Shouting Match

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LLB

Guest
Flying_Monkey said:
You may. Though I am also sure that many of them are 'very nice people' outside of their air conditioned mobile armoured cycle crushers. Is there something about being practically invulnerable (or at least thinking that you are) - combined with being 'considerably richer than you' - that makes people more insensitive to the needs of the more vulnerable?

Emotive twaddle :angry:
 

LLB

Guest
tdr1nka said:
May I narrow down the generalisation to 'IMO, the vast majority of 4x4 drivers who only use their vehicles in urban environments are twunts'?

I would go along with that, but how can you tell with just a superficial look ?
 
linfordlunchbox said:
Emotive twaddle :angry:

As used by the motor industry to sell their would-be omnipotent vehicles. Analysis of the buyers here: http://www.elmerfudd.us/suvin.htm

Extract: auto industry market researchers who determined that typical SUV drivers

"tend to be people who are insecure and vain. They are frequently nervous about their marriages and uncomfortable about parenthood. They often lack confidence in their driving skills. Above all, they are apt to be self-centered and self-absorbed, with little interest in their neighbors or communities."

The sad implication of this statement is that according to the automakers (not Bradsher-this is the auto makers talking), if you buy an SUV then there's a good chance that you possess an obnoxious personality and are fundamentally timid and insecure beneath the surface."

Perhaps that explains the experience many have with these types. Very sensitive to blows to their self-esteem - but unable to cope.
 
OP
OP
Flying_Monkey

Flying_Monkey

Recyclist
Location
Odawa
Elementary psychology actually Linford. You should try reading some. You might learn something about yourself...

Well, this evening's episode added another layer. I was a witness to an RTA. Young woman in a little micra-type thing tried to left hook a bus on a roundabout. Didn't work and she ended spinning across the road. If I had been a few metres further on, I would have bought it. After waiting around in the rapidly cooling air for the police and making sure the lass was alright and the bus driver had calmed down, I really couldn't get any speed up the rest of the way home.

There must be something in the air.
 

jonesy

Guru
linfordlunchbox said:
...

Funny enough I agree with your stance about the cyclepaths, and spent 1/2 hour attempting to explain to one of my towns road planners during a public consultation a few weeks ago why cycle paths don't work for cyclists and give drivers 'IN GENERAL' the notion we don't belong on the roads - he said 'I never thought about it that way before' :angry:

...

Sadly, as ever it shouldn't even be necessary to have to explain this to transport planners, because they ought to be familiar with good practice guidance on cycling infrastructure (see links here).

Print out and hand round the Cycling England Design Checklist.
 

LLB

Guest
Nortones2 said:
As used by the motor industry to sell their would-be omnipotent vehicles. Analysis of the buyers here: http://www.elmerfudd.us/suvin.htm

Extract: auto industry market researchers who determined that typical SUV drivers

"tend to be people who are insecure and vain. They are frequently nervous about their marriages and uncomfortable about parenthood. They often lack confidence in their driving skills. Above all, they are apt to be self-centered and self-absorbed, with little interest in their neighbors or communities."

The sad implication of this statement is that according to the automakers (not Bradsher-this is the auto makers talking), if you buy an SUV then there's a good chance that you possess an obnoxious personality and are fundamentally timid and insecure beneath the surface."

Perhaps that explains the experience many have with these types. Very sensitive to blows to their self-esteem - but unable to cope.

Talk about generalisations with parenthood and marriages :angry:, that describes a dysfunctional world. Explain this - Of all my friends who I went to school with and still stay in contact with, only myself and one others marriage have stood the test of time. His wife is now pregnant with her 6th child after 21 years of marriage, and no they aren't parasites, he is a director of a succesful family joinery firm. He drives a tuned Subaru Imprezza and a Shogun which is like mine used as a utility vehicle. I have 2 teenage kids aged 15 & 18 and I've been happily married for 20 years. None other I associate with have either married(committed) and stuck with it, and the single childless ones cut a forlorn path through life who always come across as missing out on something even if they have managed to do the world tours and exotic holidays 3 times a year.

What has been described could quite easily be said about any group of people if you study enough of them. That is the nature of the beast.

If the author had looked closer at the 'God Bless America' mentaility, he may have understood a lot more why so many americans think its is their god given right to dictate to the rest of the world. The cars may be indicative of what he says in the US, but I'd say that they are a symptom of the countries problems and not the root cause.
 
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Flying_Monkey

Flying_Monkey

Recyclist
Location
Odawa
linfordlunchbox said:
What has been described could quite easily be said about any group of people if you study enough of them. That is the nature of the beast.

