Another cycling article - this time The Sunday Times

[Crankarm]

Reading through the comments beneath the article these ones stand head and shoulders above the rest IMHO:

kaleb debbage wrote:
I love this idea that cyclists are a dangerous menace!

Approximately 9 people are killed on Britain's roads EVERY DAY, in motor vehicle collisions. Many many more are seriously injured.

As an employee of the emergency services I frequently attend road traffic collisions requiring the extrication of trauma victims from mangled car wrecks.

During these incidents I am given appreciative looks and solemn nods by passing motorists keen to salute my profession as one who takes risks for the preservation of others.

At the end of my shift I cycle 12 miles home.

During that ride I am given the finger, the horn or occasionally the wingmirror smashing into my side, or even the deliberately close swerve, just to show me who's boss.

Duncan Carter wrote:
Ian F - I wonder what your personal profile contains. BMW possibly or VW Golf?

I drive, walk and ride. I can honestly say that on a daily basis I encounter far more examples of car/lorry drivers acting stupidly (especially on motorways wher admittedly cyclists aren't allowed)than cyclists.

In addition and especially when I'm in city centres, I also see many occasions when pedestrians dart over roads/jump the pelican causing vehicles (and cyclists) to brake or take evasive action.

I think a liitle more care and tolerance all round would be appropriate. Yes we're all busy but try setting off 5 minutes earlier. As the Policemen commented above - what does arriving 3 minutes earlier mean if you don't arrive at all!

 

[Nipper]

I thought it was quite an honest article. She commutes with her children, so is likely to occasionally ride the pavement for safety reasons. The cops fined her to get her to attend a seminar, if it was a normal day they would have ignored her or warned her.

Many who post here feel they speak for cyclists, however they only speak for the vehicular speed cyclist who is happy to play a game with the HGVs and nutters in cars. There is another kind of cyclist who wants a safe alternative to the car and it is that kind of cyclist we need, they will relate more to this woman than some speedster tutting every time a slow cyclist feels threatened by the traffic and rides on the pavement.

I liked this chaps comment,
John Bell wrote:
The prime reason that cyclists 'break' the rules of the road is that the road is designed for motorised vehicles, and sod the cyclist. So you have to fight your way. Cycle along a cycle lane into my local town and you have about 18 inches of road to ride in; cars are frequently parked in the lane and the lane only appears sporadically with 'end of cycle lane' a frequent occurence. Let us start to catch up with Germany and Holland:design for the bicycle.

 

[Cab]

I think people outside London underestimate how big it is. The population of Greater London is larger than the population of the next largest 15 cities in the uk combined. Newspapers talk mostly to London because more than 1 in 10 of us live there.

No, newspapers concentrate on London because journalists live there, because the papers are based there, and the myopic London perspective stops at the M25.

For cyclists, how London cyclists behave matters because compared to other cities the proportion of cyclists is high and increasing. As utility cycling become more and more popular, the tensions playing out here today will be in other towns and cities of the UK tomorrow.

With respect to our London members, come to Cambridge. Really, its amazing how Londoners are surprised to see things start play out in a similar way to how they have here for donkeys years.

We are the experiment for what happens when cycling, both good and bad, goes mainstream.

You're the control study. We're the experiment.

 

[Cab]

I thought it was quite an honest article.

I agree, but its irritating in just the same way as Quentin Whatsisname on that ITV thing was. It assumes that the natural state of things for cyclists is that we break rules willy nilly; a harmful (and possibly malicious) sensationalist generalisation.

 

[661-Pete]

This sort of thread lends weight to my argument that CycleChat should have a 'Press' section: so that we can total-up the number of hostile press articles we have all come across, and assess for ourselves just how big the problem is. Bad Press is a significant issue for cycling. And what's more, I'm sure the journos themselves spend a bit of time scouring the forums for feedback. Why not give them what they're after, to our benefit maybe?

Incidentally, while some are a bit equivocal regarding this article, I'd put it firmly in the Bad Press category. It contains too many inaccuracies and generalizations.

 

[Cab]

I quite like that idea Pete.

 

[jonny jeez]

Sorry, struggling to see anything wrong with this article.

Essentially....

Commuter establishes that cycling is good-realises that not all cyclists are from the same breed (and that some are twats giving many others a bad name)- has this confirmed by a Cycling "Czar"- gets caught doing something daft- pays for her actions and feels all the better for it.

What's the issue?

Ignore the comments, they are just from people like you and me airing a non-professional (and often inexperienced) view.

 

[Lizban]

Sorry, struggling to see anything wrong with this article.

Essentially....

Commuter establishes that cycling is good-realises that not all cyclists are from the same breed (and that some are twats giving many others a bad name)- has this confirmed by a Cycling "Czar"- gets caught doing something daft- pays for her actions and feels all the better for it.

What's the issue?

