"JNugent" wrote in message
>
>
> It is deliberate.
>
>
>
> > You still do not explain how that deliberately got in. It is, of course,
a
> > straw man.
>
> It isn't. The law does not treat deliberate and unintentional actions in
> the same way (and it shouldn't).
>
I was not talking about the law. I did not assert that drivers are
deliberately driving on the pavement. Why did you introduce the word? You
define your case more and more narrowly.
> > The normal operation of cars is predictably killing people on the
pavement.
>
> Don't be daft.
Killing on the pavement is such a normal everyday consequence of how we
drive that I can predict with some certainty that at least 50 pedestrians
will die in this way next year.
.. Even if you are, it doesn't justify cycling on the
> footway, does it?
And no matter what the answer, it doesn't
> justify cycling on the footway, does it>
>
> Maybe you are right. Even if you are, it doesn't justify cycling on the
> footway, does it?
> >
> Maybe we should. It still doesn't justify cycling on the footway, does it?
>
> The x-post is not my doing. I am well aware that some cyclists are
> incoherent with rage at any suggestion that they should obey the law.
I have not noticed them here. Though if they were really incoherent
presumably they could not write comprehensibly.
>
> >>>I've been cycling for a long time and I have seen many changes in
normal
> >>>behaviour, from cars and bikes. I would suggest that the changes have
> >>>been brought about by the increasing volume of traffic, or rather,
> >>>motorised trafffic. You may perhaps blame an epidemic of moral
> >>>turpitude amongst cyclits. As I keep saying, you do have a rather
> >>>narrow view through your windscreen.
Is the big increase in pavement cycling because of changing road conditions
or because cyclists have become scofflaws?
>
> >>I speak on this subject as the pedestrian I am for most of the time.
>
> > Sure you are.
>
> Are you trying to claim that I am not a pedestrian?
Of course I have no knowledge of you. Unless you walk everywhere you are a
motorist, a cyclist or a bus passenger. Which is it?
I wrote
> > I was pointing out that cyclists (and pedestrians) have to exist in an
> > environment built for and dominated by motor traffic. To use the road
> > correctly nowadays seems to require training. It certainly needs skill,
> > concentration and a rooted belief that a cyclist has just as much right
to
> > use the road as a motorist. Though pavement cyclists may have many
different
> > motivations, what they have in common is that they do not believe that
in
> > practice they have a right to use the road as motorists do.
Nugent replied
> Their problem. Not the problem of the pedestrian.
You seem not to want to understand. Your obssession with one offence amongst
the huge number committed is unreasonable. You really cannot sensibly pick
out one minor offence from a mass of bad behaviour.
>
> > They may have
> > never grown out of the rule they learned as children (stay out of the
way of
> > cars), or they may just fear motor traffic, or they may have some self
image
> > as street wise urban guerrilla. Some may rationalise that since the law
does
> > not protect them and their supposed right of way, they can ignore the
laws
> > which were not made for them. They are all wrong, and to understand is
not
> > to excuse. To behave towards pedestrians as some of them do, and as you
> > assert they all do,
>
> Not all, merely most.
I could argue about the proportion of inconsiderate cyclists, but none of us
know the true proportion. The small number of serious injuries argues that
most are not aggressive.
>
> > is inexcusable and to me evidence that they have adopted
> > the motorist viewpoint. Which would be understandable since motorists
set
> > the climate of behaviour on the roads. They are certainly behaving as
many
> > motorists do.
>
> Oh dear... "it's the motorist's fault..."
I am trying to understand the reason so many cyclists break the law. You
only want to fulminate.
> > In case you choose deliberately to misunderstand that last
> > sentence, I do not mean that motorists "drive" on the pavement, but that
> > many expect the right of way and if a ped doesn't get out of the way, it
is
> > their fault if they are hit. You will face this attitude if you try to
use
> > your pedestrian right of way when crossing a side road. I have been
shouted
> > at by motorists crossing the pavement to their drive because I took my
right
> > of way as a ped.
>
> Same here. I'm not saying that cyclists are the only offenders. But the
> fact that they aren't doesn't justify cycling on the footway, does it?
Of course it does not. It helps to explain it though.
> > I dislike pavement cycling because I fear that it is part of the process
> > by which we are loosing the right to use the road freely.
>
> I dislike pavement cycling because I fear that it is part of the process
by
> which we are loosing the right to use the road freely as pedestrians.
The right to cross the road is severely limited, by traffic. The pavement is
dangerous because of carelessly driven cars. (I know that by your lights
they have ceased to be driven ) Walkers are forced into the road by
pavement parking. Many journeys are much longer because pedestrians are led
by roundabout routes for motorists' convenience. Country roads without
pavements are made dangerous and unpleasant. So many children are driven to
school because of dangerous traffic that jams form at 9 and 3. Children have
so little freedom that obesity is an epidemic. Motorists cross pedestrian
crossing with the lights at red. I suggest that there are bigger problems
for peds than cyclists.
Motorists cause each other problems, congestion and aggressive driving.
The road environment has much that is unpleasant and dangerous. If cyclists
were removed from the road (and pavement) completely there would be little
change in the death rate. An unbiased observer would not choose your King
Charles's head to troll about.
> > So although I dislike the practice, I understand it, and
> > this makes me hate it even more.
>
> Fair enough.
I really think that you should try to open your mind next time you are out
on the streets. If you look around you will see many more illegal acts, many
of them more dangerous. If you look at the road environment as a whole, with
everyone's behaviour affecting and modifying the behaviour of everyone else,
you will see how absurd it is to pick out one minor offence as the one you
obsess about.
Mike Sales
