Daily mail attack on cyclists

big_p
big_p Posts: 565
edited September 2012 in The cake stop
What a dumb article.

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

Some of the comments are hideous.
«1

Comments

  • bartman100
    bartman100 Posts: 544
    She has form for this
    Cycling Weekly, 24 Feb 2012 wrote:
    It was another week of cycling bashing in the Daily Mail. After the recent outrage caused by James Martin, the C-list bike-hating celebrity chef, come the demented ramblings of Petronella Wyatt, who sees fit to blame us for pretty much everything that's wrong in the world.

    Everyone's entitled to an opinion, the big problem is that she's got most of her facts totally wrong. Ms Wyatt wants a change in the law to force cyclists to take a test because of the increased number of accidents involving bike riders. Wrong.

    There has been a 107 per cent increase in cycling in London in the last decade yet the number of cycling casualties has actually fallen by 27 per cent.

    She thinks there is a proposal to make motorists responsible for all accidents involving cyclists, irrespective of who was actually in the wrong. But Petronella is wrong again. The proposed Strict Liability legislation will always allow a driver the chance to prove a cyclist's guilt.

    And she says police have found that half the collisions between bicycles and cars are the fault of the cyclist. Not even close. In non-fatal collisions involving cyclists aged over 25 police solely blame the driver in about 70 per cent of cases and divide responsibility between both parties in 10 per cent more.

    There's already enough anti-bike hatred, without inventing nonsense statistics to support a deluded rant.
  • bartman100
    bartman100 Posts: 544
    In fact, it seems this is an old story cynically re-surfaced by the Mail and laid out as if it has just happened, in an attempt to $hit stir, given the recent press coverage of Olympics and TDF:

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/artic ... -down.html

    Really shameful stuff.
  • estampida
    estampida Posts: 1,008
    well the measure of how crazy a family is:

    who would call their child petronella - of course she will be bitter and through the old boys network, gets a job with the daily mail.......

    at least in 1935 you could have given her the back of your hand....... wheres the nostalgia in that?
  • andyk19
    andyk19 Posts: 170
    I can't help but notice how generalised the article is, something I regularly see with articles like this. There is no differentiating between someone who uses a bike on a pavement for a 500m pop to the off license, but would never consider themselves a cyclist, and those who take their bike seriously.
    She says that she had her handbag stolen by a group of youths on bikes, now I can't be 100% sure but would quite happily bet that they weren't true cyclists with road bikes, more likely thugs who simply use bikes as a quick escape method. Using her logic I may as well blame all people who drive cars (myself included) for the recent ram raid on my local post office using a stolen land rover...

    She also seems to base part of her dislike for cycling on her experiences with a pashley, well I don't see why I shouldn't be allowed to use my bike simply because she can't manage to stay on for a mile.

    The comments underneath seem to be the usual drivel from 'haters' and personally I've just taken to ignoring such people.

    I would note though that I am sometimes dismayed by the way some 'real' cyclists ride, but then I can say the same about motorists.
  • Ber Nard
    Ber Nard Posts: 827
    It's professional trolling. They'll run an article like this online rather than in print because it will go viral. People post links to the article on forums like this and social media sites resulting in thousands of page hits for the DM. The trolls in the comments section keep coming back to see if anyone's responded to them and that's even more page hits. The DM can then charge a fortune for advertising space on their website.

    Just ignore it. Don't click on the links, don't visit the website and don't play into their hands.

    Rob
  • jgsi
    jgsi Posts: 5,062
    Ber Nard wrote:
    It's professional trolling. They'll run an article like this online rather than in print because it will go viral. People post links to the article on forums like this and social media sites resulting in thousands of page hits for the DM. The trolls in the comments section keep coming back to see if anyone's responded to them and that's even more page hits. The DM can then charge a fortune for advertising space on their website.

    Just ignore it. Don't click on the links, don't visit the website and don't play into their hands.

    Rob

    Sensible advice... I havent clicked on DM for nearly 12 months now... and my life is slightly happier in the absence of some of the sh1t that gets published on it.
  • Laird_Attwood
    Laird_Attwood Posts: 66
    All I thought was her mum really needs to look both ways before crossing the road.
  • finchy
    finchy Posts: 6,686
    JGSI wrote:
    Ber Nard wrote:
    It's professional trolling. They'll run an article like this online rather than in print because it will go viral. People post links to the article on forums like this and social media sites resulting in thousands of page hits for the DM. The trolls in the comments section keep coming back to see if anyone's responded to them and that's even more page hits. The DM can then charge a fortune for advertising space on their website.

    Just ignore it. Don't click on the links, don't visit the website and don't play into their hands.

    Rob

    Sensible advice... I havent clicked on DM for nearly 12 months now... and my life is slightly happier in the absence of some of the sh1t that gets published on it.

    I only go on there to look at scantily-clad C-list celebrities.
  • dodgy
    dodgy Posts: 2,890
    You click on a Daily Mail link, you're effectively buying their product.

    It's not enough not to click on their obvious links, though, these days with Twitter, shortened links etc, you can still be caught out. So I put a firewall rule in on my home router which blocks anything to their URL. I can still get caught out when out and about with my phone, though.

