Last night's London Critical Mass.

[Brimstone]

"JNugent" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Mark Thompson wrote:
>>>>If you're really concerned with maximum utility, perhaps you should
>>>>be considering overall person throughput instead of the speed of
>>>>individual vehicles. 40-odd people on a bus surely should have
>>>>priority over the three single-occupant private cars that would
>>>>otherwise be occupying the same roadspace.
>>>
>>>People on a bus are not more important than people on bikes or in
>>>cars.
>>
>>
>> You've missed his point. He was asking if we should consider overall
>> person throughput instead of the speed of individual vehicles. He wasn't
>> saying that people on a bus are more important, merely that 40 people are
>> more important than 1 person.
>
> Clearly, the government takes the view that just one person on a bus is
> more important than forty in cars, hence the arrogation in so many places
> of half the available road-space for the use of a near-empty bus every ten
> minutes whilst the remaining traffic lane is stationary for as far as the
> eye can see.

Surely it is people's choice to sit in a long line of traffic while the bus
goes sailing past? What gives you the right to deny them their preference?

 

[JNugent]

Simon Brooke wrote:

> JNugent ('[email protected]') wrote:
>>Daniel Barlow wrote:
>>>JNugent wrote:

>>>>That's actually explainable in purely practical terms. Slower vehicles
>>>>give way (ie, make way) for faster vehicles. It's the basic rule of
>>>>the road: do not prevent another vehicle from overtaking you. It's the
>>>>very same thing which is also reflected in the rule banning HGVs (and
>>>>nowadays, AIUI, coaches) from the third lane of the motorway (or bikes
>>>>and pedestrians from the whole of the motorway). It's not personal.
>>>>It's a practical method of gaining maximum utility.

>>>If you're really concerned with maximum utility, perhaps you should be
>>>considering overall person throughput instead of the speed of individual
>>>vehicles. 40-odd people on a bus surely should have priority over the
>>>three single-occupant private cars that would otherwise be occupying the
>>>same roadspace.

>>People on a bus are not more important than people on bikes or in cars.

> No, but they are equally important - and there are more of them per unit
> road space. Furthermore, the more people who travel by bus, the more road
> space is left for people who travel by less efficient means. So it's in
> everyone's interests to prioritise the busses.

How?

How is it in the interests of those who travel by car, van, minibus or
motorbike to have half the width of the road (and all of the kerbside
space) denied to them? What benefit do any of them get from standing
in a single line queue for every set of traffic lights?

[ ... ]

>>>>Have you not experienced or encountered this feeling that the
>>>>authorities are trying to make the driving experience (especially in
>>>>London) as unpleasant as possible (and sometimes using
>>>>"cycle-provision "as a weapon)?

>>>(Not the person who this was aimed at, but answering anyway because I
>>>like filling in surveys): "yes, if I have to", and "maybe". "Maybe"
>>>because although I agree 100% that the driving experience in London is
>>>not that pleasant, I rather suspect that "the authorities" are mostly
>>>not actually trying to make it so, as to cope with the volume of
>>>traffic, so the root cause is not "Them", it's other drivers.

>>Eh?
>>"They" are not trying to cope with anything. They are trying to
>>restrict the capacity of the network, for reasons expounded many times
>>in this NG.

> If you allow enough cars in, you completely clog the network and get
> gridlock. How do you prevent gridlock? You make it as difficult as
> possible for people driving cars to get in. We need a road network in our
> cities in order to allow for the delivery of goods, and for the emergency
> services.

And for the transport of human beings (and their possessions).

It's easy to forget them, isn't it?

> If we allow people to clog it up with private cars, then the
> emergency services can't operate efficiently and the economy grinds to a
> halt.

The London economy is just so sluggish compared to those places with
unused streets, isn't it?

> So the authorities (very sensibly) make it as hard as possible.

That's your view.

> There is only so much roadspace. In a city there can only be so much road
> space. For every thousand desk spaces in a modest ten story city office,
> there cannot be road space for a thousand cars. The maths does not work.
> If the city is to function, some proportion of the desk workers have to be
> deterred from bringing cars. How do you do that? Make it as awkward as
> possible.

> So yes, of course the city authorities have 'got it in for you'. There is
> no room for private cars in cities. That's not 'hatred' or 'prejudice'
> or 'envy', that's maths.

