Re:
B_Ugli said:
Like others have said, the main thing is that he is safe.
My view has always been that everyone using the road whether you are a cyclist, motorcyclist, bus, truck, horse rider has a responsibility to keep themselves safe and also ensure that others reach where they are going to safely. To be fair the majority of road users probably feel the same.
However in the UK at least things have changed and there is an increasing 'militancy' amongst cyclists towards all non cyclists which is getting worse.
I will elaborate.
Years back when you joined a cycling club you were initiated in how to ride as a group safely. Tight two abreast where safe to do so in small groups so that a car driver coming up could easily overtake. By the same token you also got out of the road if you had stopped to fix a puncture and you didn't piss up peoples front fences and jump red lights. In short there was an etiquette that people followed, there would always be the odd one or two idiots but I stressed this was a minority. If a car driver put your life at risk you would stick up for yourself which is fair enough.
Cycling in the UK is so popular now that roads of a weekend are swamped with large groups, many of which don't ride in tightly packed groups, many of which are 2+ abreast across the road if not single file for a 2-300metres up a stretch of road (making it impossible for cars to pass). Add to this the proliferation of sportives (which dont require the same permissions/notifications) as for Road Races and you have a recipe for disaster. Lots of cyclists, have no regard for other road users and are a law unto themselves. As I have alluded the 'mood' has also changed. Many cyclists are not friendly and most I encounter on my weekend riders are arrogant tossers who feel that cos they are on a 10k Pinarello they are above anyone else (this despite the fact they cannot ride in a straight line and are too scared to enter a Road Race preferring the vanity of Sportives). A lot of them suffer from 'cycling tourettes' - a peculiar phenomenon (well documented in youtube videos) where they simply fly off the handle a the tiniest little affront to their cycling superiority.
And this is before you even mention major cities where cyclists routinely risk the lives of themselves and others while they break the law.
Don't get me wrong everyone deserves to be safe and two wrongs don't make a right but in the UK at least people need to get a context as to why temperatures on the roads between motorists and cyclists are reaching boiling point.
I disagree so much with nearly all you have said here. You have a cap-doffing attitude to car users.
The simple fact is there needs to be a shift in attitudes away from car culture, and that includes the mentality of drivers and the sense of entitlement they have been allowed to feel on the roads that we all pay for.
Yes, there might be a minority of riders whose riding is left than perfect, but then again you've a majority of drivers who break road laws all the time. When was the last time you broke a speed limit? The difference being that cyclists contribute 0% to the KSI statistics of 1700 deaths and 22,000 seriously injured but they make up a fair proportion of the victims.
It isn't just about casualties though. Car culture has destroyed communities (think about how rarely people walk out of their house further than where their car is parked), it has reduced large parts of public space in streets (car parking) it is a massive contributor to pollution leading to respiratory illness and premature death, it has lead to public space being rendered unusable as it ius too dangerous to stand around near roads, it has conbtributed to inactivity and obesity. etc etc etc.
And just part of the solution is encouraging cycling, which is difficult when motorists occupy such an overwhelmingly privileged position on the roads we all pay for.
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