The following letter was for internal consumption in answer to Lincolnshire Echo's stance on cycling. However they published it.
Hi Paul,
Re the Boris Bikes & the Echo comment.
For some time I have been aware that politicians, some with an anti driver
ideology, others desperate to mitigate the economic mess we are in, have been
encouraging cycling as if it can replicate 300,000,000,000 driver miles a year,
in the minimum time and the transportation of large loads or or numerous people.
Of course it is utter nonsense. It is also nonsense to promote cycling, not
necessary for the survival of the community, as if on an equal basis and at the
expense of 35 million drivers without whom , including private, the economy
would collapse over-night and all of us would die very rapidly from lack of
basics; including food, water, heat & medicine. Quite simply, drivers &
walkers are entirely necessary for the survival of all and other road users
simply aren’t. Think about that.
So in view of this I have been asking a simple question. Would we normally
or under any other circumstances tolerate unprotected humans mixing, mingling
and often competing with large pieces of heavy fast machines operated by people
of various, mostly poor ability, unless it was extremely crucial that they
should? It’s a fair question. Now please look at http://bit.ly/VNby9D & http://bit.ly/KEfqjh
clearly cycling on roads is very dangerous. It is only healthy if not killed or
turned into a paraplegic as people often are.
In promoting cycling, Is the Echo going to take responsibility for the next
Lincolnshire cycle fatality? I certainly believe the politicians who have been
exploiting cyclists for their own agenda should feel guilty when one dies or is
seriously injured; don’t you?
Don’t let’s look at danger through rose coloured spectacles. We need to
re-think what roads are for; it’s no longer 1920.
Wishes
What a load of rubbish! No one is asking cycling to replace motoring, only reduce it.
ReplyDeletePromoting cycling doesn't kill cyclists, poor driving or riding does this. The roads are for a shared purpose, any form of transport is allowed, cars, buses, cycles, horses...
Promoting and encouraging anyone to do something very risky is bound to end in tears. It's the whole concept, people mixing & mingling & competing, getting in front of heavy essential machinery on the move, operated by any Tom Dick & Harry is by definition crazy & would be considered that normally.
ReplyDeleteIt's not 1913 anymore it's 2013. Horses are pure recreation and obsolete. Would we allow five a side football in the road or table tennis, so horses are an unnecessary liability & cyclists only marginally less so, but with much more risk.
Why reduce a vital piece of our infrastructure that all people depend on directly or indirectly? Just because cyclists are insecure? They have a choice whether it's a wise mode of transport.
Since the piece was published, another Lincolnshire cyclists has been killed. I am working hard to stop that; the politicians are doing the opposite.
Driving is dangerous, walking is dangerous, how motorists are killed by other motorist each year? How many Pedestrians are killed by motorists each year?
ReplyDeleteNo one wants to remove the infrastructure, bicycles have never and will never replace haulage vehicles of any type. Cyclists are only insecure because of bigoted views like yours. You justify death to serve your purpose/opinion. You try to intimidate, bullying the perceived weaker people for your views, how many "great tyrants" had used these methods in the past to justify their opinion?
As I have mentioned, cars, vans, buses, lorries are not dangerous to a cyclists, it is only when it has a driver they become weapons!!!
You are the one promoting death on the roads, encouraging negative attitudes towards cyclist, using intimidation. If you want to stop a cyclist dying, stop writing and stop driving!
What utter garbage you write. Watch my lips. Cars & by definition their drivers are dangerous machines like any big heavy moving machine. That's why you don't cycle down railway lines or mingle with earth movers isn't it? But because you have been told it's your right to do it, you mingle & mix with these machines because you have a right to; not because is makes sense. Then having done so you need to blame someone when it goes wrong.
ReplyDeleteOf course walking & driving are dangerous but unlike cycling they are an essential risk for the community. If it were not for drivers, especially car drivers our society would now collapse very rapidly & most of us would die.