You are at least the first of the "four wheels bad" brigade to try to
be truthful.

 

[JNugent]

Chris Johns wrote:
> On Mon, 4 Jun 2007, Simon Brooke wrote:
>
>> If the city is to function, some proportion of the desk workers have
>> to be
>> deterred from bringing cars. How do you do that? Make it as awkward as
>> possible.
>
>
> You could take the other approach and make the alternatvies more
> attractive than the car.
>
> What the planners fail to do is provide any sensible alternative to the
> car, but still try to make it "as akwward as possible" to drive one into
> the city.

There's at least one more approach: the authorities could just keep
their noses out of private business.

Radical, I know...

 

[JNugent]

Daniel Barlow wrote:

> JNugent wrote:

>> Why - is the average cyclist a lout as uncivilised as the particular
>> WVM someone referred to?

> Not in my experience. How does that follow from anything either of us
> have said?

Well, yes.

You compared the right of free speech in the media to the wisdom of
not winding up an irate, violence-threatening, van-driving oaf face to
face. You've snipped that bit, but it was there.

If there is no proper comparison between them (and for there to be
one, cyclists would have to mainly be irate, violence-threatening,
oafs), why try to make one?

>>> if Clarkson is in the name of humour going to incite bad feeling
>>> toward minority groups of road users, he should stick to less squishy
>>> targets with better crumple zones.

>> You're probably right. If he stuck to verbal attacks on middle-aged,
>> middle-class white married men with families to support, he'd probably
>> get a knighthood before long.

> Or foreigners. Or caravan owners. Or people who stick to speed limits.
> None of whom are as likely to get knocked into a gutter when swiped by
> the wing mirror of an ignorant fool who thinks it'd be fun to drive too
> close to them and make them wobble.

> Of course he does have another option, which is to use his considerable
> writing/speaking ability on subjects that _don't_ involve attacking
> minorities (I rather liked the programme he did on Brunel a few years
> ago, for example), but I can quite see that the
> picking-on-people-who-are-not-us stuff is a lot easier to write and will
> get him talked about more.

Well, people like your good self do talk and write about him rather a
lot, don't you?

The remedy is entirely in your own hands. No publicity is bad publicity.

In the meantime, please be aware that cyclists are not beyond
criticism when they do selfish and stupid things merely by virtue of
being a minority of the population. And there is no reason why they
should be.

 

[Daniel Barlow]

JNugent wrote:
> You compared the right of free speech in the media to the wisdom of not
> winding up an irate, violence-threatening, van-driving oaf face to face.
> You've snipped that bit, but it was there.
>
> If there is no proper comparison between them (and for there to be one,
> cyclists would have to mainly be irate, violence-threatening, oafs), why
> try to make one?

You know, I wrote a detailed response addressing your specific points
one at a time, but on re-reading it before sending I realised that it
will have absolutely no effect on your point of view while you continue
in your belief that "cyclists" and "everyone else" are two mutually
exclusive groups in society.

But for the record, I wasn't suggesting cyclists would beat up Clarkson
(which I imagine would in any case be tricky, because it's hard to stay
balanced on the bike when you're stationary and throwing punches at
someone) but that motorists - that is, people driving cars - may offer
violence to cyclists. This does not require that motorists are mainly
irate, violence-threatening, oafs, simply that _some_ motorists are
irate violence-threatening oafs. Given that being an irate
violence-threatening oaf does not necessarily preclude passing a driving
test (if you can suppress the urge to punch the examiner for the
necessary 40 minutes to pass the test) I think this is not a bad assumption.


