Cycling UK Forum

reohn2 wrote:

JQ666 wrote:
What you have just said is exactly the outcome predicted by Marx & Engels - I just doubt their expected revolution will happen, as the newly created middle-class will find it hard to let go of their personal greed!

I once saw a something on TV about unscrupulous(sp?) people who catch young monkeys in the far east somewhere,they simply tie a coconut to a tree the coconut has the top cut off just big enough for a young monkey to get its hand in and some peanut butter smeared inside.
The trick is that the monkey gets its hand inside the coconut but when grasps and makes a fist it can't get its hand out,the silly monkey won't let go of the peanut butter its holding and so by its own greed sits and waits to be caught,when all it has to do is let go........

thirdcrank wrote:I witnessed an exhibition of selfish driving this afternoon.

I was on my bike, waiting at traffic lights in an advanced stop box. I heard an emergency vehicle from the right. As the lights changed a paramedic ambulance car appeared - blue beacons on, yelp sounding, headlights flashing alternately. I stopped to let the ambulance continue but the two drivers following me pulled around me and drove across the junction. Luckily, the ambulance driver had slowed to a crawl so he was able to stop. He then waited in the middle of the junction looking at me. I waved to indicate that I was waiting and as the ambulance began to move forward, another car overtook me and forced a way across in front of the ambulance.

I know that it is a lot easier to hear an ambulance on a bike than it is in a car, but as this incident developed the ambulance was slap-bang in the middle of the junction and clearly visible on all the approaches.

If people are in such a rush that they cannot let an ambulance have a free run, what hope is there for anybody?

nigel_s wrote:
Homo Sapiens is basically a nasty piece of work. As far a behaviour is concerned only eating, procreating and fighting comes naturally. Everything else has to be learned. We will behave if there's something in it for us. Homo Sapiens will only behave when not behaving will cause trouble for himself. In my schooldays we got hit if we got caught misbehaving. So we behaved in the presence of those who would hit us.

Such is the rest of life. People will be nasty and selfish if they think that they can get away with it.

Put two starving people in a room for a few days, then introduce a small bit of food. The one who gets to eat the food first will be the more selfish and ruthless one. And he's the one more likely to survive. That's why we are what we are.

Nothing to do with Thatcher!

mhara wrote:Lynnn Truss wrote an excellent sequel to her book Eats Shoots and Leaves. It’s called Talk To the Hand. It’s about the “utter bloody rudeness of everyday life” and it brilliantly features six examples of how our world has become ‘in your face’, uncaring of each other and totally without the civilising concept of good manners.

I think she should have added a seventh example – the utter bloody rudeness of everyday driving, which, thanks to our minority status and vulnerability on the road we get to experience on an everyday basis.

My theory is that the generation schooled during the disastrous 18 Years Of Thatcherism (no such thing as society, only individuals… .) are now the 18 to 38 yr old generation driving as if nothing and no-one should come between them and the most rapid arrival at their destination.

These ‘Thatcher’s Children’ have grow up into the predictable generation of anti-social, rude, me-me-me, my-rights motorists. We may have said Never Again! to the Tories, but we have the by-products of their 18 years with us daily on the roads.

I dread to think what cycling will be like when their own children reach driving age

hubgearfreak wrote:... the one generalisation you can make about this [18 to 38] age group, is that we weren't the ones stupid enough to vote for thatcher, as a majority of the people in you age group did

mhara wrote:Fair point, and nicely made. You're right, it was a sweeping generalisation, damn, just when I thought I'd weeded that bad habit out of my system.

My apologies Hugbearfreak - like you I've never voted Tory my whole life, and yes, rudeness can occur in any age group. For instance - making sweeping statements about 18 to 38 year olds.

hubgearfreak wrote:....the one generalisation you can make about this age group, is that we weren't the ones stupid enough to vote for thatcher, as a majority of the people in you age group did....

commuter world wrote: but as politics in this country is geard to short termism - making sure you get elected every five years
it's the main inherent flaw in the current system we have.