Now why is it so wicked to make truthful remarks without you calling me a bully & bigoted? What 'weaker' people am I intimidating and bullying? It is the supine UK driver who are the weaklings allowing themselves to be bullied. The posts on here, & on twitter clearly show who the aggressors are. I do not need to turn to personal bile & venom to make my case.
Do you know why there is so much anger? Cyclists cannot accept simple truth.
East midlands driver here- writing in my capacity as a cyclist.
ReplyDeleteWhat is wrong with 'pure recreation'? Are people not allowed to enjoy what they like doing in your world?
And please do define essential. OK, for some journeys a car may be the best option to complete it. However- for many journeys, where the sole purpose is moving a single person from one point to another, with maybe minimal baggage- there could be many viable options- bus, train, walk, cycle, car, taxi.
Given that cars are a hideously inefficient way to move single people around in terms of energy use, and that energy is getting more difficult to come by, is it wise that society continues to base itself around the car?
I managed to lose three stone in weight last year thanks mainly to my cycling. How- other than a serious accident leading to amputation of limbs- could I do that in a car?
Re pure recreation. So you advocate table tennis or snooker in the road? Horses are now just that; recreation and a liability to safety and other road users. They are unpredictable, have no direct or positive steering, no brakes and coming accross them just around a bend is similar to a dangerously parked vehicle. Plus horses don't like roads and motors either and would prefer the fields. I don't appreciate your gratuitous 'in your world' it's our world I am refering to.I think it's your world that is an unrealistic place!
ReplyDeleteEssential. How many car journies can you specify where there was only one person unnecessarily? Why would anyone want to drive for no reason? But what is it about you cyclists? The point I make is a factual one. Society depends on all drivers and walkers but would continue quite happily & safer without cyclists. The only answer I get about that is some twaddle about personal essential use not how unessential cycling is to the community and how pretty useless it is for the community. The point being is that the cycle lobby group is being pandered to at the expense of safety and way above its importance to society.If cyclists get all they want it will be at the expense of essential transport is the point. So how much sense is that?
Hello Keith, I just wanted to say seeming as you blocked me on Twitter, although I was polite - you mentioned whether train drivers should be arrested if the train had hit someone? Obviously this is of no comparison to our discussion about hitting a cyclist as a car driver or even, a pedestrian. Trains cannot choose to veer from their course! So, I just wanted to get that across. Your opinion is your entitlement but it is shame that you felt the need to block me because you did not wish to hear my response.
ReplyDeletePandora
You were not blocked because I didn't want to hear your response but I cannot keep answering and repeating the same type of questions indefinitely and so when I feel that the subject has been well exhausted or in the case of rudeness and trolls I have to block for pure practical reasons. Running three tweets is just a tiny part of my work. I think my point about being in the path of big heavy machines when an accident happens it's always a drivers fault by implication is nonsense was well illustrated by my analogy. You may disagree but I don't engage people to change them but to let the readers and followers make up their minds who is making most sense.
ReplyDeleteNo I appreciate being tested to see how well the case stands up. I am particularly heartened by abuse,personal retorts, dishonest attributes and point changing because all that indicates no logical contradiction is available.
So please don't be offended. You have been of great assistance.
Fair enough Keith and we will just have to agree to disagree in that case. At the very least, you have not been rude at all in your points made which is refreshing! I don't agree that it is always the driver's fault, that would be absurd! Of course accidents happen but what other way around the whole arresting situation is possible? In any case, they don't refer to them as accidents but merely incidents....as an accident implies that no one was to blame. In the case of the cyclist that died recently, haven't read up on what was going on recently but I hope it wasn't caused by dangerous driving, if it were, they would have known instantly I'd have thought!
