Here's the place.
What a superb medium Twitter is for any organisation to spread its messages and news. But it attracts every type of individual who think it is a message board, blog, or even like facebook. It isn't any of these. Nor is it intended to be a discussion forum. If it were, contributors wouldn't be confined to a mere 140 characters would they?
The simple fact is that it's not possible to do justice to a complex issue in 140 characters and it isn't wise to try to do that.
Twitter however does attract the trolls who's only aim is to taunt, ridicule, abuse and bully; usually hiding behind a pseudonym whilst telling blatant lies too.
The trolls love twitter because they can show off to all their pals whilst contributing nothing adult to any debate, wasting valuable time and in road safety matters, that can cost lives.
One of their strategies is to demand proof and evidence for any fact or conclusion which may reasonably be drawn from actual events. For example: The statement that the faster a cyclist rides the more severe their injury and less chance to avoid an accident is not challenged by trolls, who will not admit it's correct either but instead they demand evidence of it. Apart from avoiding a truth, this tactic is common and a diversion from a serious truth as it affects what should be advised whilst making the troll seem intelligent. So in this case avoiding that cyclists actions are a factor in their accidents. That is just one example of an easily recognised but dangerous tactic of trolls.
The best place to debate any issue is on a blog. One of the disadvantages of Twitter is that a new follower has no idea what has already been answered at length; often repeatedly. Trolls don't like Blog because they don't get an audience unless they are sensible and behave and they find it impossible to do either. In other words only genuine queries need apply.
So this page is dedicated to genuine query and comment on all matters driving and road safety. Some will be published for all to see and some wont.
" Twitter however does attract the trolls who's only aim is to taunt, ridicule, abuse and bully; usually hiding behind a pseudonyms". Your words, not mine. Since you indulge in re-tweeting your own tweets under 3 pseudonyms, maybe you should heal thyself first. Oh, and it should be "whose", not who's.
ReplyDeleteSo, why do you attract the "trolls"? Because you make bold claims but fail to provide evidence. Scientific researchers have to prove how they came to their conclusions. My son has to show his workings when he presents his homework. But, when people ask you to justify statements like "every 1 mph reduction in speed limits costs £n Billion", you respond by calling the person an idiot. Equally, you state that cars are essential to modern life, a view I support. To extrapolate this argument to say that, by definition that makes all car journeys essential is illogical and unproven.
I have already asked you to explain the following. 2 families in the same street decide to go to the park 2 miles away, one family going by car the other by bike. Are you saying that the family in the car is making an essential journey in their car and the other family is not? Or, how about if a school leaver is offered a job on the minimum wage 5 miles from home,should they turn down the job because they cannot afford a car? You have never responded, probably because both examples expose the feebleness of your theory.
Road safety is important but you actually contribute nothing to the debate, because you refuse to see anything from anyone else's perspective. If you keep that up, you are doing nothing more than shouting at the telly and your Driver's Union will remain a 2 man organisation.
At long last. Point by point. I do not keep hounding other twitter accounts never accepting reasoned arguements or insulting people. They constantly do that to me & those that persist in aimless interrogation often stupidly & rudely, can expect to be given rough treatment by me. They are in a mminority. They are three different twitter accounts, all with their own history. One is dedicated to Drive East Midlands, another for Drivers' Union & the one I set up to counter Cycle Hatred idiocy & clearly shows that the bile & venom is directed to anything pro driver and drivers. But what's your beef? I only publish pro driver & pro road safety facts and never attack cyclists. That they see pro driver & road safety sense as anti cyclist isn't my doing. But how can anyone be against someone who is working for drivers & road safety?
ReplyDeleteBut my site is full of evidence on so many different facets of driving & road safety fact. You may well deny it but that is a false position. When I can't produce fact I ask a series of questions which lead to any reasonable person coming to a conclusion that I have already come to. I do not state this should happen or that should happen but state simple facts and it's for others to then provide their own conclusions and actions based on my questions. So for example I am entitled to ask 1) Is road cycling still safe in 2013? & 2) Is it essential to society? So far on the latter, all I get is cyclists justifying their personal use & what's essential to them personally; that isn't answering the question though! Again in the two examples you avoid the question.
