Kaipaith said:
Personally, I don't think the general population will pay a blind bit of notice, except to self congratulate the success of Team GB, because, y'know, it's the guy drinking beer on the sofa wot won it.
However, it is about time that Matthew Parris offered a decent apology for what he said, because otherwise articles like this will carry on haunting him for the rest of his career.
Great comment:
"They make no contribution in road taxes, yet get their own lanes. Their not obliged to be insured to cycle on roads, and in the event of an accident involving a motor vehicle, the car is at fault regardless. Their not requried to undertake any kind of testing to ensure thier fit to cycle on roads and so frequently disregard basic rules of the road and finally, treat pedestrians with utter contempt."
The same is true of pedestrians, of course.
A few quibbles, however., on the basis that you're almost entirely wrong about everything:
- Motorists contribute precisely bugger all in "road taxes" but they do pay a tax for the privilege of owning a motor vehicle. The Queens Highway is free to all and funded through general taxation instead of a ring-fenced fund.
- Bikes aren't required to be insured because the amount of damage they can cause is likely to be within the financial means of the cyclist. They are still required to pay for that damage.
- In the event of an accident the car driver is not held to be at fault automatically, especially if they put their foot down and get the hell out of there before the cyclist can take down their number.
- Disregarding the rules of the road is something that neither horse riders, motorists, cyclists nor stilt-walkers have a monopoly on, and if you can't see that whenever you're driving then I suggest that you stop driving immediately and see an optician before you kill someone.
Most cyclists appear to have a healthy respect for basic rules like giving way, if only because a polystyrene bucket on your head carries remarkably little weight in an argument about who was allowed to move first.
- Lacking respect for pedestrians is about more than the tits who cycle on the pavement (who'd no doubt justify their obnoxious behaviour by mentioning the lack of respect for them by cars, which implies that they believe they're merely transposing the attitude problem down the food chain). We could equally cite car drivers, who believe that the pavement is perfectly legitimate ground for them as long as they require it to squeeze past another vehicle or put their hazard lights on, as if that magically makes them into some kind of quantum material that refuses to interact with other matter.
- Finally, yes, cyclists don't have to pass a test. I guess this must have been a multiple-choice rant, where even the biggest idiot can get something right by ticking random boxes. Internet posters, eh? I'd ban the lot of them, me.
