Nuxx:MPG.258e494e5f996d5d9896dc@news.zen.co.uk

Path: num2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!num1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!number.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!nx02.iad01.newshosting.com!newshosting.com!news2.euro.net!feeds.phibee-telecom.net!dedekind.zen.co.uk!zen.net.uk!hamilton.zen.co.uk!prichard.zen.co.uk.POSTED!not-for-mail Message-ID:  From: Guy Cuthbertson  Newsgroups: uk.rec.cycling Subject: Re: Plonkers Date: Sun, 13 Dec 2009 00:44:38 -0000 References:  Lines: 62 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit User-Agent: MicroPlanet-Gravity/2.9.13 Organization: Zen Internet NNTP-Posting-Host: 490451c4.news.zen.co.uk X-Trace: DXC=LL[M0aSU]C4f0PeGg]Xii?0g@SS;SF6n7R9OH0:RnEN4FnG28HWnP;<`:ITG5aA:c7:Ci]5k\jR44 X-Complaints-To: abuse@zen.co.uk Bytes: 4386 Xref: perfectly-safe.chapmancentral.co.uk uk.rec.cycling:746580

In article , MrPounder@rationalthought.com says... > > Probably been said before and ignored by you plonkers. > > I was on the road last week at 6am, pitch black and heavy rain. > I just managed to see a bloke on a bike, he was dressed in black and no > lights.

As I'm sure you've noticed it happens *all the time* (and yet is strangely not condemned on uk.rec.cycling...cyclists are allowed to break the law you see, because they're using a "morally superior" form of transport). Many cyclists seem to think it's somehow "cool" not to have lights. A 14-year-old little shit down the road actually asked his mum to remove the lights from his bike because apparently it isn't "cool" to have them, even when they're off.

It's time we had a return to common-sense road safety campaigns which focus on that sort of thing rather than irrelevant, sanctimonious, emotive, unscientific nonsense which is really just persecution of motorists dressed up as road safety.

> You lot expect respect from the motorist. > Respect has to be earned.

I find it absolutely extraordinary that the likes of mileburner detest motorists so much simply because of their chosen transport method, fight tooth and nail to piss them off, antagonise them and persecute them in absolutely any way they can (even if they know it *diminishes* road safety and/or makes things worse for cyclists), make it really smugly obvious that they're doing just that (while being too cowardly to explicitly admit it), and then still demand "respect" from those who they campaign so vociferously and spitefully against!!

Do they not realise that motorists would be a hell of a lot more inclined to be nice to cyclists (e.g. by leaving room for them on the left at traffic light queues) if mileburner, "Just zis Guy, you know?" and the rest weren't trashing the reputation of cyclists by spouting their hateful anti-motorist bile and claiming to speak on behalf of all cyclists when doing so? Hijacking a genuine cause like cycling in order to force anti-motorist measures on everyone is appalling (and real cyclists with no axe to grind are suffering as a result). But expecting "respect" from people whose lives you are actively trying to make as miserable as possible is just plain barmy.

If the car-haters really want respect from motorists then that's yet another reason for them to stop their ridiculous efforts to bully people out of their cars at all costs. They can start by admitting that they know speed cameras don't save lives and they only support them because they see them as a good way of persecuting the vast majority of motorists (I'm sure *none* of us are truly surprised that there's been no significant change in KSIs in Swindon since the cameras were removed). I'm not holding my breath about such an admission though...it seems that the car-haters would rather carry on their twisted campaign even if it means forgoing the respect of motorists when they're cycling. Their loss I suppose (oh, and the loss of all the innocent, non-car- hating cyclists as well, and the families of those who are dying because of speed cameras and other anti-motorist measures, and all sorts of other people, but of course the car-haters don't care about any of that, being selfish wankers and everything...as long as the motorist scum are suffering then it doesn't matter who else gets caught in the crossfire, does it mileburner?)