When I left school, and this was in the 50s, I had to cycle about 30 miles a day to and from work. Prior to that to school at least 20 a day. Thinking back, in their position, how my parents lived wih it day in and day out I don't know. Now it's 2013 and the roads are far busier and more dangerous. Your trip to the park analagy is again about personal use & avoiding the essential to the community again. The community can survive easily without pushbikes but would collapse totally without cars and that's a fact. There are many reasons why such families do not and wont ever cycle. Just like the Greens, cyclists insist everyone must take their Hair Shirt. Why should people who have paid £50 billion in driver taxes go out for the day on bikes if they dont want to? Imposing your lifestyle on others? Isn't that selfish & presumptious?
Re road safety: It isn't about a popularity contest it's about facts & right & wrong. So far, none of our published stuff has been disproven or challenged by any of the authorities and no-one that we expose on the band wagon has been able to sue us yet either. So what do you support? Road safety based on any Tom Dick & Harry with no CV and who are earning from their interest, of experts, with the best CV, doing it totally voluntarily with no axe to grind and asking genuine and pertinent questions of the Road Safety profiteers?
It would be better if people address me as a volunteer road safety worker instead of in the snidy manner they do. As it happens, I am very good at making silly people look silly & those who try to bully me look and feel exactly how they are. I wish I didn't need to but some people are just like that. Making them very angry is almost as much fun as being liked by them. :-))
But there you are. 140 Characters couldn't have dealt with all that could it?
KP
Keith, what is hugely frustrating about your twitter activity and to a similar extent you blog, is your point blank refusal to accept any other view point. Yes, cars are important and vans/ lorries are definitely essential to society but the point you often over look or deride as a personal choice is that bike riding is equally important to those that ride the bikes. Yes, i could drive to work. But there is no where for me to park, and in fact it would take me longer to drive than cycle. Why then, if my journal is essential, is it not ok for me to expect to be able to do that journey safely?
ReplyDeleteYou often say things about drivers doing all they can, I'd like to know how many drivers in the UK have taken an advanced driving test.
Your point in the comment above about forcing motorists out on to bikes, it's about choice right? so why does my choice to cycle not count? I have 2 cars (actually one car, one van), both taxed and insured but i choose to cycle to work as it's a better choice for me. Why can i not do that safely?
Your issues with taxation and the amount that drivers contribute? It's a bit of a non starter. most cyclists also drive, when they chose to. so what does the taxation issue have to do with anything? If i pay more NI and Tax on my earnings than you, can i dictate what services you have access to? No. So why does you driver taxation point mean I cannot expect to safe when I'm cycling?
so, bike riding is not for everyone, car driving is not for everyone. being safe is. everyone has a part to play in that. surely you can't disagree with that?
Well that's because I refuse to accept wrongful opinions and false ones. What's the point of accepting a non factual position? You start off from the wrong premise yourself and thus invalidate the rest of your comment. At no time do I deny that cycling is often a preference or lifestyle choice so you are wrong. It's cyclists who keep returning to that in answer to the fact that cycling couldn't sustain the economy & society, or even small firms either so that driving is essential to the community whereas it can survive without cycling. I am surprised then that you have now extended this to the blog too. It isn't what I say and have to correct hat ad-nauseum. But at least we aren't confined to 140 characters to make a point.
ReplyDeleteI don't ever raise the taxation matter either so again you're wrong, but correct cyclists when they only refer to 'road tax' VEL, and forget the £50 billion pounds of driver taxes. Just as they forget all the positives for drivers. And that is all I do. I don't attack cyclists but apparently, being pro driver, is being seen as that. Show me one tweet where I have commented that cyclists don't pay tax. In fact I oppose cycling VED and compulsory insurance and hats too.
