Bicycles Should Be Banned From The Roads!

Kendal Black Drop

Bicycles Should Be Banned From The Roads! says Bob Russett, Chairman of Palletline Logistics.

Bicycles should be banned from the roads in city centres for their own safety ! About 18 cyclists die in road traffic accidents in London alone each year and the number is rising. Cyclists appear to think that they are exempt from the rules of the road and they pay for this misapprehension with their lives.

We have all seen them weaving in and out of traffic, ignoring red traffic lights , going up one way streets the wrong way and terrorising pedestrians on the pavement. They have little or no appreciation of how much room a truck needs to manoeuvre or the fact that when they are in close proximity there are areas where the driver can not see them in his mirrors.

If a car or tuck flouted the law as cyclists do they would be prosecuted and possibly banned from the roads. Why doesn’t this happen to cyclists? If there is an accident invariably the cyclist comes off the worst but the driver can suffer from severe trauma for a long time. This is unfair on someone that is paying a lot of money in fuel and road taxes to use the road while the cyclist pays nothing and has large areas of road space specifically for their use and then refuses to abide by the rules of the road.

nation

Man, I wish that cyclists had anywhere near the kind of road area that drivers get allocated specifically for their use.

Tell you what, Mr Russet, you can have all the dodgy cycle facilities back and we'll take the M6 in exchange.

mybreakfastconsisted

From comments:

I think this is the most disgusting piece in this ignorant and inciteful article:

“Cyclists appear to think that they are exempt from the rules of the road and they pay for this misapprehension with their lives.”

This is victim-blaming of the most cowardly kind. Someone I loved very much was killed on their bike when a hungover lorry driver chatting on a mobile phone failed to see her and ran her over, crushing her to death. This article is effectively blaming her for her own death, it’s despicable and extremely irresponsible because it will encourage the kind of drivers who have an antipathy toward cyclists and use their vehicles to bully and intimidate vulnerable road users. This article demonises people just because they choose to cycle to work, it’s a very silly and irresponsible piece.

A lot of comments have been deleted. In 16 London deaths last year in London blame can be attached to the cyclist in only one example. That is an appalling, irresponsible piece of filth article.

corshamjim

Oh well. When his mates go on strike there'll be just us cyclists on the road. Ha!

Kieran_Burns

Read his last comment before foaming too much....

mybreakfastconsisted

Kieran_Burns wrote:

Read his last comment before foaming too much....

That comment makes it worse, he admits to claiming dead cyclists only have themselves to blame in order to stir debate, then deletes comments that highlight his crass stupidity.

kelsen

Kieran_Burns wrote:

Read his last comment before foaming too much....

Yeah right! More like a bit of damage limitation in fear of the bad press his original comment was getting. It looks like a whole load of comments from people were deleted before he wrote that.

optimisticbiker

We can see where he is coming from...the worst sort of capitalist, that equates money with the value of a life...

This is unfair on someone that is paying a lot of money in fuel and road taxes to use the road while the cyclist pays nothing

By his argument (assuming he isn't stupid enough to be using the 'VED = road tax" non-argument, though sadly I think he is) I pay more council tax in Harrow than someone who lives in, say, council accomodation in Tower Hamlets (no disrespect intended), therefore I should have more road space than them...

You can bet he's never ridden a bike in his life...

shouldbeinbed

I bet comrade Bob has got the shock of his life that the 15 minute hate in support of his sad little advertising strategy hasn't materialised. The self serving snivelling climbdown reply from him at the end is hilarious in context of the bile & legal naivety shown in the blog itself.

Cycloslalomeur

Even more shockingly, what are these "trucks" he speaks of? Rampant Americanisation. :roll:

meanredspider

I've written to Palletline. The man's an idiot. And I was one of his customers

bigmat

meanredspider wrote:

I've written to Palletline. The man's an idiot. And I was one of his customers

Brilliant!

