Nuxx:MPG.279057ff608cd15f989849@news.zen.co.uk

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!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!feeder.news-service.com!tudelft.nl!txtfeed1.tudelft.nl!dedekind.zen.co.uk!zen.net.uk!hamilton.zen.co.uk!reader02.news.zen.co.uk.POSTED!not-for-mail Message-ID:  From: Nuxx Bar  Newsgroups: uk.net.news.moderation Subject: Re: URCM: How is Suggesting Compulsory Rider Testing "Inflammatory"? Date: Thu, 6 Jan 2011 22:52:20 -0000 References:   Lines: 42 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit User-Agent: MicroPlanet-Gravity/2.9.14 Organization: Zen Internet NNTP-Posting-Host: 8b210696.news.zen.co.uk X-Trace: DXC=6n[NNE]JNKgaogEM\ChbAgYjZGX^207Pk`4O;OWA;Ud X-Complaints-To: abuse@zen.co.uk Bytes: 3317 Xref: perfectly-safe.chapmancentral.co.uk uk.net.news.moderation:35885

In article , key@under.the.invalid says... > > Ok, maybe inflammatory is not an accurate description, but it is an > irredeemably silly suggestion if only on economic grounds. And it is > frequently made by silly people just to annoy.

I really don't think the general idea of placing some (as opposed to basically no) restrictions on who can cycle and when is at all silly, or done to annoy. Obviously this isn't really the place to debate it but the idea of absolutely anyone (and there are some real nutters around) being able to legally get on a bike without showing that they're in any way capable is one that I find most disturbing. It just takes one idiot who doesn't know what the hell they're doing to dart out at full pelt from behind a bus at the wrong moment, and if there's a pedestrian, another cyclist or a vehicle in the wrong place at that time, the results can quite easily be fatal.

Hand on heart, in an urban environment, I'm more scared by bicycles than by any other form of transport. Pedestrians can only go so fast; cars can only go when there's a big enough gap. Cyclists can (and do) move silently through small gaps at speed, and can come from pretty much anywhere, and so even with good observation, a seemingly innocuous situation can quickly change to a potentially very dangerous one through the reckless actions of just one cyclist. Hence the need for at least some restrictions in my opinion; surely, to a point at least, the resulting economic outlay would be countered by the reduction in KSIs caused by clueless cyclists?

As I say, I'm not trying to start a debate, just trying to show that I don't think JNugent's suggestion is as obviously silly as you suggest, and it's certainly not blatantly silly enough to justify a rejection.

> Off-topic would be a better rejection reason.

The post is about cycling, it's just not what the moderators want to hear. Tony Raven's recent thread, now that's off-topic.

BTW have you ever thought of opening a shop that sells printers? You could call it "Pica City". (Sorry. But where did you get "Percy Picacity" from?  Like "Carstairs MacKracken" it seems to ring a bell, but Google just brings you up.)