However since it's the cycle lobby who are screaming about the dangers, asking for more space, more prosecution, longer sentences, slower traffic, changes to HGVs and all sorts, isn't it right that someone should ask: 'What is cycling?' 'If it's that dangerous is it still appropriate in 2013?' 'Before we make such changes, let's decide on what is essential for society on the roads'. Now of course cyclists don't want anyone to do that. They just want to get everything they want don't they? So they don't even allow such reasoned questioning to be made by anyone yet it's them setting this agenda and it is an anti driving agenda.
Under a scenario where unprotected humans are mixing and mingling with large pieces of essential machines operated by every average Tom, Dick & Harry your rights don't stop you being killed or seriously maimed and it's unwise to think it does. It's like saying 'I have a right not to have a pot of boiling water knocked over me in a kitchen.' Crap happens. Place yourself in a dangerous place and it's more likely to happen. It's your choice but I do attack the officials, profiteers and politicians who, for other reasons, are exploiting cyclists and worse encouraging kiddies out there. Every time one is killed or injured don't they stop to think 'I encouraged them to do that?' And they're the people I attack because they have other agendas that are more anti car than pro cycling.
"Now of course cyclists don't want anyone to do that."
ReplyDeleteI have three cycles and one car.
You make our that people either cycle or drive. Most do both.
I have three cycles and we have two cars. No most people don't cycle, even if they did once, only a tiny minority cycle. Although about 35 million drive it's not most people either. But what's the problem? Speaking up for drivers is a sin to some cyclists?
ReplyDeleteKeith, one of your recent tweets says that cycling is an unnecessary and unfair liability for drivers. Why? When I get behind the wheel of my car I accept that I must drive in a manner that does not endanger other road users. A car, after all, can be a dangerous thing; with the freedom to drive comes responsibilities, in the same way that a freedom to go and do archery down at my local club comes a responsibility to not shoot arrows at the targets while others are retrieving their own arrows.
ReplyDeleteNow, I know and accept that cycling does come with risks- if we wanted to avoid risks then we would never leave the house- but if people could drive in a sensible, patient manner then those risks could be reduced.
Hi James, first of all can I say how nice to get such a nice polite and genuine post without bitter content.
ReplyDeleteThe context of my observations is in a scenario where cyclists are demanding more and more very costly changes which can only be a disadvantage to drivers but in addition the cycle lobby is also demanding more punishment and jail time for drivers too. So therefor it is right to enquire two aspects. 1) If it's that risky and dangerous now, should it continue? That then leads to 2) defining what is essential for the survival of the community and our society as a whole? When you do that you realise that there are only two. If we didn't walk we would all perish, so pedestrians are a no brainer. A little more explanation for the next class; drivers. It's already covered at great length in foregoing comments. However the term 'driver' is thousands of years old. Manpower travel simply wasn't good enough so man took to the horse-the predecessor to the motorbike- then chariots, carts, waggons, traps, pony mail, fast stage coaches etc. From those came our bigger societies all built and based on long distance fast heavy haulage and passenger transport. Without it even railways wouldn't exist. From the 50s onwards all this was replaced totally by the more efficient modern fast, load carrying road transport of today. Because that was cheaper, more efficient and readily available, society spread out and expanded. Everything now depends on road transport, including rail & air travel. Less obvious the private car. It is the essential link between public transport but also how the majority of its staff get to their jobs. Out of town shopping precincts to enable once a week big household shopping because women work too and we have freezers. These places depend for their turnover on car users, surrounded by mass free car parks and cheap fuel to encourage it. The NHS staff car parks all full, the water workers, food and power suppliers, without that we all die very soon and they're all dependent on cars. Unless you sleep on a railway platform, cars are the essential link to rail, likewise airports. So we have identified two essential road user.
Cycling however didn't build or ever sustain our society. In fact if all cyclists packed in, the economy and society generally wouldn't collapse at all or hardly notice. Does society depend on cyclists? No! Did it ever? No!
