Pop-up cycle lanes - responding to Dear Editor

[David9694]

The heat is on up and down the land where the pop-up cycle lanes have appeared recently.
Some of them do seem a bit of an affront, I’ll admit - my old boss always said “you’ve got to be subtle“. And aren’t the several oh-so-reasonable letter-writers affronted.

To respond or not to respond, that it is the question - letter gets published : world is a slightly worse place for it.

Unchallenged, this nonsense gets ever further ingrained and that doesn’t stop the rabid commenters still from weighing-in, saying what a rotten and feckless lot cyclists are and they should be taken off the road, etc. “The city is anti-car, the shops will all Close down, my three mile journey now takes 40 minutes, what about the people with mobility problems” etc.

Challenged, how we civilly (but need to be concise and punchy too) and it rapidly gets bitter and polarised. The posters aren’t going to improve either as people, or as drivers just because with a little bit of help from yours truly they’ve Painted themselves into a rhetorical corner. They might well end up hating cyclists for being even more self-righteous, than before.

Views ?

[gaz]

Dear Editor letters are tomorrow's virtual chip paper.

Dear Councillor/Dear MP letters on the other hand ... so make sure they get some supportive ones too.

Facts have rarely triumphed over loudly voiced opinion but they remain the key thing to offer. Find local support wherever you can.

If you must respond to the Dear Editor then focus on public transport (reduction in capacity thereof) and ask Mr Concerned of Your Local Town how he proposes all those people make their everyday journeys, what does he suggest as an alternative and even if they can get through the resulting grid-lock where are all those extra cars going to park.

[reohn2]

Do you have any links to these people protesting the car should rule?
I know they exist,I'd like a pop at them myself

[Cyril Haearn]

I used to write a lot of letters, many were published
Thing is to write a short simple text that anyone can understand, just make one point, maybe with 'humour'
Pretending to be an uninterested outsider might be good

Surely everybody knows that pedestrianisation is Good for Busin€$$

[thirdcrank]

Not pop-up cycle lanes, but the following letter to the editor was published as a contribution to the current debate about electric scooters:

Sir - Bicycles can go faster than the 15.5 mph limit for electric scooters in the Department for Transport 12 month trial. Do they have to have horns, indicators, brake lights or a certificate of roadworthiness? No. That is why nearly 20,000 cyclists are killed or injured on Britain's roads every year.
(Daily Telegraph 4 July 2020)

NB No mention of helmets.

[David9694]

Do you have any links to these people protesting the car should rule?
I know they exist,I'd like a pop at them myself

You could try the Southern Echo ....

[David9694]

I used to write a lot of letters, many were published
Thing is to write a short simple text that anyone can understand, just make one point, maybe with 'humour'
Pretending to be an uninterested outsider might be good

Surely everybody knows that pedestrianisation is Good for Busin€$$

Writers equate the car with general retail prosperity, it seems. Everything, including fairly minor changes, gets exaggerated and polarised of course. I do sometimes wonder how long/far extra some people will drive, such is their need to pull up right outside the shop door.

If done well, pedestrianisation is a good thing, but it often isn’t - a windswept desert after shop hours, sealed-off by a string of gloomy car parks and a ring road.

[David9694]

Not pop-up cycle lanes, but the following letter to the editor was published as a contribution to the current debate about electric scooters:

Sir - Bicycles can go faster than the 15.5 mph limit for electric scooters in the Department for Transport 12 month trial. Do they have to have horns, indicators, brake lights or a certificate of roadworthiness? No. That is why nearly 20,000 cyclists are killed or injured on Britain's roads every year.
(Daily Telegraph 4 July 2020)

NB No mention of helmets.

Oh no! He said the word!

[cycle tramp]

Not pop-up cycle lanes, but the following letter to the editor was published as a contribution to the current debate about electric scooters:

Sir - Bicycles can go faster than the 15.5 mph limit for electric scooters in the Department for Transport 12 month trial. Do they have to have horns, indicators, brake lights or a certificate of roadworthiness? No. That is why nearly 20,000 cyclists are killed or injured on Britain's roads every year.
(Daily Telegraph 4 July 2020)

NB No mention of helmets.

Blimey, are people still purchasing actual newspapers? I didn't even know the telegraph was still being printed...
In the words of Nelson Munce from the Simpsons; 'Ha, ha your medium's dead' and given the amount of small minded bitterness it contains, we won't even miss it when it goes...

[cycle tramp]

In all honesty, I wouldn't even worry about writing back to the letters page of any newspaper... why? Because the only people who read the letters page are whining moaners and the only reason they read the letters page is to see if their own letter has been printed...
I suspect half the letters, like the example in the telegraph are made up to feel the space.. and yes you can use logic (like 'Wow, so based on your logic why are there collisions between motor vehicles which have certificate of road worthiness? Unless its human error... but wait if human error was the reason for collisions between vehicles with mot then perhaps it's also the reason why there could be collisions between motor vehicle traffic and non motor vehicle traffic?').... but, really it's such a waste of time. No one is listening because what you're saying doesn't fit with their view of the world.
And it's such a waste of bike riding time too. The best answer to those anti-cyclist letters is to ride you bike, with a bit of pride and dignity - to be a bit of an example to all those who look at you with an open mind and who think 'they look like they're really enjoying themselves... perhaps I might enjoy cycling, too'. If a picture is worth a thousand words, how many words does your presence write in the minds who see you on your bike enjoying the journey?

[Cyril Haearn]

Right again, I always checked whether my letters had been published
Sometimes there were retorts by indignant correspondents, so I was not the only one who read them

[mikeymo]

Pretending to be an uninterested outsider might be good

LOL!! Good one!

[mikeymo]

Dear Editor letters are tomorrow's virtual chip paper.

Not any more. The nasty EU stopped us using newspapers to wrap F&C. But soon we'll be able to eat our soggy chips from old copies of the Watford Gazette.

Oh, wait... https://www.indy100.com/article/brexit-fish-chips-newspaper-leave-eu-james-obrien-lbc-radio-9010961