    Some might think I'm going over the top, but I have no wish to support even fractions of a penny going to them just because I visit their site.
  • Frank the tank
    Frank the tank Posts: 6,553
    Not read the article or even the thread, why be suprised at a "Mail" article being anti cycling.

    They'd advocate a labour government before they approved of cyclists. :roll:
    Tail end Charlie

    The above post may contain traces of sarcasm or/and bullsh*t.
  • BelgianBeerGeek
    BelgianBeerGeek Posts: 5,226
    More importantly, does having cyclists ride past your house affect its value?
    Ecrasez l’infame
  • dmclite-3.0
    dmclite-3.0 Posts: 845
    Sweet baby Jesus, the article would be funny if you didn't know DM readers will take it seriously. Generalised cretinous drivel and she's a munter with a crap coat.
    I don't mean to brag, I don't mean to boast, but I'm intercontinental when I eat French toast...
  • fast as fupp
    fast as fupp Posts: 2,277
    BelgianBeerGeek wrote:
    More importantly, does having cyclists ride past your house affect its value?


    only if its a black or muslim cyclist.
    'dont forget lads, one evertonian is worth twenty kopites'
  • pinno
    pinno Posts: 52,497
    The Dailly Heil is sheer drivel. As the Scum and the News of the World took a bashing, the latter dissapearing with no consequence, has the Dailly Heil readership increased ? This would be a very sad side effect. Not frying pan to the fire but from one septic tank to another, metaphorically speaking.
    seanoconn - gruagach craic!
  • Lycra-Byka
    Lycra-Byka Posts: 292
    That woman is gonna get a cyclist killed if she crosses another road...
  • nickel
    nickel Posts: 476
    Im sorry, but I refuse to take anyone named 'Petronella Wyatt' seriously....
  • Peddle Up!
    Peddle Up! Posts: 2,040
    The Daily Mail. :roll: FFS.
    Purveyor of "up" :)
  • rick_chasey
    rick_chasey Posts: 75,660
    Bizarre.

    Some kind of weird menopausal angst ridden logic that I can't really follow.
    _
  • t.m.h.n.e.t
    t.m.h.n.e.t Posts: 2,265
    The exact same incident happened to her mother in 2010 so either she is really unfortunate or DM regurgitated bile at a well timed point.

    Well with ToB recently starting
  • GiantMike
    GiantMike Posts: 3,139
    edited September 2012
    I'm utterly furious. My sister occasionally rides a bike and I can't believe she could be so thoroughly inconsiderate in using the same form of transport as somebody else who has been blamed for apparent irresponsibility. Even though no evidence is offered regarding the alleged offences and disregarding the fact that, as a journalist, Petronella is likely to have seriously embellished the whole unpleasantness or even just imagined it, I will never be able to see my sister in the same way again.

    Oh, hang on. As a journalist, surely I can apply the same logic to her? I'm sure somebody in the Nazi party had been a journalist, at some point. Doesn't that make her a Nazi sympathiser (by the usual journalistic logic she has employed)?
  • bompington
    bompington Posts: 7,674
    Thank goodness for that. This thread is now Godwinned, we can all forget about the Mail until the next cyclist-baiting incident.
  • rolf_f
    rolf_f Posts: 16,015
    bompington wrote:
    Thank goodness for that. This thread is now Godwinned, we can all forget about the Mail until the next cyclist-baiting incident.

    Disappointing though that it didn't happen til the second page......
    Faster than a tent.......
  • GiantMike
    GiantMike Posts: 3,139
    Rolf F wrote:
    bompington wrote:
    Thank goodness for that. This thread is now Godwinned, we can all forget about the Mail until the next cyclist-baiting incident.

    Disappointing though that it didn't happen til the second page......

    I thought Godwinning referred to Hitler, not the Nazi Party.

    Oh well, I've Hitlerred it now anyway!
  • airbag
    airbag Posts: 201
    Hitler or Nazis as I understood it.
  • bottom_bracket
    bottom_bracket Posts: 76
    dodgy wrote:
    I put a firewall rule in on my home router which blocks anything to their URL.

    That is brilliant! Well done that man, I'm going to do the same.
  • rodgers73
    rodgers73 Posts: 2,626
    I enjoyed the comments under the article about the poor quality plastic surgery!
  • Kerguelen
    Kerguelen Posts: 248
    bottom_bracket wrote:
    dodgy wrote:
    I put a firewall rule in on my home router which blocks anything to their URL.

    That is brilliant! Well done that man, I'm going to do the same.

    Or you could just edit your hosts file.
    127.0.0.1       dailymail.co.uk
127.0.0.1       mailonline.co.uk

    Then run
    ipconfig /flushdns
  • jonomc4
    jonomc4 Posts: 891
    rodgers73 wrote:
    I enjoyed the comments under the article about the poor quality plastic surgery!


    hey that was me :) - I rather liked it to
  • petemadoc
    petemadoc Posts: 2,331
    LYCRA LOUTS!!!

    love it :D

    Can I get a badge?
  • Peddle Up!
    Peddle Up! Posts: 2,040
    Sadly, it's a very popular paper which I find deeply troubling. A lot of people get their ideas from "Mail newsbites" - no thinking required. Plus the paper has a history of being sympathetic to Nazis.

    Worst of all - the newsprint always comes off on my bum. :cry:
    Purveyor of "up" :)

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