Nuxx:63c2a8c8-1629-4f90-8ef0-8701d7f2492a@q12g2000prb.googlegroups.com

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!postnews.google.com!q12g2000prb.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Message-ID: <63c2a8c8-1629-4f90-8ef0-8701d7f2492a@q12g2000prb.googlegroups.com> From: Nuxx Bar  Newsgroups: uk.rec.cycling Subject: Re: 16% - is that all? Date: Wed, 18 May 2011 07:35:29 -0700 (PDT) References: <1c37463f-fc3e-4395-9a29-1a4b9182f5d3@x6g2000yqj.googlegroups.com> Lines: 35 Organization: http://groups.google.com NNTP-Posting-Host: 82.71.49.124 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: posting.google.com 1305729330 20531 127.0.0.1 (18 May 2011 14:35:30 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 18 May 2011 14:35:30 +0000 (UTC) Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: q12g2000prb.googlegroups.com; posting-host=82.71.49.124; posting-account=WrLs9woAAAD151hWKA9yknAtxFHW4kE4 User-Agent: G2/1.0 X-HTTP-UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.7; rv:2.0.1) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/4.0.1,gzip(gfe) Bytes: 3141 Xref: perfectly-safe.chapmancentral.co.uk uk.rec.cycling:845851

On May 17, 4:16=A0pm, Simon Mason  wrote: > Well now, we have been duped by the helmet nazis into believing that > helmet compulsion is on the way by way of ubiquity. Apparently, > according to this snippet from a Sunday paper's helmet piece, a > whopping 84% of the country's cyclists do not wear a helmet.

Much more than 84% of drivers regularly exceed the speed limit. But I think you're going a bit far in (presumably) calling for speed limits to be abolished altogether.

Interesting what Nick Maclaren is saying in your "Another tin tack attack" thread over on URCM: that some of those claiming to speak for cyclists have created unnecessary friction between cyclists and motorists over the last 20 years by being more anti-motorist than they are pro-cyclist, i.e. supporting measures which make driving harder even when they make cycling harder, and opposing measures which make driving easier even when they make cycling easier as well. This is very much what I think as well, and Nick thinks that such car-hating psycholists are the ones who have provoked the tack-leavers into action.

Could it be that the animosity generated against cyclists by the car- hating psycholist minority is also one reason why some people are so keen to support helmet compulsion? I don't know, and I'm far from convinced that helmets aren't genuinely useful. Nevertheless things will surely improve for drivers and cyclists alike once the car-haters STFU, and all cyclists concentrate on improving the cyclist's lot rather than creating conflict and making things unnecessarily and spitefully difficult for the motorist.

If you think that cyclists are unfairly despised and persecuted then how can you be so sure that that hasn't been caused by certain "pro- cycling" individuals/groups causing conflict with motorists, and always advocating the most anti-car "solution" to road safety "problems" without genuinely weighing up all the options?