When our own President hates us!

[keepontriking]

Snow OUT.

CTC: Sort it.

[stewartpratt]

Sorry to add to the misery, but even the Road Justice campaign is misguided. Is there any need for any such campaign in the Netherlands? Of course not, because the sensible Dutch understand that no matter what sentences are handed to bad drivers, they are not going to eliminate bad driving and the danger resulting from it. For some reason, CTC seems to think it makes more sense to try to change human behaviour patterns than to get some infrastructure built.

In a small way I'm inclined to agree to be honest (plus I find the RJ objectives rather nebulously defined to be effective), but I see it as a part of addressing an overall lax attitude to safety on the road, and not just for people on bicycles but for people using all modes of transport. There are limited things you can do about human behaviour, but you can take proven dangerous drivers off the road, you can reduce tolerance of death and injury, you can make systemic changes, you can change the law. My take on it -> http://beyondthekerb.wordpress.com/2013 ... st-change/

[reohn2]

................My take on it -> http://beyondthekerb.wordpress.com/2013 ... st-change/

I makes you wonder why the likes of Jon Snow isn't concentrating his efforts as CTC president on such issues,instead of telling whoever's listening how bad cyclists are!

You couldn't make it up.......

[horizon]

I think that having given it a hundred years it's time to review it ...

If you agree to send me £1 for every time I've posted along the lines that the criminal justice system isn't working, that vulnerable road users suffer most from the collapse of traffic enforcement etc., I'll tot up your bill. Before committing yourself, note my embarrassingly high post count and bear in mind how repetitive I am.

thirdcrank: I cannot bear to hear motorists whining about RLJing, for the reasons I gave. That doesn't mean that I don't think they ought to be listened to (as long as I don't have to) not because they have anything worth saying but for the reasons that I understand you hold. It also doesn't mean that we cannot think creatively about redefining a cycle so as not to lose our right to cycle on the road. Nor does it means that I think cyclists should break the law as it stands - I don't and I don't.

If you believe that the same law that makes RLJing illegal gives cyclists rights that they might not otherwise have, then I'm all ears. And if you believe that it is politic that we remain aware of the views of motorists, then I am right with you. And if you feel that what I wrote is inappropriate in today's context and gives fuel to their arguments, then I agree with you - I would say in public what Jon Snow said. But that doesn't stop me expressing my disgust on a cycling forum about a class of people in our society who complain about a minor infringement of the law on the part of cyclists while ignoring the beam in their own eye.

The RLJing issue will move on with the media circus when the commentators are finally bored with it and they cannot squeeze further controversy from it. But we as pedestrians and cyclists will continue to live (hopefully) with the self-righteousness, the abuse, the intimidation and the danger of this semi-moronic, self-important and self-serving strata of society.

[reohn2]

Snow OUT.

CTC: Sort it.

Unfortunatelty you're Snowed under(sorry,couldn't resist )

[hexhome]

From the Times this morning;

Cyclists need to stop their “bad behaviour” on the road if they want to improve safety for themselves, Jon Snow, the newsreader and cyclists’ champion, has said. Mr Snow, who is president of the Cyclists’ Touring Club, said: “Cyclists could behave better. I don’t know if there are any cyclists who haven’t gone through a red light. You do not get that on the Continent. So many people are cycling ... a radical rethink is required.

This is now apparently a bid to introduce congestion charging in order to increase safety for cyclists.;

“As a noted cycling commuter using the streets of London on a daily basis he is in a good position to comment on high-quality and safe infrastructure for cycling, and also reducing the number of vehicles on city streets through congestion charging."

Err, London has that?

OK, he has a point BUT we all know that this goes way beyond the behaviour of some cyclists! The biggest issue I face on a daily basis is the attitude of a few drivers who genuinely believe that they should punish me for being on 'their' road. Jon Snow has gone towards legitimising their poison.

[thirdcrank]

horizon

I can only say that I am what is now derided as a vehicular cyclist. Were it not such a bad thing, I'd be as pleasantly surprised as M. Jourdain when he discovered he was able to speak in prose. I see no benefit in honorary pedestrian status, if only from my experience as real one.

I think we'd all be safer with better enforcement of traffic rules. I think that would be easier and more effective with a change from the adversarial justice system.

Unfortunately, I don't see any imminent changes.

On the suggestion that the press will move on from RLJing etc., I think you are mistaken. The present trend of cyclists opting out of the system can only become more pronounced and the reaction more strident, reflecting a popular theme. Like it or not, lawbreaking is lawbreaking, and campaigning for change, no matter how ineffective that campaigning may be anyway, is futile without recognising that fundamental principle. Anything else is liable to be portrayed as humbug and self righteousness, no matter how strong the moral justification. Cyclists are different from most other minorities in that membership of the group is voluntary. While some may be attracted, at least for a while, by the street warrior status, they will move on before the media do so.