-dan

 

[_]

On Mon, 04 Jun 2007 18:11:26 +0100, JNugent wrote:

> Simon Brooke wrote:
>
>> JNugent ('[email protected]') wrote:
>>>Daniel Barlow wrote:
>>>>JNugent wrote:
>
>>>>>That's actually explainable in purely practical terms. Slower vehicles
>>>>>give way (ie, make way) for faster vehicles. It's the basic rule of
>>>>>the road: do not prevent another vehicle from overtaking you. It's the
>>>>>very same thing which is also reflected in the rule banning HGVs (and
>>>>>nowadays, AIUI, coaches) from the third lane of the motorway (or bikes
>>>>>and pedestrians from the whole of the motorway). It's not personal.
>>>>>It's a practical method of gaining maximum utility.
>
>>>>If you're really concerned with maximum utility, perhaps you should be
>>>>considering overall person throughput instead of the speed of individual
>>>>vehicles. 40-odd people on a bus surely should have priority over the
>>>>three single-occupant private cars that would otherwise be occupying the
>>>>same roadspace.
>
>>>People on a bus are not more important than people on bikes or in cars.
>
>> No, but they are equally important - and there are more of them per unit
>> road space. Furthermore, the more people who travel by bus, the more road
>> space is left for people who travel by less efficient means. So it's in
>> everyone's interests to prioritise the busses.
>
> How?
>
> How is it in the interests of those who travel by car, van, minibus or
> motorbike to have half the width of the road (and all of the kerbside
> space) denied to them? What benefit do any of them get from standing
> in a single line queue for every set of traffic lights?
>


Why the benefit of education, of course.

It would be better not just for them, but for us all, if they were to leave
their motorcars at home and use public transport or cycle instead.

Though a great many of them seem, like yourself, to be so dim that this is
not sinking in as fast as it should...

 

[JNugent]

_ wrote:
> On Mon, 04 Jun 2007 18:11:26 +0100, JNugent wrote:
>
>
>>Simon Brooke wrote:
>>
>>
>>>JNugent ('[email protected]') wrote:
>>>
>>>>Daniel Barlow wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>JNugent wrote:
>>
>>>>>>That's actually explainable in purely practical terms. Slower vehicles
>>>>>>give way (ie, make way) for faster vehicles. It's the basic rule of
>>>>>>the road: do not prevent another vehicle from overtaking you. It's the
>>>>>>very same thing which is also reflected in the rule banning HGVs (and
>>>>>>nowadays, AIUI, coaches) from the third lane of the motorway (or bikes
>>>>>>and pedestrians from the whole of the motorway). It's not personal.
>>>>>>It's a practical method of gaining maximum utility.
>>
>>>>>If you're really concerned with maximum utility, perhaps you should be
>>>>>considering overall person throughput instead of the speed of individual
>>>>>vehicles. 40-odd people on a bus surely should have priority over the
>>>>>three single-occupant private cars that would otherwise be occupying the
>>>>>same roadspace.
>>
>>>>People on a bus are not more important than people on bikes or in cars.
>>
>>>No, but they are equally important - and there are more of them per unit
>>>road space. Furthermore, the more people who travel by bus, the more road
>>>space is left for people who travel by less efficient means. So it's in
>>>everyone's interests to prioritise the busses.
>>
>>How?
>>
>>How is it in the interests of those who travel by car, van, minibus or
>>motorbike to have half the width of the road (and all of the kerbside
>>space) denied to them? What benefit do any of them get from standing
>>in a single line queue for every set of traffic lights?
>>
>
>
>
> Why the benefit of education, of course.
>
> It would be better not just for them, but for us all, if they were to leave
> their motorcars at home and use public transport or cycle instead.

It might be "better" for you if others reduced their standard of
living. It's not so easy to see why it would be "better" for them.

BTW, why stop at trying to dictate their choice of transport? Why not
tell them where they can live, how many children they can have, what
to eat, what to wear, what television programmes to watch, who to vote
for?

 

[Simon Brooke]

in message <[email protected]>, JNugent
('[email protected]') wrote:

> Chris Johns wrote:
>> On Mon, 4 Jun 2007, Simon Brooke wrote:
>>
>>> If the city is to function, some proportion of the desk workers have
>>> to be
>>> deterred from bringing cars. How do you do that? Make it as awkward as
>>> possible.
>>
>> You could take the other approach and make the alternatvies more
>> attractive than the car.
>>
>> What the planners fail to do is provide any sensible alternative to the
>> car, but still try to make it "as akwward as possible" to drive one into
>> the city.
>
> There's at least one more approach: the authorities could just keep
> their noses out of private business.

