Anti-cycling agenda on road.cc…

hawkinspeter wrote:

hawkinspeter wrote:

Why don’t the police have the resources to check every video?

The police do have the resources.  When the familiar bleating about ‘lack of resources’ goes up, what people fail to realise is that in this country – as long as you’re talking about non-political issues – the police have a remarkable degree of ‘independence’.   So here in London for example, if the police are not out nicking drivers, it isn’t because there aren’t enough police officers.  It’s that the people who make the decisions – Cressida Dick and her management team with input from the Mayor of London, the Home Office, the CPS and (when the occasion merits) the Security Service – consider it less important than for example, ‘malicious communications’ on social media.

And the reason that it is considered less important than that (and less important than a lot of other issues which are prima facie insignificant but which get plod turning up mob-handed) is that we live in a culture where car ownership and driving are normalised, and where as a result, society considers death and injury through use of motor vehicles to be a price worth paying for the ‘benefits’ that those vehicles bring.  

You cannot change a culture overnight.  You can either stay and fight, or you can get out.  

Do all the motoring road

Do all the motoring road deaths reported daily by mainstream news outlets put people off learning to drive?

ktache wrote:

It’s so  we can reply to them with wit, finely crafted arguements, spittle fueled rants

I did try spittle as a fuel once, but have to report it was not a total success.  Very good for flecking the opposition though.

paulsrod wrote:

paulsrod wrote:

I agree with others on here, seems to be over reporting of this stuff. Anyone wanting to start cycling would be put off!! I’ve notched up 50 years on the roads this year started in Devon, South London, Oxford and until 2016 37 years in the Bristol Area now back in Devon and have been fairly lucky iover the years in respect of bad situations. Sure there are shit motorists out there, as are there bad cyclists. If you regualrly communte in a large town / city, you are going to face some agro by  generally impatient britain.you can go looking for confrontationas well which doesn’t do our cause any favours, and the Police just don’t have the resources to check evey piece of video sent in.  All this vigilante stuff with cameras is depressing.  Bit of give and take, Yes we have rights but most of us do this cycling lark for pleasure – even commuting. I’ve said this before on here , why don’t road cc start an E Petrition to get the bad driving and state of our roads debated in Parliailment?   Rant over

I’m guessing that the 100+

I’m guessing that the 100+ cyclists killed on our roads every year, or the 300+ pedestrians, 40 odd of whom were killed on the pavement went “looking for it”

Having a camera doesn’t make a vigilante.  I think you may need to look up the definition.

hawkinspeter wrote:

It’s important to not exaggerate the dangers, but I think it’s also foolish to not report/discuss the poor driving and conflict that happens on the road.

I agree. Nothing ever gets fixed if you don’t know about the problem.

While the seemingly endless stream of near-miss, aggression, incidents might seem bad, compared to the mainstream media’s obsession with violent crime, war and unrest abroad, immigrants,  benefit cheats blah blah blah, it’s small beer.

Some of the stories on here are from other countries so if you filter those out and then consider that road.cc normally only feature a single Near Miss video per day I think that’s not so terrible.

My experience is that the vast majority of drivers are courteous and considerate. However, that doesn’t stop me wanting things to be much better on the roads and for dangerous, aggressive and wilfully incompetent drivers to be removed from the road.

The culture of entitlement among drivers needs to change. That’s not going to happen if road.cc, CUK and other outlets paint a sweet picture with sunflowers and smiling cyclists of all ages able to ride 2-abreast everywhere, unafraid of confrontation, injury or death.

I want my kids, their friends, anyone and everyone to be able to get on a bike and go for a ride without harrassment. Is that too much to ask?

Even gcn have picked up on it

Even gcn have picked up on it now, https://youtu.be/MtAJaSNbvZs?t=140, road.cc gets a mention around 3 mins

ktache wrote:

It’s so  we can reply to them with wit, finely crafted arguements, spittle fueled rants and squirrely pictures.  We all know how bad it is out there.  We are a community, it’s why I’m here.  I’m a mountainbiker, aero, drop bars and skinny tyres are not my thing, but I get around on the roads, commuter and utility cyclist, never driven so aparently a “Golden” cyclist.   I recently signed up to singletrack, great website, and I’ve been reading it longer than this one, but it was to read some of the articles that were part hidden.  I just don’t feel part of that particular community.  I will talk to any cyclist when out, I love the whole bicycle thing.  

I love you guys.

Fuck off, hippy.  

Anyway, I’m quite sad not to be a ‘golden cyclist’.   Although for some reason, every time I hear ‘golden’ these days, my mind puts the word ‘rain’ after it.