But the road safety record of UK's drivers actually shows how good they are and not how bad they are. Your analogy of archery, is the same as shooting at targets too. But neither are allowed in public are they? I am continuously pointing out that the evidence is that cyclists are being treated in a patient, sensible manner all the time. But whether you understand it or not, they are a liability to an essential road user and very often don't even acknowledge how much care is being shown to them. Drivers being human and very average too, make mistakes and get things wrong. What a cyclist feels too close, is often not close from the drivers' perspective. The fear of the cyclist is actually his brain telling him 'This is bloody dangerous'. Perhaps it's time that we accepted the natural instinct is absolutely right about that.
Hi,
ReplyDeleteJust to take up a few points, following on from Twitter comments...
"What a cyclist feels too close, is often not close from the drivers' perspective."
I find this line of argument a real concern - it feels way too close to justifying dangerous passing manoeuvres. I get passed maybe a couple of hundred times on my journey to work. There is a massive difference between the handful of idiots who cut in too close and the vast majority of sensible drivers who give me space. (And I know not all cyclists do this, but I look for the opportunity to let the latter pass safely where I can, and thank them for their patience if that is difficult.) When the idiots cut in too close, I am not thinking "oh, now I see cycling is dangerous" (although I accept it always has some danger) - I am thinking "that idiot pointlessly risked hitting me for no good reason".
"Less obvious the private car. It is the essential link between public transport but also how the majority of its staff get to their jobs. Out of town shopping precincts to enable once a week big household shopping because women work too and we have freezers. These places depend for their turnover on car users, surrounded by mass free car parks and cheap fuel to encourage it. The NHS staff car parks all full, the water workers, food and power suppliers, without that we all die very soon and they're all dependent on cars. Unless you sleep on a railway platform, cars are the essential link to rail, likewise airports. So we have identified two essential road user."
The problem with this "is it essential to society" argument is it does become rather weak when applied to the private car, as you seem to be noticing here. NHS, energy suppliers, food suppliers etc - all also have employees who travel by bike, so by your logic those cycle journeys are essential ones. Above AS-J compared two families going to the park by bike and car. Clearly it is illogical to see one as essential and one as non-essential. One might well see cycle courier journeys as more essential than many car journeys around the city. And so on. I would suggest you are conflating the idea of "essential to an individual" with "essential to society" - if you really mean the latter then presumably you'd be OK with me suggesting you don't use your private car for any journey that could be made by taxi, public transport, on foot, delivery van or whatever.
(For the record I drive as well as cycling, and don't find cyclists to be some kind of impossibly difficult obstacle when I am behind the wheel of my car. It seems easy enough to simply drive with respect to other road users.)
Hi thanks for coming in this way. However from your comments I can tell that you haven't read my extensive responses covering most of your points already.
ReplyDeleteHowever just read your own rhetoric about drivers who 'drive too close'. It is really aggressive and talking about idiots and goodness knows what. Believe me I have been knocked off bikes & motorbikes by drivers on more than one occasion so I know the anger & personal reaction to a close call. But the drivers are not doing it deliberately and from their perspective are not too close. I have explained why this happens in another post but cyclists just will not accept that their fear and anxiety is really their self protection mechanism telling them: 'This is a dangerous place I don't want to be in'. Instead cyclists want to ignore their inner sense and get angry with the other party who doesn't think they've done wrong. This then leads to confrontation which is even more dangerous for the cyclist. So 'too close' is a very subjective matter for a start. Cars passing cars at one foot often isn't too close for drivers but is bound to feel awful to some unprotected person being passed by a big machine. But you choose to mix mingle and often compete with these big essential machines operated by complete strangers of varying ability and mentality and then expect that bad things are not going to happen.
I do not condone anything but simply explain why it's bound to happen in such a scenario.