If you want to make the provision of roads in cities a private business,
that is indeed a radical proposal. But there's nothing to stop you.
Publish a prospectus, float the company on the stock exchange, buy the
land, demolish the buildings, build the roads. Oh, you'll have to charge a
toll for people to use your roads, because they're built on land that's
worth thousands of pounds per square metre. If you think Red Ken's tolls
are high, just imagine what The London Motor Thoroughfare Company would
charge you.

However, if you don't want to do that - if you want to drive on the public
road - then that's public business and the public authorities are required
to regulate it.

--
[email protected] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/
;; If God does not write LISP, God writes some code so similar to
;; LISP as to make no difference.

 

[JNugent]

Daniel Barlow wrote:

> JNugent wrote:

>> You compared the right of free speech in the media to the wisdom of
>> not winding up an irate, violence-threatening, van-driving oaf face to
>> face. You've snipped that bit, but it was there.
>> If there is no proper comparison between them (and for there to be
>> one, cyclists would have to mainly be irate, violence-threatening,
>> oafs), why try to make one?

> You know, I wrote a detailed response addressing your specific points
> one at a time, but on re-reading it before sending I realised that it
> will have absolutely no effect on your point of view while you continue
> in your belief that "cyclists" and "everyone else" are two mutually
> exclusive groups in society.

There's your problem. I don't believe that at all - and nothing I have
ever written could make you believe it to be so. Cyclists have no
fewer but importantly - no more - rights and responsibilities than
anyone else. A necessary corollary of that is that they should not be
favoured by the authorities. Your problem (and it is certainly shared
by some others who post here) is that you cannot accept that cyclists
are anything other than a swarm of angelic, altruistic benefactors of
mankind. Well, a few of them may be (for reasons not connected with
cycling). Most of them are not.

As to your odd remark to the effect that Clarkson had better watch out
because criticising cyclists was undesirable (as a "minority"), my
query about that was caused by the fact that the earlier advice
("don't argue with an irate van-driver who looks as though he might
chin you") was clearly NOT comparable with any advice given to (or in
respect of) a semi-celeb spouting his opinions on a TV programme. Two
different things existing in two different worlds.

> But for the record, I wasn't suggesting cyclists would beat up Clarkson
> (which I imagine would in any case be tricky, because it's hard to stay
> balanced on the bike when you're stationary and throwing punches at
> someone)

No, I didn't think it WAS your view. But it was an implication of what
you wrote when you tried to justify it by trying to make that unreal
comparison.

> but that motorists - that is, people driving cars - may offer
> violence to cyclists.

Because of something Clarkson said on TV?

That's a bit far-fetched, isn't it?

The logical extension is that no cyclist - however blameworthy - must
ever be criticised for anything in case that incites someone to have a
go at a cyclist.

It's not a runner, is it?

> This does not require that motorists are mainly
> irate, violence-threatening, oafs, simply that _some_ motorists are
> irate violence-threatening oafs.

And we know - from the evidence given here recently - that there are
such people ready to offer violence. The only way to avoid it is to
steer clear of them as much as possible. That's one reason why I avoid
public transport on every possible occasion. You know it makes sense.

 

[Simon Brooke]

in message <[email protected]>, JNugent
('[email protected]') wrote:

> Simon Brooke wrote:
>
>> JNugent ('[email protected]') wrote:
>>>Daniel Barlow wrote:
>>>>JNugent wrote:
>
>>>>>That's actually explainable in purely practical terms. Slower vehicles
>>>>>give way (ie, make way) for faster vehicles. It's the basic rule of
>>>>>the road: do not prevent another vehicle from overtaking you. It's the
>>>>>very same thing which is also reflected in the rule banning HGVs (and
>>>>>nowadays, AIUI, coaches) from the third lane of the motorway (or bikes
>>>>>and pedestrians from the whole of the motorway). It's not personal.
>>>>>It's a practical method of gaining maximum utility.
>
>>>>If you're really concerned with maximum utility, perhaps you should be
>>>>considering overall person throughput instead of the speed of
>>>>individual
>>>>vehicles. 40-odd people on a bus surely should have priority over the
>>>>three single-occupant private cars that would otherwise be occupying
>>>>the same roadspace.
>
>>>People on a bus are not more important than people on bikes or in cars.
>
>> No, but they are equally important - and there are more of them per unit
>> road space. Furthermore, the more people who travel by bus, the more
>> road space is left for people who travel by less efficient means. So
>> it's in everyone's interests to prioritise the busses.
>
> How?
>
> How is it in the interests of those who travel by car, van, minibus or
> motorbike to have half the width of the road (and all of the kerbside
> space) denied to them? What benefit do any of them get from standing
> in a single line queue for every set of traffic lights?

