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Path: num1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!number.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!goblin3!goblin1!goblin.stu.neva.ru!txtfeed2.tudelft.nl!tudelft.nl!txtfeed1.tudelft.nl!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: Why are Car-Haters Inherently Mean? Date: Mon, 11 Jan 2010 23:09:15 -0000 Lines: 47 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit User-Agent: MicroPlanet-Gravity/2.9.14 X-Antivirus: avast! (VPS 100111-0, 11/01/2010), Outbound message X-Antivirus-Status: Clean Organization: Zen Internet NNTP-Posting-Host: 39a9106d.news.zen.co.uk X-Trace: DXC=B9YA>=VJ`TElIMT6iaTKGE0g@SS;SF6nGR9OH0:RnEND\C<oJW2?^aE`:ITG5aA:cG^\XiJljS[Y@ X-Complaints-To: abuse@zen.co.uk Bytes: 3981 Xref: perfectly-safe.chapmancentral.co.uk uk.rec.cycling:835148

Why does there seem to be an inherent meanness about car-haters? There are many groups of people whose actions I disapprove of for one reason or another, but that doesn't mean that I support underhand, spiteful bullying of them by the authorities or anyone else. I recognise that sometimes people disagree and that's the way the world is, and I also recognise that if you want to get a group of people to change their behaviour then spiteful, mean-spirited, deliberately obstructive tactics and outright lies rarely work.

So why does the attitude from the car-haters seem to be "Anything goes when it comes to making drivers' lives a misery, however unpleasant and dishonest it is, and whatever side effects it has, up to and including killing thousands of people a year"? Why this utter determination to piss off motorists at all costs? Why the assumption that every single driver is automatically selfish and wrong to drive, and could quite easily use an alternative form of transport, when that assumption can so easily be demonstrated to be false?

And anyway, why don't the car-haters concentrate on improving public transport (so that people actually *want* to use it in preference to their cars), instead of devoting so much effort to making drivers suffer (even those drivers who can't possibly choose any mode except the car)? I can't help thinking that it's not really about "encouraging people to choose a 'safer'/'greener' form of transport", it's more about a fundamental dislike of freedom of individual choice, and a desperate need to punish those who dare to exercise it. Nothing else explains the unbelievable spite, general nastiness and childish belligerence towards be funny to put double yellow lines there, not because they're remotely necessary, but just because I want to punish all motorists for making a choice that I personally think they shouldn't make"...it's the sort of thing that a bullying little toddler would do, it's pathetic, and no-one does that sort of thing better than the car-haters...just look at the unbelievable array of obnoxious little anti-motorist measures they've come up with which serve no genuine purpose other than to make things harder for those who have the temerity to transport themselves in the "wrong" way).
 * all* motorists that is so beloved of the car-haters ("Oh, wouldn't it

Look at C***man (aka L** Kn**), the archetypal car-hater. Is there very obvious mean streak? And nice car-haters are conspicuous by their absence. There doesn't seem to be any such thing as someone who says "I don't think cars are a great idea *but* bullying motorists with speed cameras, ever-lowering speed limits and money-grabbing parking 'enforcement' is not the way to deal with the 'problem'; we should make public transport more attractive instead [or whatever]". That in itself says so much about the car-haters and their real motivation.
 * anyone*, even his most fawning sycophant, who would deny that he has a