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news
Razor wire (licensed CC BY SA 3.0 by J Smith on Wikimedia Commons)Sheffield lifestyle magazine editor defends article suggesting pavement cyclists should be decapitated using razor wire
Ian Macgill, editor of the Grapevine magazine, which is delivered free to 23,000 homes in Sheffield each month, wrote an editorial that implied razor wire across pavements might deter cyclists.
The original article recounted a conversation between Macgill, and an “old chum Mr Smith” in which the latter called for wire to be introduced at head height, so pavement riders are “taught a lesson.”
In what is presumably meant to be a 'humorous' editorial, Macgill expressed reservations about the idea touted by “Mr Smith” and said his companion had eventually calmed down and agreed that his plan was a bit too radical.
The editorial ended with the line: “if you lop the heads off cyclists our pavements will become covered in red slime and gore which raises all kinds of health and safety concerns.”
Sheffield daily newspaper The Star subsequently published a reaction piece from the city’s cycling community, in which Macgill was accused of “legitimising hatred” against cyclists.
Sheffield-based cycling blogger Chris Maloney told The Star: “This kind of comment – joking or otherwise – legitimises the anti-cyclist hatred and rhetoric that groups like Ride Sheffield, Peak District MTB and me – as well as others such as CycleSheffield have worked hard – successfully I might add – to combat.
“And more than that, as well as legitimising the bile, Macgill has gone one step further and suggested ways in which an easily led idiot could cause serious bodily harm.”
In May of this year a cyclist in Swansea described how he came off his bike after riding into a fishing line stretched across a popular cycle route – and warned that had a child ridden into it, the consequences could have been much more serious.
Instead of apologising Macgill confirmed his position and told The Star: “Here’s what to do – reproduce my July editor’s article and ask for your readers’ comments regarding cyclists using Sheffield pavements as racetracks.
“Then send out a snapper to see how many of these idiots can be photographed in a couple of hours.
"Name and shame them, especially those with a camera on the helmet. In (the) olden days, cyclists dismounted when passing through pedestrian areas.”
According to The Star, the controversy comes as figures revealed hundreds of cyclists have been injured and some killed on Sheffield’s roads over the past decade.
The figures from South Yorkshire Police showed a total of 1,445 cyclist casualties – including three deaths, 314 serious casualties and 1,128 slight injuries – had happened within the last 10 years.
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13 comments
What would be the legal process to make anti cyclist hatred such as that, recognised as a hate crime? That would stop these assholes from publishing it.
What would be the legal process to make anti cyclist hatred such as that, recognised as a hate crime? That would stop these assholes from publishing it.
What would be the legal process to make anti cyclist hatred such as that, recognised as a hate crime? That would stop these assholes from publishing it.
If this is OK then does it mean that we can use social media to gleefully promote the idea that it's a good thing for journalists to be killed by terrorists while doing their job?
After all, they seem pretty superfluous nowadays. Politicians make up their own #alt.news (i.e. telling lies) on social media so don't need hacks to do it for them. Most of the national newspapers, mostly owned by a handful of Tory tycoons, merely spew anti-everything rhetoric while regional papers syndicate any clickbait that they can find.
Be fair - the suggestion here is that cyclists be killed when they are doing something naughty/against the rules. So not quite equivalent to killing journalists when they are correctly doing their jobs.
The equivalent, rather, would be to suggest murdering MPs who fiddle their expenses, or to kill journalists who print inaccurate or biased stories, or dropping bricks onto motorists who break motorway speed limits. I'm sure this paper would be happy to print such suggestions, right? Unless they have double-standards of course.
I was playing devil's advocate, not genuinely suggesting that the Charlie Hebdo killings etc were good for democracy.
But it could be argued that very few of the muck-raking, vitriol-spewing idiots working for the Daily Mail and its ilk are actually doing anything worthwhile.
Count me in for throwing bricks at speeding drivers, though I'd not bother on a motorway or DC. No, I would happily volunteer on the 30mph streets in my residential estate and definitely on the busy road that many people have to negotiate to get to the Co-Op, where a large proportion of drivers travel at 40-50 mph.
Can we do something similar to pavement and cycle path parkers too?
It would actually be interesting to send a snapper up to the place in Sheffield where these speeding pavement cyclists are alledged to be for a few hours, and see how many he actually sees (though I fail to see how a fish could be a reliable witness, but that's what the man wants)
Not many, I would imagine.
Its all in Macgill's head. Just like his belief that he is humourous.
I'm off the sabotage the local toilets to stop cottaging!
It's funny, yeah?
Don't bother, they have been closed for ten years.
The editor's response is about as good as the Matthew Parris non-apology when he proposed the same thing, of "I'm really sorry you cyclists don't have a sense of humour."
What with the channel 5 prog, it is definitely time that cyclists were defined as a group under the hate laws.
I thought this story had already been covered here?
It has, but this seems more of a follow up. Also confirms that McGill is still a twat.