Imagine there are forty-one cars on one road between one set of traffic
lights and the next. Each occupies a full lane width - three metres - by
about five metres, or fifteen square metres. Imagine that this block,
between the traffic lights, is 70 metres long and two lanes wide[1]. It's
packed solid, bumper to bumper, with cars spilling out into the junctions
at both ends. If every other street it the same, the system is
gridlocked - nothing can move.

Imagine instead forty of those drivers decide to take the bus. Now there's
one bus, and one car. They occupy, between them, 60 square metres of road
space, out of a total of 1,260 square metres. That's right, less than a
twentieth of the space. So there's no congestion, and both the bus and the
car can move freely. So the same number of people use the same area of
road surface, but do so much more quickly.

So not only do the people who take the bus benefit - even the person who
stays in his car benefits.

[1] If you think a block 70 metres long is unrealistically short, imagine
it's 140 metres long with 82 cars, or 210 metres long with 123; it makes
no difference to the maths.

--
[email protected] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

-- mens vacua in medio vacuo --

 

[JNugent]

Simon Brooke wrote:
> in message <[email protected]>, JNugent
> ('[email protected]') wrote:
>
>
>>Simon Brooke wrote:
>>
>>
>>>JNugent ('[email protected]') wrote:
>>>
>>>>Daniel Barlow wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>JNugent wrote:
>>
>>>>>>That's actually explainable in purely practical terms. Slower vehicles
>>>>>>give way (ie, make way) for faster vehicles. It's the basic rule of
>>>>>>the road: do not prevent another vehicle from overtaking you. It's the
>>>>>>very same thing which is also reflected in the rule banning HGVs (and
>>>>>>nowadays, AIUI, coaches) from the third lane of the motorway (or bikes
>>>>>>and pedestrians from the whole of the motorway). It's not personal.
>>>>>>It's a practical method of gaining maximum utility.
>>
>>>>>If you're really concerned with maximum utility, perhaps you should be
>>>>>considering overall person throughput instead of the speed of
>>>>>individual
>>>>>vehicles. 40-odd people on a bus surely should have priority over the
>>>>>three single-occupant private cars that would otherwise be occupying
>>>>>the same roadspace.
>>
>>>>People on a bus are not more important than people on bikes or in cars.
>>
>>>No, but they are equally important - and there are more of them per unit
>>>road space. Furthermore, the more people who travel by bus, the more
>>>road space is left for people who travel by less efficient means. So
>>>it's in everyone's interests to prioritise the busses.
>>
>>How?

>>How is it in the interests of those who travel by car, van, minibus or
>>motorbike to have half the width of the road (and all of the kerbside
>>space) denied to them? What benefit do any of them get from standing
>>in a single line queue for every set of traffic lights?

> Imagine there are forty-one cars on one road between one set of traffic
> lights and the next. Each occupies a full lane width - three metres - by
> about five metres, or fifteen square metres. Imagine that this block,
> between the traffic lights, is 70 metres long and two lanes wide[1]. It's
> packed solid, bumper to bumper, with cars spilling out into the junctions
> at both ends. If every other street it the same, the system is
> gridlocked - nothing can move.

> Imagine instead forty of those drivers decide to take the bus. Now there's
> one bus, and one car. They occupy, between them, 60 square metres of road
> space, out of a total of 1,260 square metres. That's right, less than a
> twentieth of the space. So there's no congestion, and both the bus and the
> car can move freely. So the same number of people use the same area of
> road surface, but do so much more quickly.

> So not only do the people who take the bus benefit - even the person who
> stays in his car benefits.

A wonderful imaginary scenario.

That's some imagination you've got there.

In the real world, though, it's funny that it now takes three times as
long to do a (very) few miles as it did fifteen years ago when there
wasn't the amount of stolen or vandalised road-space and before
traffic lights were re-phased so as to allow eight seconds of green
every few minutes. Perhaps all the drivers don't realise it's better
for them. But if you say so, it must be, I er... imagine.