ReplyDeleteI just thought that there could be a little more logic to the Keith Peat that we have been communicating with recently, in other words, surely you must understand that drivers can do stupid things? As do cyclists, there are many YouTube channels made by cyclists FOR cyclists doing a manner of crazy things! I drive and cycle, I cock up, I would pray to high heavens that I'd never hurt someone and fatally too! If it did happen, I'd have to accept responsibility if I didn't pay attention, drunk drove/cycled (which I have never done) etc. But, if someone walked out in front of me and I hit them, I'd protest my innocence etc, I'd expect to be arrested for it though, it would be heartbreaking but I'd have to go through it. Surely that is the process, here in this country?
Ok let's explain a bit more. At the moment a very vocal cycle lobby is demanding slower speeds, motor bans, more limits, tougher sentencing of drivers and more prosecution. For a minority group, they are getting totally disproportionate political support for all this & even have their own All Party Cycling Group in parliament. Why no all party drivers group? After all there are 35 million of them. It is because the UK driver is totally supine and allows itself to be bullied and penalised when, as a massive voting block, much of what is happening to them certainly wouldn't be. They as a driver's vote could always be in government. I will be giving eveidence today at yet another road safety select committee, the sub plot is really against the interest of drivers. The Cycle witnesses, probably with no road safety CV or professional qualification at all, will get as much time as me, but they're from a minority.
ReplyDeleteAll I am doing is not letting the cycle lobby get away with it all. That they can focus and descend on me is because I tend to be a lone voice but it also means that they really are worried and concerned about the validity of what I am saying too. That they can only oppose it with bile & venom is even more encouraging.
Re arrest: No the police do have the option of arresting when appropriate instead of which they are arresting when they have no prime facie case. That they have the power to do that is no excuse to do it at that time. So you have been involved in an horrific accident with your car, someone is dead, your car is wrecked, you have escaped but in shock & trauma and that is when police arrest you? At a time you are even in doubt and questioning if you could have acted differently? No that is wrong and unethical. Find me a lawyer who would advise his client to comment under those circumstances. Then having arrested this poor soul, the police have the cheek to boldly advertise for witnesses which rather proves my point that they have arrested before establishing a case.
Accident: It is still a legal word but an anti driver Ex Chief Constable, he was called radical, I called him nuts, and known as The Ayetolla of the Traffic Taliban wrote a bible of dealing with drivers and one of his ideas was to remove the word accident from the vocabulory so that there will always be a culprit to pursue. The anti driver officials latched on to that too. I don't accept it, and am currently pointing out to drivers that we must resurrect the word accident. It was part of a clear anti driver policy to remove it from road accidents. Accident is a lawful word and applies to all unintentional acts where injury or damage occurs. The incidents of drivers deliberately driving at people are rare, and amount to attempted murder. The rest are unintentional and so remain accidents no matter what other words the taliban wish to impose. That isn't to say that prosecutions shouldn't ensue but just compair the sentencing of someone who unsafely handles a shotgun and kills by accident, and yet drivers with all these humans mingling with them, unlike rail tracks and runways, are facing 14 years, regularly get 5 years, and unlike the gun incident or murder, on the evidence of the subjective often hostile opinion only of non experts. In a murder trial such witness would be confined to fact and what they saw, and experts would be exactly that. So even the trial & punishment of drivers does not require the burden of proof and evidence for long sentences of the deliberate violent acts either. Is this fair? No I don't think so.
So all this that must be understood and I am afraid Twitter is really no place to make a case. My followers who are national by the way, do appreciate all these valid points I am raising. As you say, very politely.
Sorry for the typos typos but always rushed with much to get through!
ReplyDeleteArrrh Typos X 2
ReplyDeleteHello Keith, I like to see things from both sides, that's the kind of person that I am, I can understand your points 100% and I am glad that you clarified them. Yes, Twitter isn't the place for such extensive discussions, obviously due to the limitation of characters, which can be irritating! And secondly, Twitter can be quite reactionary so you will find that abuse and disagreements will come to anyone rather sharply.
ReplyDeleteI do honestly believe that it is truly possible for drivers of vehicles and drivers of two wheeled (or even three wheeled!) cycles can find a way to compromise with each other. I do both, as I told you before but even if had never driven a car, I'd have the same opinion.
