Nuxx:B1202968-375d-456d-aadf-de9d4daef2c2@j78g2000hsd.googlegroups.com

Path: number1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!postnews.google.com!j78g2000hsd.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Message-ID:  From: Nuxx Bar  Newsgroups: uk.rec.cycling, uk.transport.london, uk.rec.driving Subject: Re: Bus Lanes: Proof Of What We All Knew Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2008 14:26:39 -0800 (PST) References: <3282357c-d7aa-4691-a331-97561dba1306@1g2000hsl.googlegroups.com> <60kfogF1qvfq6U1@mid.individual.net>  <47a621a2$0$21103$da0feed9@news.zen.co.uk> Lines: 41 Organization: http://groups.google.com NNTP-Posting-Host: 85.211.17.39 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: posting.google.com 1202077600 20640 127.0.0.1 (3 Feb 2008 22:26:40 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2008 22:26:40 +0000 (UTC) Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: j78g2000hsd.googlegroups.com; posting-host=85.211.17.39; posting-account=7_6kYAkAAABD6HrjM0VxehwvZOKMxm4g User-Agent: G2/1.0 X-HTTP-UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-GB; rv:1.8.1.11) Gecko/20071127 Firefox/2.0.0.11,gzip(gfe),gzip(gfe) Bytes: 3578 Xref: perfectly-safe.chapmancentral.co.uk uk.rec.cycling:638431

On Feb 3, 8:18 pm, d...@telent.net wrote: > Nuxx Bar wrote: > > Would you not > > agree with me that the militant cyclists who hate all other forms of > > private transport (and care about that more than saving lives) are > > tarnishing the reputation of you and other reasonable cyclists? > > If you also hold the positions that > * fundamentalist suicide bombers are tarnishing the reputation of all > university graduates > * drunk people are tarnishing the reputation of all reasonable pedestrians > * militant feminists are tarnishing the reputation of all reasonable women > * people with made-up names who crosspost inflammatory crap on usenet > are tarnishing the reputation of all reasonable simian bipeds

But militant cyclists claim to speak for all cyclists. And because they're so prominent (e.g. when causing trouble or jumping red lights), many motorists make the mistake of thinking that the majority of cyclists are like them. Furthermore, the spiteful measures that they campaign for put all cyclists in danger. If you are a normal cyclist, you must surely wish that militant cyclists would find some other belligerent cause which didn't involve killing road users such as yourself.

> then I will at least grant that you are logically consistent. I > suspect, however, that you're probably just making shit up to try and > get a reaction.

Not at all. But everyone's entitled to their opinion (not that militant cyclists would agree with that). What shit am I making up anyway? Do you deny that these militant cyclists exist (despite posting on a newsgroup containing them)? Or that they are tarnishing the reputation of all cyclists, at least in some people's minds? Why would what I say get a "reaction", except from the militants themselves?

As I said, all I want is for cyclists, motorists and everyone else to share the roads in a peaceful, adult and tolerant fashion. But it is quite clear that that is anathema to some. Those people do not deserve to share the roads with anyone, just as the spoilt little shit of a toddler who won't share toys doesn't deserve any toys at all.