What a complete fuktard.

scrumpydave

If a car or tuck flouted the law as cyclists do they would be prosecuted and possibly banned from the roads.

This argument always frustrates me. Does he really think that motorists are saintly law abiders? Also there is no context in this rant. How many motorists die in London each year?

jonny_trousers

Massive own-goal there for Mr Gusset. Hopefully there will be others, like MeanRedSpider, who are in a position to let him know how is attitude has the potential to damage his business.

Agree with those who say his last comment is a huge, and rather pathetic, climb down.

notsoblue

This is a very depressing blog post. He clearly thinks that vitriol like this will strike a cord with his customers.

Kieran_Burns

Okay - I take my initial comment back. I'm guilty of always seeing the best in people.

meanredspider

The whole blog now seems to have disappeared

jonnyboy77

I'm not a regular daily mail reader, but this was the result of a quick search for 'truck driver drinking lager in the cab' havintg seen an episode of Traffic Cops on the BBC where they pulled a truck over on the M1 only to find a collection of empty & full cans of Tennants Super surrounding the driver in the cab.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... wheel.html

While I would agree that there are some cyclists that give cyclists in general a bad name, the same can easily be said of any road user.

Did any of the national press pick up on the blog entry before it was removed?

- Jon

notsoblue

meanredspider wrote:

The whole blog now seems to have disappeared

I'm glad it was quoted in the OP.

DrLex

I, too, shall be asking our logistics peeps to avoid Palletline, thanks to Bob's "Gerald Ratner" moment. Those of you with Twitter accounts might like to let the company know your feelings (in the succinct fashion required).

jonnyboy77

notsoblue wrote:

meanredspider wrote:

The whole blog now seems to have disappeared

I'm glad it was quoted in the OP.

It's cached on google too: http://markup.io/v/jrr6zmdjebgb

meanredspider

I'll let you know if they reply to my email. I quoted his blog in its entirety in the email.

Paul E

Looks like it didn't get the reaction that he hoped for.

greg66_tri_v2.0

What was it Clarkson said about lorry drivers?

Broad brushes eh. Whodathunk they don't paint so good?

Kendal Black Drop

notsoblue wrote:

meanredspider wrote:

The whole blog now seems to have disappeared

I'm glad it was quoted in the OP.

I thought it was a good idea to quote the whole thing rather than just posting a link so people didn't have to go to an external website to view it and because I had a sneaking suspicion that he might have second thoughts about his stupid comments and take the page down.

I'm glad it's been cached too.

jonnyboy77 wrote:

It's cached on google too: http://markup.io/v/jrr6zmdjebgb

supersonic

We have all seen them weaving in and out of traffic, ignoring red traffic lights , going up one way streets the wrong way and terrorising pedestrians on the pavement.

Well I agree with that bit, I see it far too much. But for the rest of his post...

iPete

supersonic wrote:

We have all seen them weaving in and out of traffic, ignoring red traffic lights , going up one way streets the wrong way and terrorising pedestrians on the pavement.

Well I agree with that bit, I see it far too much. But for the rest of his post...

I don't get the mentality of saying 'ban them from the roads' and then moaning about terrorising pedestrians, emmm.

BillyMansell

Thankfully, our hauliers here in the sticks have a rather different attitude;

http://www.knightsofold.ltd.uk/Knightso ... yclingTeam

DrLex

Before it disappeared, it was noted by Tower Hamlets Wheelers. Shame Palletline, having identified an issue, couldn't consider the Cemex method of improving vehicles and driver training, but then that would cost money and leave Bob with less for his green fees.

team47b

there are areas where the driver can not see them in his mirrors.

Admission of guilt.

How can such a large vehicle be legally allowed on the road if the driver cannot see all around?

We have the technology to solve this identified problem, SIDSY is not a valid excuse for causing death.

But I guess it's all about the money.

Kieran_Burns

Contact page on the Pallentine web-site allows you to mention the cached page. Just thought I mention this....