So far as the word essential is concerned, if society had to choose between cyclists and car drivers it would have to ditch cyclists. The couriers you mention are handy but limited to what they can carry and the fact is society wouldn't crash without them or without cyclists. It would crash without drivers and cars. By the way, taxis are purely chauffeur driven limos with an extra person in it so from an emissions context less desirable than a private car. But why should anyone who is providing a service for the community at great cost, resort to inconvenient and expensive public transport for any journey at all? But you pre-suppose there are unessential car trips. I don't think anyone just goes out for a spin in cars anymore but certainly squadrons of cyclists two abreast or singly clearly are.
For the record I cycle too but I don't get your point that you drive. You have said how many idiot drivers there are so it's no qualification of being a realist at all.
We all get past cyclists eventually and safely, but multiply that several million times a day up and down the country and we are talking millions of pounds a day from the economy. However you miss the issue. My position emanates from the demands cyclists are making of drivers. More slowing, less space, more prosecution, longer jail etc. So aren't we supposed to ask why? What for? Who are these people? How important are they? It's cyclists who are opening this can of worms not me.
"However just read your own rhetoric about drivers who 'drive too close'. It is really aggressive and talking about idiots and goodness knows what."
ReplyDeleteSorry, but I do think people who take unnecessary risks on the road are 'idiots'. I'm not remotely aggressive in my own driving and cycling and it doesn't "lead to confrontation". For what it's worth I think there are plenty of cyclists behaving idiotically on the roads too - undertaking both cars and other bikes, taking undue risks at junctions and crossings and so on.
"But you choose to mix mingle and often compete with these big essential machines operated by complete strangers of varying ability and mentality and then expect that bad things are not going to happen."
Not really, I assume that there is a constant risk, and cycle as defensively as possible. But I still reserve the right to be annoyed at bad driving. As a driver, when someone pulls out from a side road in front of you while on a mobile, or performs a risky manoeuvre around you do you just think "Oh well, big dangerous machines, shit happens"? Or do you think "That is stupid driving?"
"So far as the word essential is concerned, if society had to choose between cyclists and car drivers..."
Simple, it doesn't.
"By the way, taxis are purely chauffeur driven limos with an extra person in it so from an emissions context less desirable than a private car."
Sure, but I didn't base my argument on emissions. I was countering your theory about private cars being "essential to society". You point out cycle journeys could all be replaced by other means. Well, so could private car journeys.
"I do not condone anything but simply explain why it's bound to happen in such a scenario."
Sure, but by explaining it as though it is inevitable, you come too close to condoning it - and it's not every driver who does this, only the ones who take undue risks, so cyclists' irritation isn't some irrational fear of moving objects, it is a judgment as to how dangerously they have been driven.
"But why should anyone who is providing a service for the community at great cost, resort to inconvenient and expensive public transport for any journey at all?"
Absolutely, so that also applies to all those essential bike journeys made by medical staff, power company employees etc etc. Why should they resort to inconvenient and expensive modes of transport?
"But you pre-suppose there are unessential car trips. I don't think anyone just goes out for a spin in cars anymore but certainly squadrons of cyclists two abreast or singly clearly are. "
You've been given a clear example above in the family going to the park - clearly doesn't qualiy for your 'essential for society' criteria. Personally I drive out to the country for a walk many weekends, clearly that is non-essential too.
"For the record I cycle too but I don't get your point that you drive. You have said how many idiot drivers there are so it's no qualification of being a realist at all."
This is hard to follow - do you mean I can't be a realist because as a driver, I think some people drive like idiots? Surely not...
1/2
1) But that's the point. Attitude to people who are not doing anything deliberately does lead to confrontation and unfair attacks on drivers either there or on media. It all seems worse because cyclists feel vulnerable. They feel vulnerable because they are. It really is that simple!
ReplyDelete2)Yes & drivers have the right to be annoyed with cyclists. That is what Cycle Hatred turns into a war though. But drivers make mistakes. Bent metal isn't serious. You knowingly place your body amongst all this metal driven by ordinary people and then it's not just bent metal. To them it's not risky but because of your insecurity it is your perception that it is. You are placing yourself in a dangerous place and noticing it is all.