I think that unfortunately, there is a very huge variety of levels of cycling, velocycling, tricycling, etc..and the problem is, not everyone knows how quickly these things can actually go. My partner and I regularly go cycling together, through Richmond park, Bushy Park etc, occasionally we will go into London. We feel we cycle well, indicate correctly and have never caused anyone driving their car any issues, obviously we know that not all are of an "acceptable" level, they therefore do stupid things, (I'm not sure if you have seen a YouTube channel called 'SillyCyclists' but it is absolutely fantastic) - it points out cyclists' errors, so not just focusing on cars etc.
I did toy with the popular idea as to whether we cyclists should undergo some form of training, lessons, test...so that we are able to at least demonstrate some capability. It would be great to have Dutch style cycle system too, but the infrastructure just isn't possible at the mo, if it were in place, I reckon there probably would be more harmony. What do you think?
Anyway, re: arresting, has it always been this way as you had described? Are police officers allowed to decide individually how they want to handle a case? So, if I'm a policewoman and I'm called out to a scene where a driver has killed a cyclist by accident or intentionally (assuming a very rare case of vendetta, obviously highly unlikely, but what the heck!) - I can decide if I arrest the driver or, do what with him or her? I didn't know there were other options? I hope you understand what I'm asking!
Re: the word "accident." Sure, as you said, it is rare that anyone would deliberately go for someone, but I have seen it with my own eyes sadly, mainly whilst I've been driving and it's a shame. I'm not saying the the other car driver would intentionally want to kill a cyclist as it were but, some will want to frighten a cyclist just for a laugh, so that is when accidents can happen, it is a tricky one, who would be to blame? Do you see what I mean? It would be good to see just a bit more mutual respect amongst everyone who uses the road. I am not biased to either car or cyclist when I say all this, cyclists are aggressive too, just as much as a car driver can be.
I know that "it wasn't always like this" as such, but, as times change, more and more cyclists use the roads, my question ultimately is, what is the rush? The world should slow down a little and open their eyes more. Getting from a to b doesn't have to be a war amongst anyone.
P.S. Typos are not accepted particularly from a chap who is older than I am! ;-)
The problem is this. It is the cycling lobby demanding more road space, less for drivers, more prosecution of drivers,slowing drivers and longer prison terms for them. So it's right then to focus on what cycling is and what it does. It is the cycle lobby that is drawing all this attention to itself but it doesn't like its own description of itself which the driver lobby is then entitled to raise and note.
ReplyDeleteIf an alien was asked: 'Now we have these big heavy fast moving essential machines, operated by very averags people and we are thinking of introducing humans amongst them, to mingle with them and even compete with them.' he would say we are nuts. Because we have done it since the turn of the last century is irrelevant. He would then ask: 'But why do you want to do it? Is it essential to your community and society to survive?' And we have to say 'no'. Now that is cycling. His reaction would be 'So you want to allow people to be in extreme danger, make the machine operators liable when it goes wrong, and none of this is essential? I ain't hanging around here anymore you're crazy' So this is what happens when the cycle lobby start making demands. Someone has a right to query it all.
It wouldn't be unique to ban people from placing themselves in harms way. Drugs, Guns,under age drink, fixing your electrics, gas it goes on and on. Cyclists are raising all this and perhaps if they cannot accept that what they are choosing to do now is no longer appropriate someone else must or perhaps when in a hole they need to stop digging it deeper for themselves.
I have no problem with publishing your veiws and testing mine and value it too. But we will need to end it there as I have a lot on. Wishes.
I have a simple question. Do you, Keith Peat, think cyclists (and horses) should be banned from the carriageway?