You were saying something about twaddle, Linford? :angry:
 

LLB

Guest
Flying_Monkey said:
You were saying something about twaddle, Linford? ;)

Exactly that, you cannot really judge a book by its cover else all lycra clad roadies would be labeled as gay, as well as all leather clad motorcyclists, or all Audi TT drivers etc etc
 

Milo

Guru
Location
Melksham, Wilts
Granted there are 4x4s out there for real reasons and I have seen these at use on farms etc.
However more than 80 % of these are not used in this manner most of the 4x4s were I am have never seen a field in their life and im in a rural area.
And I hate to say it but the folk driving these are on the whole complete cretins.
 

Fab Foodie

hanging-on in quiet desperation ...
Location
Kirton, Devon.
linfordlunchbox said:
Exactly that, you cannot really judge a book by its cover else all lycra clad roadies would be labeled as gay, as well as all leather clad motorcyclists, or all Audi TT drivers etc etc
...are hairdressers?
 

LLB

Guest
You're personalising it again Linf.

How about you accept the fact that some people buy 4x4s to try to create the persona that they think the machines will give them, without it necessarily meaning that this has to apply to you?

No-one buys a Nissan Micra to try to prove their masculinity do they? Or a Daihatsu Charade, or a Skoda Fabia?

But a Range Rover Sport (me Vinnie Jones or a footballing idol)? Or a Hummer (Arnie has one and they kick ass) or something with 'Amazon' written on the back (that makes me like an SAS soldier man)? Why do you think it's called an Amazon Linf?

I've no idea, what I do know is that the UN use them all the time in Africa, the middle east etc etc, and they are one of the best towing cars on the road. I've not got one as the engine a bigun and the economy is in single figures.

Oh, made by the same people who make the Prius ;)
 

LLB

Guest
User1314 said:
Got beeped by a silver 4x4 thingie as I pulled away from the ASL at Balham tube lights today at 5.40ish. Of course caught up with the little male plump driver at the next lights about half a mile away.

I knocked on his window.

He wound it it down.

"Why did you beep me?" I asked politely

"BECAUSE YOU WOZ TAKING UP THE WHOLE ROAD!!!!!" HE SHOUTED, RAISING HIS ARMS UP AND WIDE. "YOU ARE SMALL AND YOU WOZ TAKING UP THE WHOLE ROAD!!!!!!!!!!!"

He held the mobile he'd been texting on in his left hand as he indicated the "whole road" I'd been taking up with his arms stretched wide.

"LOOK AT THE SIZE OF YOU AND YOUR BIKE COMPARED TO ME!" He shouted again.

"You're on the phone." I said

He threw the phone down.

"No I'm not." he said. More quitely.

"But I saw you. You're lying. You're a liar." I said. I could've added "and you're fat and stupid - in fact you are a fat, stupid liar" but I didn't want to inflame the situation.

I kept catching up with him for about another couple of set of lights (whereupon I gave him a friendly wave and a smile on passing each time); before leaving him behind stuck in a massive traffic jam that stretched all the way down Tooting Broadway.

:blush::biggrin::biggrin::biggrin::biggrin:

Quality post ;)
 

tdr1nka

Taking the biscuit
linfordlunchbox said:
I would go along with that, but how can you tell with just a superficial look ?

Do please come and do the school run with Ms.tdr1nka and I on the tandem of a morning and then tell me I have only had a superficial look. I could only better the number of Chelsea tractors by driving a combine harvester to school.

I have no problem with those who legitimately drive a 4x4 owing to location, but cars of this size seriously promote the very worst overblown air of self importance in the urban driver and are merely gas guzzling status symbols.
 
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Flying_Monkey

Flying_Monkey

Recyclist
Location
Odawa
linfordlunchbox said:
I've no idea, what I do know is that the UN use them all the time in Africa, the middle east etc etc, and they are one of the best towing cars on the road. I've not got one as the engine a bigun and the economy is in single figures.

Linford, this is why people tend to think you don't quite understand what the point is a lot of the time. This is not about you (or your frickin horsebox...) or indeed about the UN in Africa. It is about whether huge 4*4 vehicles are bought and used by people as markers of status and importance to the detriment of other British urban road users, particular more vulnerable ones like cyclists.

Further, you can continue to prate on as if people who get the sharp end of this and complain are somehow like racists, but this just further demonstrates your complete lack of understanding of what it is like to cycle in British cities on a daily basis. Talk of prejudice and discrimination shouldn't be abused by the powerful and privileged - it devalues the real suffering of people who do experience it. Urban 4*4 drivers are driving these vehicles by choice regardless of their effects on others. They are part of the problem, not part of the solution. They are not victims.
 
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