Nuxx:6f4bb44c-3487-4d4d-ab40-f0bae4414a35@f18g2000vbf.googlegroups.com

Path: number6.nntp.dca.giganews.com!num1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!number.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!postnews.google.com!f18g2000vbf.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Message-ID: <6f4bb44c-3487-4d4d-ab40-f0bae4414a35@f18g2000vbf.googlegroups.com> From: Nuxx Bar  Newsgroups: uk.rec.cycling Subject: Re: anyone still with direct line? Date: Sat, 11 Apr 2009 03:45:35 -0700 (PDT) References: <36b29b03-282e-485c-8edf-75edc4c4b4a4@z1g2000yqn.googlegroups.com>   Lines: 42 Organization: http://groups.google.com NNTP-Posting-Host: 81.156.248.79 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: posting.google.com 1239446735 5691 127.0.0.1 (11 Apr 2009 10:45:35 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 11 Apr 2009 10:45:35 +0000 (UTC) Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: f18g2000vbf.googlegroups.com; posting-host=81.156.248.79; posting-account=7_6kYAkAAABD6HrjM0VxehwvZOKMxm4g User-Agent: G2/1.0 X-HTTP-UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-GB; rv:1.9.0.8) Gecko/2009032609 Firefox/3.0.8 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729),gzip(gfe),gzip(gfe) Bytes: 3482 Xref: perfectly-safe.chapmancentral.co.uk uk.rec.cycling:694605

On Apr 10, 8:02=A0pm, David Hansen  wrote: > On Fri, 10 Apr 2009 18:33:49 +0100 someone who may be "Just zis Guy, > you know?"  wrote this:- > > >It's not really the insurer's fault, as the piece says: "A spokesman > >for Direct Line said the company did not realise that it was trying to > >communicate with a child and apologised for the error." > > I disagree. They had got the child's name and address from > somewhere, presumably via the motorist. I have no doubt that the > motorist mentioned the age of the cyclist to the insurance > company,so they were aware of it. Threatening a child is the sort of > thing bullies like to do.

That =A3150 has to come from somewhere. So who do you think should pay it? The motorist (because he "shouldn't have been driving in the first place")? The insurance company, and therefore its customers (who have absolutely nothing to do with the incident)? Or the child and/or his parents?

We don't normally expect the public or the aggrieved party to cough up when a child makes a stupid mistake and causes hundreds of pounds of damage: usually the responsibility falls to the child, and through him, his parents. Why should it be any different here? Yet again some people in this group seem to have the stupid idea that because someone is cycling, and therefore using a "morally superior" form of transport, normal obligations shouldn't fall on them (and that because someone is driving, they can never truly be a victim or a complainant, because it was "irresponsible" and "wrong" of them to drive in the first place).

It's such a bloody unhelpful and pathetic attitude. The child and his parents sodding well should pay here, just as if the child caused hundreds of pounds' worth of damage, either accidentally or on purpose, in any other way. When are the genuine cycling advocates (as opposed to the car-haters pretending to be cycling advocates) going to realise that this "Normal rules shouldn't apply to cyclists because they're better than everyone else" nonsense helps absolutely no-one, including cyclists?

Ridiculous.