ReplyDeleteHorses are now totally obsolete on roads except for pure recreation. We don't allow tennis or five a side football or stamp collecting in the road so it makes no sense to allow large unpredictable animals, who incidentally don't want to be there either, on roads just to indulge a minority past- time; especially as drivers are being made liable for their safety too. Horses were still predominant at the turn of the 19th century but increasingly were replaced by motor transport during the 20th Century.
ReplyDeleteRoads are now much faster & certainly more dangerous places because of the increase in volume & tonnage of road transport. To a certain extent, the horse extends the issue to: What should our roads be confined to in the 21st Century?'. I suggest only what is crucial to the community as a whole & not merely personal preferences. What we mustn't do is get stuck in the 19th Century about roads.
As to cycling. It is cycling & cyclists who are focussing on their preference by making costly demands of drivers, for more driver accountability, more driver prosecutions and longer prison terms, more space for them -by definition less for drivers- and more driver liabilty. So it is right then to ask what cycling is and if it is that crucial to the economy & the community as a whole?
Two things emerge. One is that our economy is based on all types of driving and would collapse without it. This is not so with cyclists. So begs the question: 'Why tamper with the former to please an unnecessary minority group?' The other is that, normally, anything resembling cycling risk wouldn't be allowed even if it does have adherants. We banned drugs, opium, under age drinking, guns of all kinds, smoking, fixing gas & electric at home & many other things to protect people from harmful activity.
I merely point all this out and ask a question that needs to be asked. You want me to express what I think needs to be done. But seeing or pointing out a reality and raising a question doesn't demand that I should provide an answer to it. That's as daft as saying that because I see a cow is limping I know how to fix it or the water from my tap is yellow and dodgy to drink, I must provide the answer of how to put it right.
What I do, is point out simple self evident facts. Firstly it's for the individual to either accept them & do what's safest for them & their children or ignore them and still risk their wellbeing based on the very thin thread of 'Their rights'.
But if the cycle lobby are to rely on politicians then those politicians too must also face these awkward realities about cycling on roads must they not? And those that promote it must share responsibility next time any cyclist is killed or injured on our roads and doubly so child cyclists who depend on adults for their guidance.
Perhaps it may be better if the cycle lobby were not making so much noise about drivers, their activity would not have been drawn to my scrutiny as it has.
So it is for everyone to address the problem honestly & until then I don't know what is an equitable or viable solution to cycling amongst motor vehicles.
And this is a good example of why Twitter isn't any good for a full dialogue.
So you do think horses should be banned from the carriageway.
ReplyDeleteBut you don't think cyclists should be banned from the carriageway, but shouldn't moan so much about motorised traffic.
Am I getting that right?
I think what I have written is very clear. Make of it as you will and others will make of it as they will.
DeleteKeith cycling is not un-necessary as you argue. It is very necessary to me. I could not afford to commute around London solely by public transport. It would cost me far more in time and in money than cycling does. It beats every other method of getting around London hands down.
ReplyDeleteMy 13 mile journey is over £10 a day by train. That is for a 15 minute longer journey time than by bike.
Driving would take a ridiculous amount of time at rush hour.
Walking is about 4 hours.
I have cycled tens of thousands of miles in and around London (no exaggeration) and am fitter and lighter as a result. Off course people do die, and that is awful. But the macro picture is that it is better for the health of the population, and cheaper for the NHS, if people cycle.
It's less cars clogging up the roads too. It's win win.
Personally I don't lobby for less cars on the roads, more space for bikes, lower speed limits etc. People want to drive, fine that is up to them. But try to take away the best way of travelling around and you will just annoy a much larger percentage of the population and make things worse for drivers.
Sam there is a persistent confusion between personal preferenece & personally essential & what is essential to the community as a whole. Why the opposing argument seems to miss that is totally beyond me. Even so you could not survive without drivers & cars whereas they would survive very well without cyclists and cycling.
ReplyDeleteIt's the cyclists who are raising the issues of their safety on the roads and I agree with them. So before any changes are made, we must look at what cycling is, and if it is crucial to the community. That's what we have always done when deciding if things are too dangerous for people and on that basis alone, stopping them. It certainly makes no sense to react by hampering a major essential part of infrastructure and increasing liability for those in it though.
