Nuxx:4fee706d-8990-4ccd-9abc-377bd84d8c7e@g38g2000yqd.googlegroups.com

Path: number1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!postnews.google.com!g38g2000yqd.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Message-ID: <4fee706d-8990-4ccd-9abc-377bd84d8c7e@g38g2000yqd.googlegroups.com> From: Nuxx Bar  Newsgroups: uk.rec.cycling Subject: True or False? Date: Mon, 23 Mar 2009 14:08:37 -0700 (PDT) Lines: 35 Organization: http://groups.google.com NNTP-Posting-Host: 81.156.251.147 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: posting.google.com 1237842517 4976 127.0.0.1 (23 Mar 2009 21:08:37 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 23 Mar 2009 21:08:37 +0000 (UTC) Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: g38g2000yqd.googlegroups.com; posting-host=81.156.251.147; posting-account=7_6kYAkAAABD6HrjM0VxehwvZOKMxm4g User-Agent: G2/1.0 X-HTTP-UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-GB; rv:1.9.0.7) Gecko/2009021910 Firefox/3.0.7 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729),gzip(gfe),gzip(gfe) Bytes: 3008 Xref: perfectly-safe.chapmancentral.co.uk uk.rec.cycling:691017

1. Police would be more likely to take it seriously when cyclists reported dangerous driving if cyclists did not have a reputation as a bunch of crazed car-haters who (like Spindrift and others here) go round deliberately trying to pick fights with motorists just because they hate them.

2. Cyclists would be less likely to have a reputation as a bunch of crazed car-haters if the minority of crazed car-hating cyclists were not so often allowed to speak for the majority, due mainly to apathy by the majority when it comes to distancing themselves from the car- hating nutters and making it clear that they do not represent cyclists as a whole, both online and offline.

You know that both things are completely true, no matter whether I've said them or not. What do you have to gain in the end by pretending otherwise? Do you want the police and the media to take you seriously or not? At the moment, how can they tell the difference between a cyclist who's really been bullied by a motorist and one who's simply engineered a conflict with a motorist for the sheer hell of it? Well? How?

The suspicion that the cyclist is lying or exaggerating is simply too great at the moment, and the only way to reduce that suspicion sufficiently is for the normal, sensible majority of cyclists to vocally and publicly disown the demented car-hating few, who have hijacked their cause and are making the life of so many road users such a misery for no good reason whatsoever. They're parasites; they're not on your side, they're just using you. Tell them where to go.

And if you're thinking of saying that this is "bollocks", then why exactly do *you* suppose that we have so many people on this group complaining of police not taking their reports against motorists seriously? Why do *you* suppose that the media regard you as a load of lycra louts? Come on, I'm all ears.