Nuxx:4e35f2a6$0$2497$db0fefd9@news.zen.co.uk

Path: num2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!num1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!number.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border3.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!goblin2!goblin.stu.neva.ru!news.stack.nl!dedekind.zen.co.uk!zen.net.uk!hamilton.zen.co.uk!prichard.zen.co.uk.POSTED!not-for-mail Message-ID: <4e35f2a6$0$2497$db0fefd9@news.zen.co.uk> From: Nuxx Bar  Newsgroups: uk.rec.cycling Subject: Re: RLJ car. Date: Mon, 01 Aug 2011 01:26:14 +0100 References:   Lines: 48 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.7; rv:5.0) Gecko/20110624 Thunderbird/5.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To:  Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Organization: Zen Internet NNTP-Posting-Host: 23d0fee9.news.zen.co.uk X-Trace: DXC=\J_=4^ZC=HSH[i On 31/07/2011 18:24, Simon Mason wrote: >> Looked up today outside the hospital and spotted a driver sailing >> through a red light. I also filmed him stopping at the next set of >> lights which were also at red, but after 2 seconds of waiting he passed >> through those as well, but it was too far away to be worth saving. >> >> Somewhat ironically, when I raise my head, he is next to a poster which >> states "eyes on the road please". >> >> http://www.swldxer.co.uk/RLJ.wmv > > Driving home on Friday evening I saw 6 cyclists. > > Since I'm not a twat like Mason & don't have a compo cam, you will have > to take my word for it. > > The first 2 RLJ'd when turning left, number 3 was cycling in a > pedestrian area, number 4 the wrong way down a one way street, number 5 > rode across a crossing & then jumped the lights, number 6 on the pavement. > > 100% law breakers.

But hang on, all those things are only "technically" illegal (and therefore acceptable, even if you're a stickler for "the law" when it comes to restrictions on motorists). And the reason they're only "technically" illegal is that cyclists are saving the planet and are morally superior to motorists, meaning that they should be given "a bit of leeway" (i.e. total freedom to break the law unless they've killed someone, and even then it's debatable).

All this will hopefully encourage you and others to get out of your car/van and onto a bicycle. And if a car/van is, as very often, the only remotely appropriate form of transport for your needs then it's tough shit, you'll still have to put up with interfering loonies assuming that you're only driving because you're "selfish", you don't need to drive, you should be deterred from driving, and therefore you deserve a constant, ever-evolving assault course of needless obstacles and petty penalties whenever you drive anywhere for any reason.

Remember that next time you're going to a job 30 miles away: you could quite easily cycle there, with all your tools etc, within an hour, and if you choose to "selfishly" drive instead then don't complain when it's made deliberately difficult for you (by dedicated teams of sad bastards who lavish massive amounts of money, time, care, pride and attention on their spiteful little schemes...wouldn't it be nice if such effort was ever poured into things that people actually wanted, you know, like a real democracy?)