You speak of cars 'clogging up the roads' as if cycling is an alternative. It isn't. Much of that clogging has been deliberately caused by closing legitimate alternative roads, and halving road space in local schemes often from a cross between Green anti driver ideology and socialist ideas.
If cycling were the best way of travelling around why are cyclists a tiny minority of 65 million people?
From your own description, it is evident that you are fit and able to do it but to be honest, and I used to commute 26 miles a day in London by bike, it isn't comfortable, a hard seat, pumping to make headway, cold & wet or hot and sweaty, then a shower & change at both ends too which adds time to the journey.
The fact is most commuters don't drive or cycle. I am very concerned that you seem to think that you have no option but to cycle to your work. All depends on your remaining fit then. There is another very cheap option and that is by moped or scooter. Still much cheaper than train & faster than by bike. At some point you will have to find an alternative since most people don't cycle all their working life.
> If cycling were the best way of travelling around why are cyclists a tiny minority of 65 million people?
Deleteis that also true in holand?
> From your own description, it is evident that you are fit and able to do it but to be honest, and I used to commute 26 miles a day in London by bike, it isn't comfortable, a hard seat, pumping to make headway, cold & wet or hot and sweaty, then a shower & change at both ends too which adds time to the journey.
and you are comfortable in the car in the traffic not able to move bacause another lovely driver decided that speeding is ok and caused an accident killing 2 kids ... great alternative.
> I am very concerned that you seem to think that you have no option but to cycle to your work.
I am very concerned that people spend one third of their life in the car while there is a life out there. instead they could cycle to work and have a chat with a office mate living in the same vileage on the way... but guess what? since they drive they hate them pulling off in the front of them and dont know they live two streets away...
oh well.
I wonder if you will make this public ...
suspect not.
so cyclists are 'un-wanted' on the roads but you are aquite happy for them to pay the read tax than.. right? because we do.
ReplyDeleteNo but cyclists are uneeded to keep society going. But drivers are paying £50 Billion pert year in driving taxes on top of what we all, including cyclists, are paying.
DeleteYou completely miss the point. We are pro driver and not against people cycling what I do is answer anti driving anti driver of comments like yours. Fine if you want to cycle but clearly the majority don't and never will for many good reasons. Your post is typicle. Because it suits you and you do it-not too long and you will join non cyclists too- you expect everyone must. You also assume those drivers have an alternative. How do you know that? Fact is you can cycle as much as you like but without car drivers society & the economy collapses and you will soon die. The fact is that you are depending on all these drivers whether you like it or not.
ReplyDeleteWhere the idae of "but without car drivers society & the economy collapses and you will soon die" is from? can you elaborate that? Sociaty without cars would do just fine. To say that 'we will all die without' a car is little exaggeration. Do you have any example of society which did extinct because they stopped driving?
DeleteI am very concerned that you cannot see life without cars.
I think cars are very useful and needed for specific use but building society around them is bit ... odd. They are just a tool to do specific things and nothing more.
Your argument about 'money put back to economy by drivers' shows lack of knowledge on the subject. If drivers wouldnt spend such a huge lump of money on the car industry you believe they wouldnt spend it at all? and do what? put it in the socks?
Do you have an idea how much cyclists spend on their kit (bicycles, clothing and so on)?
Also cyclists are less aggressive than drivers as they use their energy to get from the pont a to b and dont build up anger.
So I can see that you do not like cyslists but making up a theory and all this 'not needed' is bit off. As said cars 'are not needed too' and if they wouldnt exist poeple would develop diferent means of transportation. IF cars would vanish tomorrow it would only take longer to move goods and we would only move essencial one instead.
Well this isn't an idea it's a fact and anyone who has followed me will know I have already explained this in full elsewhere. However to get it on to this page will be very useful.