4) Society wouldn't notice no cyclists but would collapse without drivers & cars.
4) But that's my point. Taxis are private cars with a chauffeur & higher emissions too. But of course cars are essential. See the full explanations in previous replies.
5) I don't condone society setting up a dangerous scenario then prosecuting & jailing people when it goes wrong. Dangerous is purely subjective opinion, often not that of experts. Every person has their own ideas of danger. You may be the idiot and not the driver.
6) Not many essential workers are cycling essentially but by pure choice. Looked at an NHS staff car park lately? Massive and full. Without cars and drivers NHS & water would close down, not without cyclists. It's clear from this that you simply cannot face reality. Most cyclists who cycle to work don't need to.
7) Family in the park? Yes why not? The car is essential to take all the family, their picnic and buggies and the household dog. It was a use of the road to get from A to B. As I said, having gone to great expense to keep society running, why shouldn't car drivers enjoy them when they can? There is more unessential bike riding with great risks to the cyclists and liability to drivers.
8) No I am a cyclist & motor cyclist too. Being a driver doesn't make you sensible as you have already stated. When in cyclists mode most are anti driver because all the demands they make are at great disadvantage for drivers; an essential infrastructure service.
Ok, so far you have not published anything new, addressed any of the realities or which I can go and say I hadn't already considered and cause me to review my assessment of the reality. But I don't seek to stop cyclists. I just explain what is actually happening and why. It's for our politicians to make those kind of decisions. The most I can hope for is to reverse all the anti driver policies and point out where the cycle lobby are so wrong. I would guess cycling MPs are in a minority so we must depend on the rest to get priorities right.
Thanks for your input.
(I've amended this comment without the bit you thought dishonest, and which I accept was a misinterpretation...)
ReplyDelete1) "Attitude to people who are not doing anything deliberately"
It doesn't really matter whether bad driving is deliberate or not, it will still be annoying. You say:
"Believe me I have been knocked off bikes & motorbikes by drivers on more than one occasion so I know the anger & personal reaction to a close call. But the drivers are not doing it deliberately and from their perspective are not too close."
All this means to me is that some drivers don't realise when they got too close - not that cyclists are wrong to sometimes judge that the driver was too close...
"Cars passing cars at one foot often isn't too close for drivers..."
And sorry but this is ludicrous. At very slow speeds, of course one foot might be fine, but you were talking about passing manoeuvres at speed so you are justifying a closeness that would be risky in the extreme. Cyclists really can tell the difference between "fast lump of metal passing" and "fast lump of metal that risked hitting me".
4) "But of course cars are essential."
You've failed to understand my point which is that your logic about "essential use" could equally apply to all *private* car journeys.
6) "Not many essential workers are cycling essentially but by pure choice. Looked at an NHS staff car park lately? Massive and full."
And the bike racks are also full. Those people are also making essential journeys and you've already accepted it would be wrong to force them on to inconvenient, expensive public transport. It's just a biassed assumption that the NHS workers who cycle have other options while those who drive don't. My personal commute is 7 miles and would be extremely inconvenient by any means other than bike. There will be plenty of NHS workers in the same situation.
7) "Family in the park? Yes why not? The car is essential to take all the family, their picnic and buggies and the household dog."
Oh, but here your whole argument disappears with a little pop - if your definition of 'essential' includes "going to the park" I can't see any logical way it can exclude *any* journeys made by bike.
If however you want to hang on to a grain of logic and accept that there is such a thing as non-essential car (and bike) journeys, then let me know if you'd be OK with foregoing private car use because someone has decreed all private car use to be non-essential?
Dishonesty again. So you now admit that in some circumstances one foot is fine, and it is quite frequent and normal too! But not admitting you were wrong, you then tell me what I was referring to? I wasn't talking about passing at speed at all. That was your mistake.