[stewartpratt]

I can only say that I am what is now derided as a vehicular cyclist.

There's nothing wrong with being a vehicular cyclist. It's what you have to be to survive on Britain's roads. The problem is the vehicularists who insist others should be forced to be vehicular if they are to cycle.

[thirdcrank]

... There's nothing wrong with being a vehicular cyclist. ...

In my own rather clumsy way, that's the very point I was trying to make. It's a stance that isn't universally shared on here, hence my writing "derided." It's a strongly held view of some forum members that so-called vehicular cyclists represent the main obstruction in the way to cycling Utopia.

[horizon]

horizon

I can only say that I am what is now derided as a vehicular cyclist. Were it not such a bad thing, I'd be as pleasantly surprised as M. Jourdain when he discovered he was able to speak in prose. I see no benefit in honorary pedestrian status, if only from my experience as real one.

I think we'd all be safer with better enforcement of traffic rules. I think that would be easier and more effective with a change from the adversarial justice system.

Unfortunately, I don't see any imminent changes.

On the suggestion that the press will move on from RLJing etc., I think you are mistaken. The present trend of cyclists opting out of the system can only become more pronounced and the reaction more strident, reflecting a popular theme. Like it or not, lawbreaking is lawbreaking, and campaigning for change, no matter how ineffective that campaigning may be anyway, is futile without recognising that fundamental principle. Anything else is liable to be portrayed as humbug and self righteousness, no matter how strong the moral justification. Cyclists are different from most other minorities in that membership of the group is voluntary. While some may be attracted, at least for a while, by the street warrior status, they will move on before the media do so.

thirdcrank: time unfortunately does not pemit me to give a full reply. Suffice to say for the moment that there are several inter-weaving themes here but I do not believe that we disagree that much at all. I too would describe myself as a vehicular cyclist - it's just that I draw the line at evincing sympathy for a hard-done-by motorist perplexed at a traffic infringement by a cyclist while on his way to commit manslaughter.

[meic]

We may not have much of a moral hang-up about naughty cyclists upsetting motorists through getting away with a petty misdemeanor in a way they cant. However there is still I believe a problem in the cities of cyclists' RLJing endangering the pedestrians or at least depriving them of the chance to cross when they have waited a very long time for their turn.

[thirdcrank]

... time unfortunately does not pemit me to give a full reply. Suffice to say for the moment that there are several inter-weaving themes here but I do not believe that we disagree that much at all. I too would describe myself as a vehicular cyclist - it's just that I draw the line at evincing sympathy for a hard-done-by motorist perplexed at a traffic infringement by a cyclist while on his way to commit manslaughter. (My emphasis)

You seem to be saying the your main disagreement with me concerns a POV I don't hold and have not intentionally expressed.

... there is still I believe a problem in the cities of cyclists' RLJing endangering the pedestrians or at least depriving them of the chance to cross when they have waited a very long time for their turn.

+1 There's a busy pelican I use often, which some cyclists routinely ignore. I've witnessed a very near miss which I might well have been involved in myself, where the cyclist shrieked abuse at the pedestrian who had done nothing but jump out of the way.

I'd add that crossing the stop line at traffic lights and creating a virtual ASL and then track standing etc doesn't necessarily improve conditions for pedestrians either.

[MikeF]

I'd liked to know what he actually said rather than a selection of words presented by the press. Anyone know? Have we been duped by the press again for effect, and all jumped to the wrong conclusion?

[MikeF]

We may not have much of a moral hang-up about naughty cyclists upsetting motorists through getting away with a petty misdemeanor in a way they cant. However there is still I believe a problem in the cities of cyclists' RLJing endangering the pedestrians or at least depriving them of the chance to cross when they have waited a very long time for their turn.

+1

[JimL]

I have to say (so I suppose I shouldn't post in this thread) that the whole RLJing thing leaves me cold. It is an accident of history and law that cyclists commit an offence when they go through a red light whereas pedestrians don't. The motoring lobby has brought my country to the verge of destruction - I have little time to worry about their minor exasperations. Mr Snow can prattle all he likes about it as can the others. I obey red lights but I have no time for the argument. I'm thinking about the Blackdown Hills, the gigantic earth movers, the road closures, the noise, the loss of habitat and landscape. I'm thinking of the cyclists killed in careless accidents, of the fear that prevents many people from cycling or enjoying their towns and cities. And when a motorist complains of a cyclist running a red light I simply want to spit.

Another +1

The president is bit of a disaster and has been since day one. Shouldn't the CEO / Council sort it out?