ReplyDeleteIf there were no cars there would be no food, no water, no doctors, no NHS, no public transport, no commercial transport, no medicine & no commerce and no emergency services. How do your water suppliers get to work? The lorry driver get to his lorry? The train or plane driver get to their trains & planes? How do the passengers get to them without a car involved somewhere, whether private or taxi? Ever seen the massive NHS staff car parks full of their cars? Why are Tesco, Asda,Morrisons, Lidls, PC World, Halfords, Wickes, surrounded by massive car parks? Because whole families are depending on the household waggon to get the food. These stores are literally re-stocking by the hour based on computer last minute ordering. They do not have the capacity to store goods more than a day so they are depending on hoardes of people with their own buggy to shift it continuously. Police tavel miles to distant postings by private car as do firefighters & ambulance drivers and so it goes on.
So our whole society is based on the motor car and anyone who thinks that because they do not like them, or don't even drive is a fool if they think they do not depend on the motor car to keep them and the community going. We all do.
For thousands of years society has been depending on non human powered transport to thrive & exist starting from taming the hores. Then chariots & carts, wagons of all sorts, fast stage coaches & private buggies. This higher speed helped society to expand and grow and developed commerce with other countries. It also developed the railways too for without the wagons to cart materials and people there would not have been the expansion. None of this was done by pushbikes by the way. At the end of the 19th century, the motor car & motor transport evolved, and although horse drawn
waggons were replaced at a very early stage, private ownership of cars didn't really take off for ordinary people until about the fifties & sixties. As society got more mobile and faster in all aspects, so life expectancy went up too so we all live longer. Now horse drawn has been totally replaced and overtaken by good reliable, cheaper and faster, heavier loads, of motor transport. This also allowed for people to travel further to their work and travel further and do more at their work. It also, having their own cart now, allowed them to bulk buy cheaper too. So the whole economy is now based on all motor transport and so is our society to. There has also been a massive population explosion since the middle of the 20 century to be sustained and kept alive too so there's no going back on all this.
So our whole society is based on the motor car and anyone who thinks that because they do not like them, or don't even drive is a fool if they think they do not depend on the motor car to keep them and the community going. We all do.
You miss the point about economy. Driver taxes are £50 billion a year but as explained above without cars our whole economy dies literally overnight.
Why does being pro driver translate to me being anti cyclist? That is evidence of cyclists being anti driver. 'To be pro driver is seen as anti cyclist'. Let's get this clear. I only advance the case for drivers. That isn't anti cyclist. I cycle for goodness sake!
You don't cycle Keith. How could you? You claim that It is only fools who mix and compete with heavy machinary.
ReplyDeleteHow can I be anti-driver?
I drive for Peat's sake.
If you think cycling is as important as driving, you are anti driver. I cycle too but I know society wouldn't lose if I didn't. And I do accept the risks without whingeing too.
DeleteJust wondering what this vehicle dependant society will do when the oil runs out.
ReplyDeleteWell that's a long way off and then we have Shale to turn to. But there would need to be a mass cull of humans now, with the return of the rest to conabasions near to jobs and families a la pre 1950s. Even then at no point in history were societies built on manpower transport, especially push bikes.
DeleteWell that's a long way off and then we have Shale to turn to. But there would need to be a mass cull of humans now, with the return of the rest to conabasions near to jobs and families a la pre 1950s. Even then at no point in history were societies built on manpower transport, especially push bikes.
DeleteKeith if we ban remove all the bikes from the roads and replace them with cars you think that will solve all the UK's transport problems and reduce the collision and death rates
DeletePeople who cycle to work are near enough to use public transport so no increase in car use would be noticed. But it's not for me to ban anything and I didn't suggest it. By the way I take it I am entitled to reply to a road safety issue in a newspaper.
DeleteBTW DT, Re 'reduce collision & death rates', just see. http://bit.ly/1Da3Pou they would have been zero for starters.
Delete