Should we be able to break road laws, or is this a bit irresponsible?

Highway Code should be

Highway Code should be followed to protect you and other road users including pedestrians.

Idiots giving the rest of us a bad name.

davel wrote:

fukawitribe wrote:

This is all getting jolly sensible and grown-up now – huzzah – so can we also then stop the “motorists do X”, “motons hate Y” stuff as well ?

With you on the ‘drivers/motorists’ generalisations.

I thought moton was already shorthand for a lazy/shit/distracted flavour of driver, though – sort of auto/moton (I know it’s not just shorthand for automaton, but sort of a play on that, and motor)?  At least that’s what I mean when I use it…

I thought it was a play on “motor” and “moron”.

But what I really want to know is – how can we be lovers if we can’t be friends?

davel wrote:

fukawitribe wrote:

This is all getting jolly sensible and grown-up now – huzzah – so can we also then stop the “motorists do X”, “motons hate Y” stuff as well ?

With you on the ‘drivers/motorists’ generalisations.

I thought moton was already shorthand for a lazy/shit/distracted flavour of driver, though – sort of auto/moton? At least that’s what I mean when I use it…

Yep, you’re right – I intended it to mean “don’t use that word as a generalisation” as well, as some on here do, but it didn’t come across. 

This is all getting jolly

This is all getting jolly sensible and grown-up now – huzzah – so can we also then stop the “motorists do X”, “motons hate Y” stuff as well ?

Legs_Eleven_Worcester wrote:

It doesn’t bloody matter how we’re ‘not responsible’ for what others do, because people are as thick as shit.   People will judge you based on what you do as a group.  So get the fuck over it and stop whining that your behaviour doesn’t influence what people think of all cyclists, because it bloody well does.   
 

Of course it does, and… of course it does.

You’re right that people judge cyclists as a group.

You’re also right that some cyclists ride like twats. Nobody here is advocating riding like a twat (shit, I’m not even advocating running red lights). But you’re really simplistically conflating more than one issue into that one, and confusing discussion about other topics with ‘stop defending cyclists being twats’. Nobody is. Deep breath.

And you’re wrong to suggest that the way to change that judgement of cyclists is just accept that mindset happens and to focus your preaching on the other cyclists.

Reason? ‘We’ are not judged solely because we go through red lights, or because someone’s Auntie Hilda was nearly knocked over when she came out of the shop by a yoof in a hoodie pulling a wheelie.

We’re judged because of basic bias, prejudice, we’re weird, we wear lycra, we shave our legs, we’re in their way and slow them down, ie. we’re not the same as them, pure and simple. That mindset will only gradually change when enough of the population at large cycle regularly so ‘we’ are no longer an outgroup, or enough noise is made about it not really being cool to clip cyclists because you just don’t get them.

Think of any outgroup – any group of people lumped together through arbitrary external criteria, who’ve been given a bit of a kicking by others in more ‘mainstream’ society. Now think of the rationale that says ‘maybe we wouldn’t get such a hard time for being xyz if there weren’t other people who are xyz doing bad stuff’. It is insane. Obama was a shit president, coz… bloods and crips. What sort of redneck thinks like that? And what sort of Uncle Tom thinks bloods and crips should stop being bloods and crips because rednecks use it as a stick to beat Obama with it…

You get a fret on about other cyclists’ behaviour: go for the extra stress, whatever floats your boat.

Meanwhile, I’ll judge other cyclists, and accept the collective responsibility, exactly as much as whenever I see someone on foot doing something antisocial or illegal, when I’m walking, and think ‘tsk, they’re giving all us peds a bad name’.

I really don’t give a shit

I really don’t give a shit how often you lot bleat about how ‘cyclists aren’t a homogenous group’ and so none of us is responsible for the behaviour others.  That doesn’t matter, because when a car driver sees a cyclist go through a red light, or a pedestrian has to jump out of the way to avoid being mown down on the footway by a cyclist weaving in and out of people, it doesn’t matter a shit that that’s only ‘one cyclist’.  That car driver or that pedestrian will not say, ‘That bloody cyclist’.  No.  They will say, ‘Bloody cyclists’. 

