the idea and had no desire to try and tackle the problem > they had no suggestions of their own.
Mutual respect is all good and well and in an ideal world. I am not against the idea, but little deters drivers from killing and maming cyclists.
Please have a look at my 'Shoot Clarkson' post.
Rob

cooldad

In a word - whatshouldbeinbedsaid.

cooldad

pinarello001 wrote:

Please have a look at my 'Shoot Clarkson' campaign. Rob

No idea where it is, but it's a farking stupid name for anything.

cooldad

You mean this three year old thread.
viewtopic.php?f=40021&t=12643691&start=40
Effective!

pinno

Page 7 in campaign.

The 'shoot clarkson' heading attracted attention. Because it is 3 years old, does that mean it is less significant?
You mean a death now is worse than a death 3 years ago?
If you have nothing constructive to offer, why do you bother posting anything (cooldad)?
Are you ineterested in changing attitudes/the law so that we cyclists are safer and that a death or two can be prevented? Answer the f****ng question 'cooldad', if you are not interested, then go play tiddlewinks.

shouldbeinbed quote - "if any of you really want to have any tangeable effect, you need to start talking to each other and joining forces into one big cohesive national campaigning unit, rather than coming on here like some messiah with a new mesage that we've all heard a thousand times before."
I totally agree, except for the fact that the 'talking' bit and the 'cohesive' bit seems to get lost. I have contacted the CC in Reading regarding the cyclist that was killed, I have looked up numerous newspaper reports and I have tried very hard to generate some collective weight. I do not undertsand why when there are so many cyclists bemoaning the tragic deaths of other cyclists and the fact that we are treated as 2nd class citizens on the road, why is there so much cynicism and lack of will to change things?
I am not on twitter and I am not on facebook or flickr. I attempted 3 years ago to get something moving and all I find are endless posts all of the same vein but no action. Considering the number of subscribers to bike radar, you'd think there would be sufficient knowledge, impetus and motivation to try and change the current law/attitude on a subject that we all have something in common with.

cooldad

@PINARELLO001 Initially I suggest you get back on the medication before your brain melts down.
Then decide if youwant to change attitudes, or the law. As I understand it, it is already considered somewhat naughty to kill people.
If it's attitudes, then this sort of attitude -

pinarello001 wrote:

Answer the f****ng question 'cooldad', if you are not interested, then go play tiddlewinks..

is unlikely to do it.

pinno

cooldad wrote:

@PINARELLO001 Initially I suggest you get back on the medication before your brain melts down.
Then decide if youwant to change attitudes, or the law. As I understand it, it is already considered somewhat naughty to kill people.
If it's attitudes, then this sort of attitude -

pinarello001 wrote:

Answer the f****ng question 'cooldad', if you are not interested, then go play tiddlewinks..

is unlikely to do it.

Shoot Clarkson is a metaphor - look it up in the dictionary if you don't understand metaphor. As I have said before, I have no intention to actually kill Mr Clarkson, I want to change the attitude the he promotes.
You still have not answered the question -
Are you or are you not interested in making cycling safer ?

cooldad

A metaphor needs to be apparent to the reader. Think about it.
A question for you - do you still beat your wife?

diy

As I rode home last night from London on my motorbike on the 3 lane A3 out of london with a 50mph speed limit due to the narrow lanes and joining side roads I spotted lots of cyclists riding in the off-road paved lane to the left of the 3 lane motorway class road. I wondered if they were as wet as me, I then came across a guy riding his bicycle in lane 1. It was starting to get dark, he had lights, but he was not that visible due to the rain. The road had started to clear, the traffic making good speed.

I thought how stupid he was riding his bike on the road in those conditions. Of course he had every right to cycle there, but he was taking a huge risk with his safety. Would it be so inconvenient to ride on the cycle path or choose a better route?