 

[Simon Brooke]

in message <[email protected]>, JNugent
('[email protected]') wrote:

>> but that motorists - that is, people driving cars - may offer
>> violence to cyclists.
>
> Because of something Clarkson said on TV?
>
> That's a bit far-fetched, isn't it?

No, not in the least.

--
[email protected] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

;; in faecibus sapiens rheum propagabit

 

[Marc Brett]

On Mon, 04 Jun 2007 19:48:54 +0100, JNugent
<[email protected]> wrote:


>> This does not require that motorists are mainly
>> irate, violence-threatening, oafs, simply that _some_ motorists are
>> irate violence-threatening oafs.
>
>And we know - from the evidence given here recently - that there are
>such people ready to offer violence. The only way to avoid it is to
>steer clear of them as much as possible. That's one reason why I avoid
>public transport on every possible occasion. You know it makes sense.

You can envy the "near-empty bus every ten minutes whilst the remaining
traffic lane is stationary for as far as the eye can see." or you could
hop aboard and cruise down clear bus lanes for as far as that same eye
can see. Your choice. Seriously, take the bus. You know it makes
sense.

 

[Mark Thompson]

> or you could
> hop aboard and cruise down clear bus lanes for as far as that same eye
> can see. Your choice. Seriously, take the bus. You know it makes
> sense.

Sod that, hop aboard the bicycle and beat both the bus and the cars

 

[Daniel Barlow]

JNugent wrote:
> Daniel Barlow wrote:
>> You know, I wrote a detailed response addressing your specific points
>> one at a time, but on re-reading it before sending I realised that it
>> will have absolutely no effect on your point of view while you
>> continue in your belief that "cyclists" and "everyone else" are two
>> mutually exclusive groups in society.
>
> There's your problem. I don't believe that at all - and nothing I have
> ever written could make you believe it to be so. [..] Cyclists have no fewer
> but importantly - no more - rights and responsibilities than anyone
> else. A necessary corollary of that is that they should not be favoured
> by the authorities.

You're still confusing a lifestyle choice (for want of a better word)
with a mode of transport. If you were talking about favouritism based
on social class or religion or weird subculture or physical
characteristic, I would be agreeing with you 100% here. But to gain the
favour of the authorities in this situation you decry, all that is
necessary is that one obtains a bicycle and rides it. There's no need
to swear allegiance to anything or to renounce the car or roll up ones
left trouserleg or even to do perverted acts with a goat.

I self-identify as "a cyclist", meaning that I spend a reasonable amount
of time and money on cycling, I read cycling newsgroups and magazines,
I'm about to join the LCC. But the authorities are not discriminating
in favour of /me/. I can't use cycle lanes when I'm on foot or when I'm
in a bus. Even if I'm wearing lycra shorts and SPD shoes to drive a car
I still can't use ASLs. If I could, I agree, it would be ludicrous.

But the discrimination we're talking about is not in favour of some
identifiable "lifestyle" group, it's in favour of road users who are at
a given moment using a particular mode of transport, and complaining
that it's unfair is about as sensible as complaining that the "8 items
or less" checkout in the supermarket is unfair because it discriminates
against people who habitually buy more than that. You don't have to get
circumcised, grow a beard or join a club to stand in the express
checkout line, you just have to purchase fewer than nine things at a
time. Easy.


-dan

 

[JNugent]

Marc Brett wrote:
> On Mon, 04 Jun 2007 19:48:54 +0100, JNugent
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
>
>>>This does not require that motorists are mainly
>>>irate, violence-threatening, oafs, simply that _some_ motorists are
>>>irate violence-threatening oafs.
>>
>>And we know - from the evidence given here recently - that there are
>>such people ready to offer violence. The only way to avoid it is to
>>steer clear of them as much as possible. That's one reason why I avoid
>>public transport on every possible occasion. You know it makes sense.

> You can envy the "near-empty bus every ten minutes whilst the remaining
> traffic lane is stationary for as far as the eye can see." or you could
> hop aboard and cruise down clear bus lanes for as far as that same eye
> can see. Your choice. Seriously, take the bus. You know it makes
> sense.

Am I allowed to park at the bus-stop?