DeleteKeep it simple. Cars & driver are essential for the survival of society, cyclists are not and in fact are a liability and hazard to themselves and what is essential. You need to talk about personal preferences because you cannot come to terms that cycling wouldn't be missed by the vast majority of people.
Do read other answers to this on this page. Drivers are essential for our society and cyclists simply are not. I haven't 'decreed' this. It's just a fact that you don't like
You like to remind us that cycling is not essential. I accept that but then again, is football? Rugby? Darts? Swimming? No but people like to do them and I would never argue that people who do these activities and get injured be denied hospital treatment.
ReplyDeletePlus, don't forget, not all car journies are essential, if I replaced my cycle journies with my car then they would not be essential at all!
No. I need to remind everyone in the cycling debate that it's not essential because, up to now, cyclists have wrongly been able to get away with an equal playing field stance. You may not like the reality but the only way to get it spread is to say it often and everywhere. Is that OK?
ReplyDeleteDo we allow football, rugby & darts and dig swimming pools in the road? So what's your point? Road cycling is very dangerous for whatever reason. So we have to start asking, especially in the context of the very costly anti driver infrastructure and liability changes cyclists are demanding: 'Are they essential to the community as a whole?' What's you problem with that?
Your car: If you had to choose, ditch the bike or the car, which one could you cope without. And even if you thought you could cope without a car, you would still be depending on car drivers for your basic needs. Non essential car journeys, just to be on the road for no reason, is now obsolete but don't confuse what's essential for the community and the economy with pure personal preference. They are not the same. If people are paying for and providing a community necessity, why should they need to justify their own use of it anyway.
Ah but just because one has a reason to be on the road it does not make that journey any more essential. I am driving to Isle of Mull and Jersey next month with my bike in the boot of the car, so I can enjoy two lovely stress free holidays. Are these journeys essential? I bet society could survive if I didn't make these journeys.
ReplyDeleteChoosing between my car and my bike(s) is not a choice I have to make and I do find both modes of travel useful. However I do gain more enjoyment out of cycling than driving.
One thing I find perplexing is your stance on speed. You assert that speed is a factor in cyclist accidents and injuries yet you also seem to tweet Louise Ellman with messages on how speed does not kill. What is it to be?
You are making the mistake of focussing too much on personal usage and not 'essential for the survival of society'. I accept society doesn't depend on all car journeys but it does depend on cars & drivers but not cyclists. The case you cite is classic. So to get to your hard earned holiday, and to spend your money for local economy, you need your car. But not only that, you need it to get your bike there too! So that rather makes my point. But all this is in the context that having supplied and maintained a vehicle at great cost so that society will benefit, why then shouldn't you use it to pop out for a pizza too? I agree with you about the joys of driving. That's my whole point. Most people don't do it for fun but because it's essential to live.
ReplyDeleteRe 'Speed Kills!' Don't forget twitter is only 140 characters and is why I don't think justice can be done to road safety & driving discussion there. Speed is a factor in all accidents, including a man walking into a lamppost. So the speed of a cyclist is a factor in their accidents too. But I do attack sound-bite and spin in road safety. 'Speed Kills!' is one such sound-bite that is false. Take speed away from us and we all die. So the slogan is a false one. It should be 'No speed kills!' All I am doing is disproving the profiteer's very own sound-bite. It's false. If you then go on to try to qualify 'Speed Kills!' with if this or if that, then it ceases to stand alone as a sound-bite and becomes pointless. So the whole Industry has been based on a false statement since I was a kid then. Incidentally, that is the kind of thing that's classic MENSA. Emperor's Clothes. You heard it here first.
Thanks for clearing that up.
ReplyDeleteFor your info, I could take trains to Oban and Weymouth for the ferries to the respective islands... But it is so slow having to change trains multiple times and take slow trains, much as I enjoy rail travel. Besides, west of Scotland is actually a nice place to take your car.
I personally don't think cycling is all that dangerous myself. It's only a very small percentage of riders who are killed or seriously maimed every year, if all riders who completed their journeys safe every day had their names read out on the news it would take ages!