Cycling

Twitter's 140 characters let me down again. Saw this on Twitter, about cycling and motorists, from a motorists' union. I wonder if they're a member of a wider umbrella union, representing unions for interests that already have society set up to suit them?

Millions of times a day drivers are safely and considerately negotiating their way past cyclists but to believe in an imaginary war, implies that drivers are deliberately going out to be rude, inconsiderate and dangerous to cyclists.

Don't really give a toss about what's being implied, or whether a driver is going out of their way to be rude or not, only the end result that I witness when I'm on my bike. The most common one is not giving enough room when overtaking. Either out of impatience, someone feeling pressured by motorists behind, or because (the scary one) a car moves out, passes properly, but they're being tailgated by someone who hasn't left themselves enough time to react to things that materialise in their field of vision.

Next most common are acts of driving where the motorist has seen me and does something that turns out to be safe, but I don't know whether I've been seen, and it starts the same way as something far more dangerous, so I have to take evasive action. A driver pulling out of an opposite side road in my direction, but not coming all the way over to my side is a good example. Initially they're accelerating their car right at where I'm going to be, so I hit the brakes and the adrenaline gets flowing.

Then we have left hooks, when someone overtakes then immediately slows down and turns left. In one bad instance of that, I nearly ended up under a car. About as common as left hooks are cars pulling out of junctions who either haven't seen me or underestimate my speed. Once that happened when someone reversed into the road!

I say I couldn't give a toss about what drivers might be thinking, only the end result, however I haven't really been subject to being yelled at by a driver that I "don't pay road tax" or I "shouldn't be on the road", which many other cyclists have experienced. It's an alarming thought that someone in a car, a potentially lethal weapon, might give you less respect because they feel righteous, and one I try not to entertain.

All of this is unnecessary. People need to share the road. And prepare to give up the odd 5 or 10 seconds of time here and there so we can all do it safely. People should drive at speeds where they can react to anything that might happen in their window of vision. That means: not tailgating, slowing down when sun is in eyes, not piling into blind bends, etc. Obvious stuff.

The fact is that after 300 billion driver miles year, there's less death on the road from all causes than from accidents in the home and five times less than from NHS failure. So UK's drivers seem to be much better than the keen cyclists of The AA will credit.

Crude apples and oranges comparisons there. That'll be comforting to the families, that there's some context.

They forget to mention that our society, yes even The Thunderer, would collapse without our 35 million drivers but not without cyclists. There are only two types of road user that society must have; walkers and drivers.

Good god. The choice isn't between a functioning society with a few deaths and the collapse of our economy. The choice is whether people can sacrifice the odd 5 seconds here and there to allow everyone to use the road safely. Classic false dichotomy.

The fact is that cycling isn't that crucial at all. Only a minority do it keenly and they are only in a tiny minority of London commuters too. This shows that The AA's 'Two tribes' claim is fallacious in every respect.

What does it matter whether it's crucial? Drivers are responsible for not hitting things they can avoid hitting by driving responsibly. If drivers are responsible, then we don't have a problem, do we? Besides, what's crucial? Is a car journey crucial when it could be taken on foot? Is a car journey crucial when it's just for social reasons? We're dealing with different standards of crucial here, which is kind of a bullet-meets-foot moment when the author is (otherwise rightfully I think) arguing against a two-tribes mentality.

I find such thinking alarming because it might give a motorist less concern than they should have that their car is a lethal weapon when used incorrectly. I know it's being used to try and rubbish the AA's campaign, but it belies a mentality. Another reason to be alarmed is the idea that by getting my bike out of the garage, I'm writing a disclaimer about what might happen to me.

Why do some drivers feel so threatened by all of this? Is it such a problem that they might have to do what's in the highway code?

If there are massive safety issues about road cycling, then it is the duty of politicians, and your paper to preface any discussion with the question: 'Does our society need it?' 'Why must we have road cycling?'. A fair logical question isn't it? 

No, those questions are retarded, for reasons given above.

Why do we also ignore that road cycling is placing one's unprotected body, on two slender wheels, among and competing with large essential relatively fast moving machines, operated by complete strangers of varying ability and mental capacity? That is road cycling in a nutshell.

Now we have an if-by-whiskey fallacy. No that's not cycling, although you might want to use it as a reason why the potentially-lethal-car-weapon should be used responsibly (see above about driving in a way to give you time to react to things).

And again, a cyclist is not implicitly entering into some kind of disclaimer by entering the domain of the car. We can all share. Cyclists should not be subjected to careless, pointless, impatient behaviour. Maybe the author might want to think of a better way of stopping that instead of rubbishing the AA's campaign and belittling the problem?

Would humans normally behave like that unless it were cycling? If the concept were only just being suggested and proposed now, we would send for the men in white coats. How can politicians and the media ignore the reality and encourage more to do it?

What if we were a nation of walkers, horse-riders, and cyclists and someone just invented the motorcar? It wouldn't be the men in white coats, it would be an armed police squad. The author should try using his own arguments on his own arguments, it might help uncover turds-on-own-doorsteps he wasn't aware of.

They ignore reality because it's your own personal reality which isn't the one other people inhabit. Cycling has net-positive health benefits. That's why it's encouraged.

So why not support drivers more? None of us, including keen cyclists, can exist without them.

I bet if there isn't already an online shop full of bumper stickers along the lines of "another motorist, saving the economy" then he's working on it.

My most terrifying experience was when I was narrowly missed by an oncoming National Grid van which was on my side of the road because it was overtaking something. Either didn't see me or didn't care. But hey I'm the one taking the risks, with my skinny tyres, and it's down to these people that we have an economy at all! What I was doing was unnecessary, but that driver saving a few seconds by overtaking something was crucial, and, besides, the NHS kills more people.

And breathe.