Take my word for it - the bus doesn't go past my house.

But more importantly, what guarantees do I have that other occupants
of the bus (or the tube) are not the same sort of maniac as the one
who attacked our friend the earlier poster? How do I protect my family
when they are with me?

<insert your "witty" retort to the effect that none of this is
important just here>

 

[JNugent]

Daniel Barlow wrote:

> JNugent wrote:
>> Daniel Barlow wrote:

>>> You know, I wrote a detailed response addressing your specific
>>> points one at a time, but on re-reading it before sending I realised
>>> that it will have absolutely no effect on your point of view while
>>> you continue in your belief that "cyclists" and "everyone else" are
>>> two mutually exclusive groups in society.

>> There's your problem. I don't believe that at all - and nothing I have
>> ever written could make you believe it to be so. [..] Cyclists have
>> no fewer
>> but importantly - no more - rights and responsibilities than anyone
>> else. A necessary corollary of that is that they should not be
>> favoured by the authorities.

> You're still confusing a lifestyle choice (for want of a better word)
> with a mode of transport.

I am aware of that linguistic difficulty.

For "motorist" read "person driving or riding in a car".

For "cyclist" read "person riding a bike".

We are all pedestrians most of the time.

If it helps, please read "[cyclists] should not be favoured by the
authorities" as "people riding bikes should not be favoured by the
authorities".

> If you were talking about favouritism based
> on social class or religion or weird subculture or physical
> characteristic, I would be agreeing with you 100% here. But to gain the
> favour of the authorities in this situation you decry, all that is
> necessary is that one obtains a bicycle and rides it. There's no need
> to swear allegiance to anything or to renounce the car or roll up ones
> left trouserleg or even to do perverted acts with a goat.

That's sophistry. Being a cyclist at any one moment necessarily
precludes being a motorist at the same moment, and vice-versa. I
cannot gain the advantages conferred upon people riding bikes without
losing the advantages of using a car at that same moment.

If only mere possession of a bike were enough (I have one, and it
isn't)...

 

[JNugent]

Simon Brooke wrote:

> JNugent ('[email protected]') wrote:

>>>but that motorists - that is, people driving cars - may offer
>>>violence to cyclists.

>>Because of something Clarkson said on TV?
>>That's a bit far-fetched, isn't it?

> No, not in the least.

It is down here on Planet Earth.

 

[[email protected]]

JNugent wrote:
> Gareth Rees wrote:
> > I think that this [i.e. threats and acts of violence
> > perpetrated by motorists against cyclists] is explainable in
> > sociological terms as being about status. In our society,
> > cars are high status vehicles, bicycles are low status
> > vehicles. Thus bicyclists are expected to give way to
> > motorists;
>
> That's actually explainable in purely practical terms. Slower
> vehicles give way (ie, make way) for faster vehicles. It's the
> basic rule of the road: do not prevent another vehicle from
> overtaking you.

I don't think that's an adequate explanation for the phenomenon
we're discussing. Cyclists spend almost all of their time on
the road giving way to faster vehicles; it's only for a small
percentage of the time that they impede motorists -- when the
road is too narrow for overtaking, or when taking the
appropriate lane at a junction. In these cases a motorist is
impeded for only a few seconds -- no more than if stuck at a red
light or behind a bus or tractor. The hostility against
cyclists is too common to be explainable by such small
inconveniences, even though in some cases the hold-up is
the immediate trigger for the hostility.

And plenty of hostility arises even when there's no
inconvenience at all -- I don't think the passenger who throws
his cigarette butt or cup of coffee at me from an overtaking
vehicle is expressing frustration at being impeded in his
journey. How would you explain this kind of action?

When I was learning to drive I often stalled when moving away
from junctions, thus holding up the drivers behind me. But
no-one has ever threatened me with violence for stalling.

--
Gareth Rees

 

[Brimstone]

"JNugent" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Simon Brooke wrote:
>
>> JNugent ('[email protected]') wrote:
>
>>>>but that motorists - that is, people driving cars - may offer
>>>>violence to cyclists.
>
>>>Because of something Clarkson said on TV?
>>>That's a bit far-fetched, isn't it?
>
>> No, not in the least.
>
> It is down here on Planet Earth.

Which a very different place to NugentWorld