Nuxx:50b727b5-815b-4daf-9d50-6b00476e0b6b@r34g2000vba.googlegroups.com

Path: num2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!num1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!number.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!postnews.google.com!r34g2000vba.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Message-ID: <50b727b5-815b-4daf-9d50-6b00476e0b6b@r34g2000vba.googlegroups.com> From: Nuxx Bar  Newsgroups: uk.rec.cycling Subject: Re: How to get speeding drivers to slow down. Date: Tue, 12 May 2009 14:56:20 -0700 (PDT) References:   <0Z-dnUPp15J9mJXXnZ2dnUVZ8gudnZ2d@eclipse.net.uk> <1cafe79f-f09f-41d4-9032-725c90ec958c@o14g2000vbo.googlegroups.com>   <6c43c1d9-dd17-4399-b292-00b7a4cf5de2@h23g2000vbc.googlegroups.com>  Lines: 76 Organization: http://groups.google.com NNTP-Posting-Host: 86.145.66.20 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: posting.google.com 1242165380 6206 127.0.0.1 (12 May 2009 21:56:20 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 12 May 2009 21:56:20 +0000 (UTC) Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: r34g2000vba.googlegroups.com; posting-host=86.145.66.20; posting-account=7_6kYAkAAABD6HrjM0VxehwvZOKMxm4g User-Agent: G2/1.0 X-HTTP-UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-GB; rv:1.9.0.10) Gecko/2009042316 Firefox/3.0.10 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729),gzip(gfe),gzip(gfe) Bytes: 5761 Xref: perfectly-safe.chapmancentral.co.uk uk.rec.cycling:701044

On May 11, 8:21=A0pm, thaksin  wrote: > Sir Jeremy wrote: > > On 11 May, 13:21, spindrift  wrote: > >> On May 11, 1:11 pm, Sir Jeremy  wrote: > > >>> On 11 May, 12:08, spindrift  wrote: > >>>> A Safespeed supporter who recklessly and illegally overtakes and the= n > >>>> threatens a lone female, class! > >>> Not at all- a safe overtake. She gave me the dickhead sign and I > >>> wanted to ask what her problem was. Nothing threatening- she shouldn'= t > >>> make rude gestures if she doesn't want to get involved > >> You admitted you broke the law. You exceeded the speed limit. Did you > >> go back and interview every other road user, pedestrian, cyclist, > >> child and old person to see if they thought your erratic, aggressive > >> driving was 'safe'? > > >> Thought not. > > >> Just get out of bed earlier or leave more time for your journey, and > >> if you habitually get out of your car and approach women on their own > >> I look forward to you getting a tyre iron wrapped round your skull. > > > FOAD. I've never had an accident or conviction of any sort in almost > > 40 years of driving > > Dont rise to the twats bait - this is just the sort of twisting replies > that got the stupid cnut banned from his beloved forums :)

It's hard not to rise to it, and I'm certainly no role model in that respect, but I have to agree (although it would be nice if he did FOAD). The important thing is not to take it personally: he hates (they should put up with being unnecessarily impeded with good grace, because they're lucky to be allowed to drive at all), and the "reckless" accusations are merely his standard way of attempting to have a go at them no matter how safe their behaviour has actually been. Of course, such blatant abuse of terms such as "reckless" and "dangerous" does devalue those terms...or at least it would if Spindrift didn't have such a reputation as a complete and utter headcase who will do *anything* he can to find fault with drivers.
 * all* motorists, especially those who wish to make reasonable progress

You've just got to keep telling yourself: "Car-hating fruitcake, doesn't really give a stuff about anyone's safety, an insult from him is a compliment", etc. No-one whose opinion it's worth caring about is in the slightest doubt about that.

Likewise with people like the stupid bitch mentioned above. If someone is quite obviously wrong about something, like members of the "Overtaking is always dangerous/No-one should be going any faster than me/I like to have a line of at least 3 vehicles behind me at all times because I'm a sad little control freak/I never go above 40mph on any single carriageway" brigade, what does it matter what they think about me? If they're wrong, they're wrong. *They* are the ones who, objectively, need to correct their POV; I'm not going to waste time or effort worrying about them any more than I'd worry about some idiotic street preacher telling me that the world was going to end in a week.

I will keep overtaking such people as and when it's safe, and their fuckwit reactions will not deter me in the slightest: I will not be bullied into not doing something which is perfectly safe and legal (except for the possibility of momentarily exceeding an arbitrary number on a stick, which no sensible person cares about in itself, and which is *nothing* to do with the bad reaction that some dickheads automatically give anyone who dares to think for themselves and overtake them).

What irritates me the most about such people is that instead of dealing robustly with them, and the congestion, danger and bad feeling that they constantly inflict on the 90-95% of reasonable drivers whenever it's busy, the authorities actually encourage them to think that they're better than everyone else with their "Slower is safer, faster is more dangerous" claptrap. It's absolutely infuriating, and yet more evidence that the government is about as anti-motorist as it could possibly get away with.