When I travel abroad, I am not ‘responsible’ for the behaviour of others, and they’re not responsible for mine.  But I know that I will be looked upon as an ‘ambassador’ for Britain, and that if I get blind drunk, piss against the wall of a holy site and stick my hands up a nun’s habit, then sure, they’re going to come after me.  But the global view of Brits as a whole is going to suffer.    Just as I don’t drink that much alcohol, but in social settings abroad, I’m often expected to get pissed out of my skull, because ‘you English like to drink, yes?’

It doesn’t bloody matter how we’re ‘not responsible’ for what others do, because people are as thick as shit.   People will judge you based on what you do as a group.  So get the fuck over it and stop whining that your behaviour doesn’t influence what people think of all cyclists, because it bloody well does.   

This is why I don’t go through red lights – because if I do it, then what fucking right to do I have to complain when a car driver or a motorcyclist does it?  Stuff your kinetic energy arguments up your arse, because I’ve heard them all.  Not going through red lights is the law.  If I don’t obey the law, then why the hell should anyone else?   

When I have to use a shared path and encounter a pedestrian, I slow to walking pace – or even stop if I have to.  Most pedestrians will say, ‘sorry’ as they get out of my way.  I reply, ‘No problem at all’ and cycle slowly on.  My hope is that they’ll realise that not all cyclists are selfish, twattish hypocrites like the person in the article above (or a depressingly large number of people commenting).  

It gets my goat when – to give but the first example that comes to mind – walking along Cheapside in the Square Mile, and crossing one of the side streets, and a cyclist will be coming along Cheapside, wanting to turn into that side street and ringing his or her bell like a fucknugget.  What’s that all about?  First of all, pedestrians crossing side streets have priority, but even if they didn’t, how exactly is that different from a car driver sounding his horn at you to get out of his because you’re ‘too slow’?   

I had a sort of ‘argument’ once with a cyclist, crossing London Bridge north to south.  As you come onto the Bridge, there’s a left into Monument Street, and I slowed behind a car the driver of which was indicating to turn into this street.  Another cyclist came down on my left, goes in front of the car and across the Bridge.  Needless to say, despite his haste, I still catch up with him at the southern end of London Bridge, and he asks why I had sworn as he passed me.  

‘Is that a trick question?’ I ask. 

‘Come on, mate,’ he replied.  ‘Us cyclists already get such a bad press, we need to stick together!’

I pissed myself all the way home.   

hawkinspeter wrote:

hawkinspeter wrote:

I don’t care about “respect” and I think that is a complete strawman argument as motorists don’t “respect” other motorists

Nice collective generalisation there….

hawkinspeter wrote:

and yet they don’t have the same frothing at the mouth reaction to motorists going through red lights.

You want to have a bet on that ?

hawkinspeter wrote:

To be honest, when reading your comment, it sounds like an apology to motorists.

Sounded like someone using the normal “they’re not cyclists” excuse, often in conjunction with the “all motorists” generalisation from the first point…

There are all sorts of people, and they use all sorts of transport, and a number of them are twats – it’s just that twats in larger, faster vehicles cause more damage, more easily, than the others.

davel wrote:

davel wrote:

guinom8 wrote:

hawkinspeter wrote:

First point – cyclists don’t form a cohesive group, so other cyclists are not responsible for my behaviour and I am not responsible for other cyclists’ behaviour either.

Agreed you are not responsible for other cyclists’ behaviour and vice-versa, altough other cyclists’ behaviour or your behaviour may influence what other people think of cyclists in general and that can go back straight back to you, unfortunately.

Imagine the next time a driver does something to you, when you’re walking, say. Something like not stopping for you at a pelican crossing. Imagine you then blame all drivers and act a bit more belligerently towards them, and ‘take revenge’ on others in minor ways that you can. Think of how stupid, petty and antisocial you’d have to be to do that. And that’s what you’re talking about – you’re excusing, or suggesting accommodating, that level of stupidity and narrow-mindedness. Bollocks to that – you change the scenario you describe by challenging that stupidity and bias, not by accepting it and taking on responsibility for other members of a group which doesn’t exist.

Collective responsibility: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_responsibility

which leads to Collective Punishment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_responsibility

which is a violation of the Geneva Convention.