Ignore the comments, they are just from people like you and me airing a non-professional (and often inexperienced) view.

+1

 

[Cab]

What's the issue?

Its an article by a cyclist who doesn't obey the rules and who portrays that as normal an reasonable, pitched largely to the readers of a newspaper that is hostile to cyclists (see other article this weekend, for example) in a fairly calculated way to engender greater hostility.

 

[thomas]

Its an article by a cyclist who doesn't obey the rules and who portrays that as normal an reasonable, pitched largely to the readers of a newspaper that is hostile to cyclists (see other article this weekend, for example) in a fairly calculated way to engender greater hostility.

If you read it there is a moral to the story...she learns her lesson from the lesson with the Police.

It is tapping to the motorists are always being picked on type market....and to be honest, if motorists thought that cyclists were being picked on too it might get us more sympathy.

I don't really have an issue with it. Worst case, it shows that cyclists do get penalised...and it does shown that many cyclists disagree with her actions.

 

[Cab]

If you read it there is a moral to the story...she learns her lesson from the lesson with the Police.

She grudgingly gets her comeuppance after complaining at length; for the most part I'll wager that less than one in ten will get so far in the article as that, they'll go away with yet another 'bloody cyclists' message.

 

[661-Pete]

Sorry, struggling to see anything wrong with this article

This:

But there is also a hidden side to the holier-than-thou cyclist; we may look respectable — and our ranks are swelling day by day; even David Cameron, our probable next prime minister, is at it — but really cyclists are a bandit tribe who blithely ignore the usual laws of the road.

I am a cyclist and I take exception at being called a 'bandit'. Strike out the word 'cyclists' from the passage and insert "black people". What is the effect then?

If only she had inserted the magic words, thus:

but really a minority of cyclists are a bandit tribe

So she tries to mitigate it by adding, two paragraphs lower down:

Now this is not true of all cyclists;

Fine. Just that I reckon a lot of readers are not going to get that far, their eyes will be drawn to her knickers instead.

 

[brokenbetty]

With respect to our London members, come to Cambridge. Really, its amazing how Londoners are surprised to see things start play out in a similar way to how they have here for donkeys years.

Really? In other threads you've made the point that things DON'T play out the same way - how only a minority RLJ'ers and all pedestrians are happy sharing with pavement cyclists.

 

[jonny jeez]

This:
I am a cyclist and I take exception at being called a 'bandit'. Strike out the word 'cyclists' from the passage and insert "black people". What is the effect then?

Sorry Pete, but your way off mark there.

Being black, white, yellow, pink or brown is not a life choice and therefore those who choose to marginalise people of each or any each colour, are just wrong...end of

However, Being a bike BANDIT... is a choice, you either ride responsibly (like you) or you don't (like them), referencing this choice cannot be compared to racism.

I am confuused, Why do people call you a Bandit, I don't think the article called you one, just referred to those that were.

One thing I love about this forum is the solidarity that we all possess. But the flipside is that we can "attack" for attacks sake. I really didn't read this article in the same way that you did, I saw it as a women complaining ad then learning that she was wrong to do so and along the way learning that cyclists are not all "the same" and that only a minority are "Bandits"

 

[shouldbeinbed]

Jonny Jeez

er not quite. the article referred to cyclists as a tribe of bandits in the first instance, tarring us all with the same brush.

its the same as calling all irish thick, all black people gang members, all teenagers hoodie thugs. Yes there may be some that are, and are by choice regardless of the inevitability o their skin colour/age etc, but if She'd written an article on Brixton and started it by saying I've come to a den of yardies and drug pushing murderers, or reported on a teenage carers day out at Blackpool pleasure beach as: Teenagers run riot in family fun spot there'd quite rightly be hell to pay and she'd be out of a job.


That's the issue, we're a soft target for knee jerk reactionary newspaper writing (I won't dignify it with the word Journalism) and even this article which is highlighting the fact that Boris and Police are clamping down on illegality amongst a small cohort of cyclists from the common sense standpoint that Cycling can't be popularised and promoted whilst still plagued by an untackled lawless element still gets turned round into a snide dishonest and unjustifiable attack that we're all cloven footed sons of satan and a whinge from her that we hear from the speeding motorist - why aren't you out catching murderers.

Hasn't she got the wit on that one to realise that the police is split into different responsibilities and there will be people out catching the murderers, as well as police out advising old people how to avoid Bogus Callers and police patrolling the roads looking for dangerous drivers and police patrolling the streets looking for these types of crime - when we start picking and choosing what laws to prosecute and what not then the system falls to bits.

Sadly on cycling this seems to be the Editorial direction of the Times nowadays - never let good news out without a kick in the goolies too.

If Nelson Mandela rode an injured White Supremicist to hospital on his bike this paper would report it as Dangerous old cyclist overloads bike and ignores ambulance service