I’m not sure if this is legal – but even if it is, it’s totally wrong from a moral standpoint. It’s a story in The Independent about how “cycling activists” are attempting to sway the results of local council elections by offering their votes to “bike-friendly candidates”.
Various activist groups are involved. To quote one:
Chris Peck, campaigns co-ordinator at national cycling charity CTC, said the elections were a “major opportunity to ensure that cycling is still seen as a high priority”. “Councils have huge budgets and huge power,” he said. “They are places where we need to spend a lot more effort on converting people to support cycling.”
Note how this comedian misses the point completely – as do all these radical cycling numpties. His aim is to get cyclists on roads whether it’s safe or not – and he’ll sell his vote to get his way.
The article also mentions a Birmingham cell who are calling for changes on a major link road on the strength of a single fatality of a 13-year old over two years ago, even though the driver of the lorry was jailed for dangerous driving. Again, they miss the point entirely – if the driver was at fault, what is wrong with the road? What is there that specifically needs to be changed that would have prevented the incident?
The problem is that if you asked any Spandex-wearing activist, they would have every single road in the country changed. None of them can understand that roads are dangerous by virtue of the fact that big, heavy machinery travels on them. There are those whose political maturity is still in the womb on this topic, and who seriously see banning those nasty machines from roads as a genuine solution. They forget that there are already “roads” where traffic is banned. Those roads are called “cycle paths”, and many of these Spandex-wearing politicos refuse point blank to go anywhere near them.
Those last two articles I wrote concerning cyclists have generated a lot of blog traffic via Twitter and Facebook. As I’ve pointed out before, I don’t allow comments on this blog because they’re just an excuse for juvenile prats to swear and post links to pornography sites. And the contact form makes it clear that any abuse through that will immediately be reported to the sender’s ISP (and you CAN be traced, so don’t kid yourself that you can’t), and I guess that’s why hits to that page also skyrocketed, but only produced one actual submission.
The reader who responded refers to the “idiotic” cyclist shown in the photograph in the post about HGV drivers being forced to take mandatory cycling lessons in Islington. He asks where I think he should ride instead (I’ve included the picture again). Well, the answer is simple: anywhere else – just not there!
Cyclists seem unable to comprehend anything that doesn’t go 100% in their favour. In this case, it just amazes me that they cannot understand that although the cyclist in the picture may well have every right to do what he’s doing, he would have to be a complete and utter pillock to actually do it.
It’s like sticking your hand in a blender or an open fire – yes, you have every right to do it if you choose to do so, but if you get injured (and even if you don’t) you’re going to have to accept that you’re still a prat.
Irrespective of who would be to blame, if one of those lorries swerved – to avoid another cyclist, for example – the cyclist would be dead. And no doubt the Spandex-clad fingers would then start pointing at the HGVs again.
The simple fact is that the degree of danger for a cyclist varies from nothing to almost total, depending on where (and how) he rides. Riding between lorries, or in among large numbers of lorries, is right up at the bad end.
Nothing can alter that, including the ridiculous idea from the Greenies that lorries should be constructed out of glass to give 360° vision in all three dimensions (or possibly all four dimensions if it’s an activist-led idea). Even if that ever happened – and it won’t – it would take decades to implement.
It’s also worth me repeating what I said to that reader in response to various other accusations:
- I ride a bike
- I use cycle paths
- I avoid riding among traffic, especially on purpose
- I teach pupils to be careful around cyclists
- I teach pupils what cyclists behave like
- My pupils see frequent examples of what cyclists behave like
So there is no point whatsoever trying to pretend that all cyclists are angels. They aren’t.
Shortly after I published this I received another email from a reader. Here it is in full (with his permission):
Cyclists
I have to say, I really enjoy reading your views on cyclists as they are more or less exactly the same as mine.
Where I live and teach Corby and Kettering) there is an elderly guy, who I’m told by one of my pupils used to be her geography teacher. He ‘rides’ one of those contraptions where the user is pretty much lying down, and will do so regardless of the queues of traffic building up behind him. We currently have a lot of major road works in the area, notably the A6003 between Corby and Kettering, where there are lane closures and contra flow systems in place. It’s a fairly common sight to see a queue a couple of miles long behind this idiot as he will exercise his right to ride it anywhere he wants regardless of how much chaos he creates. He’s retired, and as such I can only assume he does it for the exercise and enjoyment, I’m just not sure if the thing he’s riding is even road legs, much less how he’s not dead yet, being no more than 18 inches off the ground.
Just thought I’d get that off my chest!
I’ve mentioned these lying-down bikes before – their proper name is “recumbent bike”. Around my way you usually see them on a Sunday on narrow country 
lanes, surrounded by a group of middle-aged men riding two or three abreast and travelling at low speed. The rider of the recumbent usually has a beard and legs that look like something out of a toothpaste tube. All of them are trying to act as if they were 20 years younger.
The cycling militia can rant on all they like about driving instructors feeling this way, but we are just talking sense.The simple fact is that eventually someone in authority is going to see have to see sense too and stop keep trying to pander to the Spandex Corps all the time.
Roads are for motor vehicles, and cycle paths are for bicycles. And as the number of people having absolutely no road sense but being encouraged to start riding a bike increases, the Law needs to start forcing cyclists to stay off roads and keep to cycle paths.